Chapter 18: Descent into Rootstar
The elevator rumbled as it lowered them into the abyss.
Shaft lights flickered in vertical rows, like falling stars disappearing one by one. The creaking of ancient steel echoed against the walls of the massive shaft as Kai, Ashen, and Lina descended deeper than any of them had gone before.
Ashen checked her interface, which buzzed erratically. "Signal's weakening the lower we go. The environment's destabilized."
"How deep are we?" Kai asked.
"Past tectonic fault levels," Ashen replied. "We're entering what used to be an oceanic vault—converted during the last century into a pressure-stabilized research base."
"Let me guess," Lina muttered. "It collapsed."
"More like... it was sealed."
The walls around them began to change. Corroded steel gave way to obsidian plating etched with curved, luminous glyphs—symbols older than any of them recognized. The lift slowed. The temperature dropped.
When the elevator stopped, silence swallowed everything.
The doors opened.
And beyond them lay the Rootstar Depths.
---
The chamber was a massive airlock—pressurized and still humming faintly, against all odds. A cracked console blinked to life when Ashen approached it.
"System still has emergency power," she whispered. "That's either a blessing or a trap."
Kai stepped through first.
The corridor beyond was vast, like an old underground temple made of glass and light. Every wall was layered in transparent panels filled with water—some glowing, some pitch-black. Inside floated skeletal remains of marine creatures... and some that had never lived in the sea.
"What is this place?" Lina breathed.
Ashen's voice was quiet. "An experimentation zone. They tried merging aquatic life with Fragment cores here. Pushing the limits of cultivation biology."
Kai's Fragment buzzed again.
He walked to a panel and pressed his hand to the glass.
The lights rippled. Water trembled.
And a figure moved inside.
A shape—not quite human, not quite beast. Eyes glowing with pale silver, it floated for a moment, then turned to look at him.
The entire chamber flashed.
---
He was somewhere else.
No longer in the base.
Floating.
Above him: stars. Below: water that reflected not light, but memories. His own. His sister's. His mother's voice. Ashen's grief. Rhen's commands. The Black Echoes.
All flowing beneath the surface.
And in the center—
A woman made of starlight.
"You are unbalanced," she said. "You carry both purpose and fear. But your path is not chosen by either."
"Who are you?" Kai asked.
"Not who," she replied. "What you might become."
Then she reached for him.
He felt the pull—like being rewritten at the core. Fragments resonated. Veins aligned.
A new power flooded his mind:
Celestial Breach.
A short-range domain that opened a rift into unreality—disrupting all enemy movement and memory within it.
He gasped and fell backward.
---
Kai landed hard on the glass floor of the chamber.
Ashen and Lina were already beside him.
"You were gone!" Lina said. "Not just standing still—gone. For six whole minutes."
Kai wiped his forehead. "It spoke to me again. Another echo. But… clearer this time."
Ashen's gaze darkened. "The deeper we go, the closer the Fragments bring us to their source. They're not just tools. They're... anchors to something that remembers when reality was different."
Lina pointed ahead. "There's another room. Still powered."
They moved cautiously.
The final chamber was cylindrical, surrounded by monitors and containment tanks. And at the center—floating in a suspension field—was the next Fragment.
Black crystal. Veined with red light. Unlike any they had seen so far.
Kai stepped forward.
But this time, something else moved.
Out of the shadows stepped a woman in full Custodian armor—trimmed with gold, her helmet shaped like a hawk.
"Step away," she said. "By order of Executor Rhen, that Fragment is not for you."
Kai didn't move.
She drew her weapon.
Ashen stepped beside him.
"You're not the first Custodian we've dealt with," she said.
The woman smiled. "I'm not a Custodian."
Then she removed her helmet.
And Kai froze.
Because the woman standing before him… was his mother.
Alive.
Unaged.
Eyes glowing with Fragment resonance.