A gray sky greeted them.
Not the heavy, brooding cloudbanks of Crescent City—but something different. Stranger. The clouds here drifted in arcs, pulled by magnetic bands across the sky, and flickered faintly with crimson streaks—like veins in the heavens, too large for the eye to comprehend.
West Syverian Territory was not a place of peace.
Alex stood at the outer ledge of a sky-platform suspended over the primary arrival nexus of Torsha Halvyn, the regional capital. Below, gleaming silver streets sprawled outward in spirals, patterned like data glyphs or ancient invocations. Floating spires rotated slowly in the air above, each humming with containment fields and arcane signal barriers.
The Rift Research and Containment Bureau—known to most as the RRCB—occupied a multi-tiered tower in the city's southern district, near the border between the stable zone and the designated "red line" districts.
From here, the veil between worlds was thin.
Behind Alex, the transport gate sealed shut with a whisper.
Elara Vex, draped in a dark traveler's cloak, emerged from the side corridor, her eyes narrowing as they adjusted to the local light. The silver clasp at her throat marked her as a visiting noble retainer—though its symbol was new. Not Sael'Var. Not Zar'Kar.
Just a single constellation enclosed in a drop of blood.
"Your Majesty," she murmured, her voice low and formal—no longer using "My Lord," as the area around them was shielded, warded by his system's internal security web.
Alex didn't respond immediately. His eyes were elsewhere.
A moment passed. Then two.
"I thought Crescent City was advanced," he finally said. "This place looks like it was built by something dreaming of stars."
Elara approached beside him, glancing out over the sprawling city.
"They say the Rift below West Syverian changed the land. Made it dream like that."
RRCB Briefing Hall
The interior of the Bureau was cleaner than Alex expected. Crisp white walls, faint gold inlays of containment diagrams, and floating projector runes hovered above the main rotunda.
His new quarters were modest—too modest for someone with his growing authority. But that suited him. The less attention, the better.
He stood before a curved desk shaped like a crescent blade. Across from him sat Director Ysolde Vaern, the RRCB's local commander.
Ysolde was young—too young to hold the post, according to most. But her eyes were ancient. One was violet. The other, a black opal-like implant constantly adjusting focal parameters.
"A pleasure," she said without rising. "You're younger than I imagined."
"You're more augmented than I expected," Alex replied coolly.
She smiled faintly. "Good. We won't be wasting time with pleasantries."
Ysolde tapped a holo-sigil that shimmered above the desk. "This is your designation here: Senior Rift Behavior Analyst and Containment Liaison. You'll also oversee the spatial sector Theta-Seven, which has recently… shifted."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "Shifted how?"
She didn't smile this time.
"Three days ago, Sector Theta-Seven began exhibiting time reversal microbursts. Organic matter caught in the zone reverts to embryonic form. Inorganic structures fuse into pre-assembled configurations. We don't know if it's a tear, or a bleed-over from another timeline."
Alex processed the data slowly. "No one stabilized it?"
"We tried. It absorbed two teams. Left behind… nothing."
Elara, standing quietly in the corner, tilted her head. "What do you mean nothing?"
Ysolde looked at her. "No sound. No scent. No molecular residue. Just a... stillness. As if they were rewritten from history."
Alex crossed his arms. "And they still sent me here?"
"They sent you because of that."
Internal World Stirring
That night, within the privacy of his secured quarters, Alex sank into stillness.
The Origin Star System activated passively.
"Internal World Status: Stabilized. Blood Core Tier: 76.3%
Hidden World Integrity: 79.4%
Energy Flow: Harmonized. Rift Detection Capability: Active."
In the distance of his throne hall, the shallow blood pool shimmered with a reddish glow, deeper than before. New symbols pulsed faintly in the walls—runes not of blood or starlight, but of something older.
The palace had expanded further.
His throne now had steps leading down into a sealed passage—unopened, waiting.
He didn't question it. Not tonight. But he marked it.
Elara had entered quietly behind him. "The sky here feels wrong."
"It is wrong," Alex said. "And something down there knows it."
Political Undercurrents
The next morning, a sealed letter awaited Alex.
It wasn't from the RSA. Nor from the RRCB.
The seal was circular—comprised of seven void-black stars and a glyph that twisted when looked at directly.
He broke it open.
"We are aware of your arrival.
We observe without interference—for now.
Should you interfere with the Wound,
we reserve the right to respond.
– Nytheris Concordat, Southern Wastes"
Alex blinked.
He read it again. Then once more.
The Southern Wastes… were supposed to be dead.
No surviving cities. No documented power structures. Just anomalies, storms, and collapsed civilizations lost to Rift blight.
And yet—someone had not only watched, but reached out.
Elara frowned. "They're not threatening you. They're warning the world… about you."
Alex tucked the letter away.
"It seems I'm not the only secret moving between shadows now."
Later that evening, as the wind hissed across the glass panels of his temporary quarters, Alex stood alone near the containment dome of his new administrative office. The outer field shimmered faintly with prismatic energy—meant to ward off spatial bleed. But something flickered beyond.
He narrowed his eyes.
Hovering just outside the barrier, nestled in the crook of a blackened tree, was an object. Not large—something round, hollowed. A mask.
It drifted slowly, untouched by the wind. As if carried by thought.
Alex stepped closer. His system remained silent—neither alert nor threatened. That in itself was strange.
When the mask turned slightly in the air, he saw etched script spiraling around the inner rim—runes he couldn't fully read, but recognized fragments of.
Celestial. Vampire. And… something older.
He didn't touch it. But his system responded:
"Unaligned Artifact Detected.
Not from this region. Not from this timeline.
Material: Resonant Voidbone.
Identity Imprint: [Fragmented]
Directive: Awaiting claim."
Alex stared a moment longer, then turned away.
"I won't claim it," he said aloud. "Not yet."
The mask drifted once more, then vanished without a sound—as if it had never been there.
A New Territory
The Bureau held a debrief late that day. Only four agents and one Director in attendance.
A new Rift had opened—temporarily stable, but layered with "unknown signature harmonics." They needed Alex to survey the edge alone, without a support team.
He agreed. Quietly.
As he prepared, his system whispered:
"Potential anomaly detected.
Future resonance paths diverging.
Containment priority reclassified: Tier One."
Alex activated his cloak. Not for stealth. For comfort.
In this strange place—between broken skies, forgotten empires, and Rift-split time—he would move as a sovereign in exile.
Not just a shadow.
But the hand behind the veil.