The sky above Zareth was always in ruin.
Molten clouds hung heavy over the desolate plains, split by distant rifts that bled lightless void into the atmosphere. Cracks in reality shimmered with a faint hum, each one whispering stories of worlds long gone. Ruins of towers, whose spires once reached for stars that no longer existed, now lay broken and half-swallowed by the earth. Here, amidst this graveyard of fallen civilizations, a lone figure moved with quiet precision.
Orion Vale knelt at the edge of a crumbling platform, hands brushing aside dust and ash to reveal the faint glimmer of a metal plate. Symbols, worn by time, curved in spiraling arcs across its surface — language long forgotten by the living, yet still heavy with the weight of something ancient.
He wasn't sure what had drawn him here, not really. There were no maps to follow in Zareth. No safe paths. The world itself shifted constantly, folding in on itself as if reality couldn't decide whether to remain or collapse. Yet the relic hunter had followed instinct, the same whispering pull that had kept him alive this long.
Beneath the ash and stone, something pulsed.
His gloved fingers traced the symbols, eyes narrowing as they glowed faintly beneath his touch. The pulse quickened, not quite in rhythm with his own heart, but close enough to send a shiver down his spine. He didn't recognize the language, but he knew the pattern — a seal, meant to hold something in or keep something out.
"Found something, Vale?"
The voice came from above. Orion turned to see Lyra Edevane perched on a broken column, her dark braid whipped by the wind. Her eyes, sharp and far too knowing, reflected the dying light from above. A pistol hung loose in her grip, though Orion knew her mind was her real weapon.
"Maybe." Orion stepped back, the ground shifting beneath his boots. "It's old. And it's not just a ruin."
Lyra's brow arched as she slid down the column, boots kicking up gray dust. "Everything here's a ruin."
"This one's still breathing." Orion knelt again, fingers brushing the plate once more. The symbols flared brighter, and the earth trembled beneath them. Faintly, beneath the hum of the dying world, a voice — no, a thought — flickered at the edge of Orion's mind.
Welcome, bearer of fate.
He staggered back, heart hammering. Lyra caught his arm, eyes narrowing. "What was that?"
Orion's mouth was dry. "We need to leave."
But the ground beneath them shattered before they could take another step.
The platform collapsed, stone and metal plunging into a yawning void beneath the earth. Orion grabbed Lyra's wrist, dragging her back from the edge, but the floor beneath them gave way in turn. Both tumbled down into the darkness, swallowed by the ruin's hungry maw.
---
Orion's fall ended with a jarring impact, pain flaring through his ribs as he struck cold metal. His head spun, and for a moment, the only sound was his own ragged breathing.
Then the light flared.
Above him, a vast chamber unfolded — a dome of impossibly smooth metal and glass, its walls covered in spiraling sigils that moved as if alive. The air vibrated with an ancient hum, a rhythm of machinery and heartbeat fused into one. Suspended at the chamber's heart, floating inches above a pedestal of black stone, was a sphere.
It was the size of a clenched fist, its surface crystalline yet constantly shifting — reflections of stars, galaxies, and unknowable horrors swimming just beneath its surface. It pulsed in time with the beat that had called Orion here.
Lyra groaned somewhere behind him, but Orion's gaze locked onto the sphere.
The Astralis Core.
He didn't know how he knew the name, but it rang through his mind like a forgotten prayer. It was neither light nor shadow, neither metal nor glass — it was everything and nothing, a fragment of something that should never have existed in this world.
Orion's feet moved of their own accord, his body drawn forward by the same whispering force that had led him to Zareth's heart. His hand extended, fingers trembling as they hovered just shy of the Core's surface.
Do you seek salvation? The voice was no longer a whisper but a chorus — a thousand voices speaking as one, ancient and endless. Or do you seek power?
He should have hesitated. He should have questioned. But in the depths of his heart, Orion knew he had no choice. This world was dying, and he had nothing left to lose.
His hand closed around the Core.
Agony lanced through him — not pain of flesh, but of existence itself tearing apart. The chamber dissolved into formless light, and in that light, he saw visions: worlds collapsing, stars devoured by shadows without form, beings of impossible scale drifting through dead galaxies.
The Core wasn't just power.
It was a key.
A key to the end — and the beginning.
---
When Orion's vision cleared, he lay on the cold floor, the Core pulsing faintly in his palm. His breath came in ragged gasps, and every nerve in his body screamed. Lyra knelt over him, her face pale.
"What the hell was that?" she whispered.
Orion's hand trembled as he lifted the Core, its light reflecting in Lyra's eyes. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I think it just chose me."
Before either could say more, the walls of the chamber shifted, the sigils flaring into warning crimson. From the darkness, a figure emerged — clad in black armor that shimmered like liquid void, its face hidden beneath a mask that wept tendrils of shadow.
"The Voidbound…" Lyra's voice was tight with fear.
Orion pushed himself to his feet, the Core's light shifting, hardening into a blade of pale starlight in his grip. The Voidbound hunter stepped forward, and the air grew colder.
The hunt had begun.
And with the Astralis Core bound to his soul, Orion Vale's fate had just been rewritten.