The cavern swallowed their footsteps, the vast space stretching beyond sight. Faint light from bioluminescent fungi clung to the jagged walls, casting eerie blue shadows across the wreckage. The starcruiser stood at the cavern's heart, its colossal frame half-buried in stone and time.
Orion barely dared to breathe.
The ship called to him.
It wasn't just its presence—it was something deeper, a resonance in his bones. The Astralis Core inside him pulsed in response, synchronizing with an unseen rhythm. It wasn't just a wreck.
It was connected to whatever had brought him here.
Lyra moved first, stepping closer, her gaze sharp with calculation. "This thing's old," she murmured, brushing dust from the hull. "Pre-Federation. Maybe even pre-Empyrean War."
Orion ran a hand along the metal. It was smooth yet cold, the engravings on its surface worn but still readable. Starborn dialect. He knew the symbols, though he had never learned them.
"Astra… Vesperia." He spoke the words before he could stop himself.
Lyra shot him a look. "You can read that?"
Orion hesitated. Could he? The knowledge had surfaced effortlessly, as though it had always been there, waiting beneath his skin.
"…I guess I can."
She frowned but didn't press. Instead, she turned to the sealed entrance. "We need a way in."
Orion placed his palm on the metal. The Core pulsed again—this time in recognition.
The ship reacted.
With a low, grinding tremor, the ancient mechanisms whirred to life. Light flickered along the edges, and the doorway hissed open, revealing a dark passage leading inside.
Lyra tensed. "That's…not normal."
Orion swallowed. "Yeah."
But they stepped inside anyway.
---
The interior of the Astra Vesperia was frozen in time.
Dust hung in the air, disturbed only by their presence. The hallways stretched in quiet desolation, lined with dark consoles and flickering holo-screens that pulsed weakly with ghostly light. Orion's footsteps felt too loud against the metal floors.
"Whatever happened here…" Lyra muttered. "It wasn't natural."
Orion knew what she meant. There were no bodies. No signs of a struggle. Just… emptiness. As if the crew had vanished mid-step, leaving their vessel to drift into forgotten history.
He pressed a hand against one of the screens. A distorted hum rippled through the air as the ship awakened.
Holographic data flickered into existence—schematics, records, logs. Most were corrupted beyond recognition, but one fragment remained intact.
A voice.
Crackled. Faded.
"If anyone finds this… we were wrong. The Core wasn't meant to be wielded. The Sovereign tried, but—"
Static.
A rush of broken whispers.
"…they are coming. The Watchers… the Nameless King…"
Then silence.
Orion's stomach dropped.
Lyra's face was pale. "The Nameless King." Her voice was barely a whisper. "That's not just a myth?"
Orion wished he could say it was.
He had heard the name before, whispered in old war records, buried in classified files. A being that was never meant to exist, a force beyond understanding.
And now… the Core inside him was linked to it.
Before he could speak, the ship shook.
A deep, resonant vibration. Faint at first, then growing stronger.
Then a sound that sent ice through Orion's veins—
The distant echo of metal footsteps.
Something was inside the ship.
And it wasn't them.
Lyra grabbed his arm. "Move. Now."
They ran.
---
The corridors blurred past, each turn identical to the last. Orion's heartbeat hammered in his ears, the Core flaring with warning. The footsteps behind them weren't hurried.
They didn't need to be.
They were being hunted.
Lyra skidded to a stop at a sealed bulkhead. "Damn it—lock's fried!"
Orion turned, his breath sharp. The passage behind them darkened—not from light fading, but from something consuming it. A presence that didn't belong.
Then it stepped into view.
A figure tall, inhumanly so, wrapped in shifting darkness. Its form wasn't solid, but something between—a silhouette of void given shape. A mask covered its face, smooth and empty, save for two burning slits of blue-white radiance.
A Voidbound Stalker.
Not like the Hunter from before. This was worse.
Orion's chest tightened.
It raised a hand.
And the walls fractured.
The space around them twisted, reality splintering into fragments of shifting landscapes—each frame a different point in time, a different universe entirely. Orion saw flashes of himself—in other places, other fates.
Dying.
Ascending.
Falling into nothing.
The multiverse unraveling before his eyes.
The Stalker stepped forward.
Orion had seconds.
The Core burned inside him, desperate for release. He had no choice.
He reached deep—and let it take hold.
The world shattered.