The ancient temple of Éternis loomed on the edge of oblivion, its weathered pillars slumping like exhausted sentinels beneath the weight of centuries. The wind clawed through shattered archways, its hollow wails weaving through the chamber like the voices of the long-dead. The walls bore the scars of forgotten hands—runes, once radiant with purpose, now faded and fractured beneath layers of dust. The scent of damp stone and smoldering incense clung to the air, a lingering ghost of rituals abandoned to time.

Lúcio stood in the temple's heart, his silhouette carved against the dying glow of scattered braziers. Shadows licked at his boots, stretching and distorting with each flicker of light. His cloak hung motionless despite the shifting air, a void in the restless dance of illumination. In his grip, the fragment of the Codex pulsed, not with light, but with a rhythm—steady, deliberate, ancient. It did not simply glow. It breathed.

His fingers ghosted over its jagged edges, feeling the raw power coiled beneath the surface. His pulse slowed to match its tempo, his breath evening out. The temple, the night, the very world seemed to hold its breath with him. He parted his lips.

"It begins."

The words unraveled into the silence, and the chamber stirred. The flames in the braziers twisted inward, drawn by an unseen force. A weight settled over the air, thick and smothering. The stone beneath him trembled. Across the chamber walls, the long-dormant runes flickered to life, not with the comforting golden hue of memory, but with something else—something cold, something watching. The glow pulsed erratically, caught between existence and oblivion.

The fragment burned hotter in his grasp, its energy turning volatile. A bead of sweat trailed down Lúcio's temple, but he ignored it, his focus unshaken. He pressed forward, continuing the incantation, the words falling from his lips like stones into an abyss.

The ground cracked.

A jagged fracture split the marble, darkness oozing from the wound in reality. Not the simple absence of light, but something far more insidious—an emptiness that devoured sound, motion, even thought. It deepened, widened, yawning open like a great, hungering maw. The balance of the world teetered.

Lúcio inhaled, slow and measured. This was not a mistake. This was not an accident.

This was what he had come for.

Then the abyss moved.

It was not an empty void. It was not lifeless. It recoiled, resisted, sentient in its defiance. From the chasm, tendrils of shadow slithered forth, writhing and twisting, whispering in voices that did not belong to this world. They did not kneel. They did not obey. They reached, seeking, testing—not as servants. As rivals.

Lúcio's grip tightened around the fragment. The pulse within the Codex stuttered, faltering, torn between the will of its wielder and the call of the abyss.

"Yield," he commanded, his voice a blade, sharp and unwavering.

The void did not yield.

It surged forward.

A tendril brushed his arm—cold, not like ice, but like something that had never known warmth. It burrowed through flesh, curling around his bones. A stillness stretched, a moment of warning, of judgment.

Then the abyss struck.

Shadows lashed out, clawing toward the Codex, toward him, toward the delicate fracture in the world he had dared to create. The temple groaned. The walls splintered. The weight of the void pressed against his ribs, against his breath, against the fragile, stubborn rhythm of his heart.

Lúcio clenched his teeth.

Resistance meant one thing.

There was more to take.

He lifted both hands, pouring his will into the fragment. The runes etched into his skin ignited, lines of molten gold racing across his arms. Power flooded through him, raw, unfiltered. The abyss shrieked, convulsing, retreating. Not in defeat, but in recognition.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the struggle ended. The chasm steadied, its chaos threading into something structured, something held in place.

Lúcio's breath came slow, deliberate, though his hands trembled from the strain. He gazed into the abyss, and for just an instant, something gazed back. A presence, vast and unseen, lurking within the void, watching. Waiting.

"This is only the beginning," he murmured, fingers closing tightly around the Codex fragment.

Above him, the celestial engravings shimmered, as though the very stars bore witness to what had just been unleashed.

The first crack in the world had been made.

The abyss did not remain silent.

It shuddered, rippling like something disturbed from a restless sleep. At first, the darkness bled forward in sluggish tendrils, stretching across the cracked marble like ink seeping into paper. Then, it convulsed. Shapes twisted into being—half-formed torsos, elongated limbs, figures caught between substance and void. They flickered, struggling to solidify, their edges jagged, unstable. A sickening wrongness clung to them, as though they were not meant to exist in this plane. Yet, they did.

Lúcio's jaw tightened, his pulse pounding in sync with the Codex. The steady thrum in his grip had become erratic, faltering between recognition and defiance. Around him, the runes etched into the temple walls sputtered violently, their glow unstable, torn between repelling the encroaching darkness and succumbing to it. The very air thickened, pressing in, squeezing against his ribs. The temple was closing in on him, whispering its warning through the cracks in its foundation.

He had not anticipated resistance.

He had not anticipated a will other than his own.

The first shadow came fast.

Lúcio barely had time to lift his hand before it lunged, its clawed fingers slicing through the space where his throat had been a second earlier. He twisted, his cloak snapping around him as he released a burst of energy from the Codex. The force sent the creature sprawling, its form unraveling into tendrils of smoke before snapping back together—this time, stronger. More defined.

More were coming.

They spilled from the rift like ink poured into water, their movements jagged, unnerving. They did not attack mindlessly. They circled, their elongated heads twitching, calculating. Testing him. He could feel the weight of their hunger pressing against his skin, sinking into his bones like a whisper too close to his ear.

"You will obey."

His voice did not waver, but the Codex did. It pulsed once—rebellious, amused.

The shadows lunged all at once.

Lúcio moved on instinct. He pivoted, ducking as one of the creatures swiped at his ribs. He retaliated with a wave of raw force, obliterating one into nothingness. Another filled its place. His muscles burned with every movement, his breaths measured but sharp. Still, they closed in, slipping through the gaps in his defenses, pressing him back toward the rift.

The Codex flared in his grasp.

A mistake.

The rift expanded, its edges curling outward like something waking, something opening its maw. The force of it nearly drove him to his knees. The magic was unbound now, wild, insatiable. It wanted more. It demanded more.

A shadow struck.

Claws raked across his shoulder, burning as they tore through fabric, through skin. Lúcio hissed, spinning to counter, but another seized him—then another. Their weight was suffocating, their grip relentless. The Codex trembled in his grasp, syncing with the abyss, its pulse syncing with theirs.

It wanted to merge. It wanted to break.

Lúcio snarled, grounding his feet. Pain lanced through his body, but he refused to bend. He was not theirs to claim.

"I am not yours."

With a final, desperate surge, he forced his power outward. The temple roared in response. The rift quivered.

Then, the abyss screamed.

The force of it sent the shadows recoiling, their forms shattering like glass. Lúcio exhaled sharply, his chest heaving. The rift remained open, but the pull had lessened. Not gone, but…watching.

The Codex still trembled in his grasp, but this time, it pulsed with something different.

Recognition.

He had faced the abyss.

And it had acknowledged him.

The abyss lingered at the threshold, curling inward like smoke that refused to be caught. It did not flee. It did not bow. It simply waited, watching. Lúcio stood in the center of it all, his breath coming in measured draws, his fingers aching from the sheer force it had taken to wield the Codex. The relic still pulsed in his grip, a rhythm that didn't quite belong to him. The temple walls, once alive with energy, now stood eerily still. The wind that had howled through the ruins had vanished. The runes on the stone flickered weakly before surrendering to darkness.

Then, from the depths of the rift, something stirred.

A ripple in the void. A presence forming where none should exist. It did not emerge so much as it unfolded, like a shadow shifting against firelight. At first, it was nothing more than a distortion in the air—a flicker of something just beyond sight. Then, as if reality itself hesitated to acknowledge it, the shape became clear. A figure, draped in robes that did not quite move, as though untouched by time or force. It had no face, no eyes, yet Lúcio felt its gaze settle on him.

A deep, resonating hum spread through the chamber—not a sound, but a presence pressing into his ribs, curling through his veins. Not an attack. A warning.

Lúcio did not flinch. He squared his shoulders, exhaling slowly through his nose. His limbs ached, the remnants of exhaustion weighing down his stance, but he refused to let it show. He had not come this far to cower.

"You were too late before," he murmured, his voice quiet but unwavering. "And you are too late now."

The Guardian Ancestral did not reply. It did not need to. The air around them thickened, charged with an unspoken truth. The balance had fractured, and this entity had not come to stop it—only to witness it.

Lúcio's lips curled at the edges. He had expected resistance. He had expected fury. Instead, the universe had given him silence.

"Your time is over," he said, lifting the Codex fragment, feeling the weight of it settle into his palm. The object no longer struggled against him. It no longer tried to pull away. It had given in. "The balance will be rewritten. By my hands."

The figure did not move. It did not challenge him. It simply stood, radiating an ancient presence beyond comprehension. Then, as if its purpose had been fulfilled, it exhaled a final pulse of energy—one last ripple across the temple floor. The sensation crawled up Lúcio's spine, neither warm nor cold, neither welcoming nor hostile. A final acknowledgment.

Then, as quietly as it had come, the Guardian Ancestral dissolved back into the abyss.

The air recoiled as the fissure contracted, the temple groaning as if in protest. The abyss did not vanish; it folded inward, retreating, coiling into itself like a beast forced into submission but not yet defeated. Tendrils of shadow slithered back, their whispers fading, dissolving into the Codex with a final, reluctant pull. The marble beneath Lúcio's feet steadied, though the echo of something vast and unfinished lingered in the stillness.

He stood unmoving, his breath coming slow, deliberate. The silence stretched, thick and loaded with something he could not yet name. His muscles ached, each fiber of his being weighed down by the force he had wielded—but his mind remained sharp. He tilted his head slightly, listening. Not to the temple, not to the void, but to the absence of resistance. The Codex, once erratic and rebellious, had gone still. It had glimpsed what lay beyond. And it had chosen him.

Rolling his shoulders, he let out a slow exhale, feeling the remnants of strain seep from his limbs. The corner of his mouth curved, exhaustion buried beneath something sharper, something undeniable.

He had won.

The first fracture had been made, and the world had already begun to shift. It would never be the same again.