Haraza stepped across the threshold of the Dread Vale, and the world changed.
It was not a gradual shift like the turning of seasons or the creeping dawn. It was instantaneous. One moment, there was the soft crack of frost underfoot, the wind at his back, Lirien just behind him. The next, the air itself pressed in with unnatural weight, and the wind died entirely. Sound no longer echoed properly. It was as though the Vale devoured everything that tried to exist within it.
He kept moving, step after step, into a fog thicker than any natural mist. There was no sky, no visible horizon—only shadowed silhouettes of broken architecture, colossal pillars buried in the half-light, and wide avenues of cracked obsidian leading downward, ever downward.
Lirien followed at his side, her glaive drawn, its mirrored surface shimmering faintly even in this place devoid of light.
("This isn't a ruin,") she said, voice tight. ("It's a coffin.")
Haraza nodded, though his eyes were locked forward. The architecture was ancient, not just pre-Accord but older than anything he'd seen since stepping through the Rift. The buildings bore no windows, only narrow slits like eyes watching from behind a veil. There were glyphs carved into the stone—not in any living script, but something deeper, rawer. A language of function and force.
They moved through the fog for what felt like hours. Time lost meaning. Gravity shifted. At one point, Lirien stepped across a thin bridge of steel and nearly vanished—yanked back by Haraza before she could fall into an abyss that hadn't been there a second before.
("This place hates us,") she muttered.
("No,") Haraza replied. ("It doesn't know us.")
They came to a stop before a massive gate—a hexagonal slab set into the earth, partially sunken and cracked, covered in circular indentations like a lock without a key. In the center was a glowing sigil, pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.
Haraza reached for it, and the moment his fingers brushed the stone, everything went still.
The fog froze.
The hum of magic stopped.
Even the feeling of his own heartbeat faltered.
And then a voice—smooth, mechanical, layered with a thousand tones—filled the silence.
-"IDENTITY: UNKNOWN."-
-"CYCLE: BROKEN."-
-"PRIMARY FUNCTION: OBSERVATION."-
-"INITIATING COGNITIVE BRIDGE."-
A crack split through the gate, and the sigil exploded outward in a spiral of golden light.
Haraza stumbled back as the stone surface peeled away, folding in on itself like pages of a book unraveling. Beyond it was not darkness—but a machine.
No, not a machine.
A being.
It stood at the heart of a circular chamber lined with mirrors, each reflecting not just the room—but alternate versions of it. Worlds where the chamber still gleamed. Worlds where the being was whole. Worlds where it was nothing but rust.
It was tall, easily four meters, and humanoid in form—but its limbs were elongated, segmented, and covered in plating that shimmered with oil-slick colors. Where a face should be, there was a smooth, mask-like plate split into three vertical slits that radiated energy.
In its chest was an empty cavity, rimmed with runes and flickering with unstable essence.
("...Riftborn,") it spoke.
Its voice echoed in Haraza's mind, not his ears.
("You are the first to enter. The first to breach containment since the Accord locked the core.")
Haraza straightened. ("What are you?")
-"Designation: VEXEN-0."-
-"Function: Accord Defense Prototype. Dream Cycle Oversight."-
-"Status: FAILED."-
Lirien stepped forward cautiously, weapon ready. ("Failed how?")
("I witnessed the Dream. I calculated every possible permutation of its collapse. And I warned them.")
("They chose to seal it instead.")
Haraza frowned.( "So they locked you in here.")
("No.") The being turned slowly toward him. ("I locked myself in. This chamber is a Memory Lock. It feeds on paradox and uncertainty. Only one bearing the Echo of the Rift could open it.")
("You have become catalyst.")
The energy in the chamber surged. The mirrors flickered violently. Some showed the outside world—others, Haraza's past. His arrival. The screaming Rift. The battle beneath the Covenant Shard.
And then others... showed futures. Possibilities. In some, Haraza wore a crown of flame. In others, he was buried in chains of crystal, encased in stasis. One showed him standing alone before a throne of roots, while the world burned in silence behind him.
("You exist outside the weave,") VEXEN-0 said. ("You can make choices the Accord feared.")
("You can restore the Dream. Or shatter it forever.")
The air grew heavy as the being's chest cavity began to glow.
Lirien bristled. ("He's powering up.")
("No,") Haraza said. ("He's testing me.")
("Combat engagement necessary for interface calibration,") VEXEN-0 announced. ("You must face truth through struggle. Only then will the Vale yield its knowledge.")
The chamber trembled, and the mirrors shattered inward, coalescing into blades of energy, shields of memory, shards of infinite timelines drawn into a single moment.
-"INITIATING TRIAL."-
Haraza surged forward, summoning the energy within him—not just the raw strength he'd gained from training or the cunning of a jack-of-all-trades, but the essence of his choice beneath the Shard. A golden thread coiled around his hand, extending into a lance of condensed possibility.
Steel clashed with dreamlight as Haraza met the construct's first strike. The impact cracked the floor, sent arcs of compressed magic across the chamber. VEXEN-0 moved with impossible speed, each motion calculated, precise, and lethal.
Haraza ducked under a spiraling kick and launched himself into the air, striking with the force of a collapsing star. His lance sheared across the being's arm, carving a shallow wound that bled light and code.
("Acceptable,") VEXEN-0 said.
("But insufficient.")
The floor vanished.
Haraza fell—not in body, but in thought.
He landed in a memory—not his, but the being's. A battlefield. Countless constructs like VEXEN, lined against a tide of writhing chaos. A figure in golden armor—shimmering with divine light—stood at the forefront. Not Haraza. Someone older. Someone greater.
("We tried to dream better,") VEXEN's voice echoed. ("We failed. But you—Riftborn—you are unbound by our sins.")
("Prove that you are worthy of truth.")
Haraza's soul burned. Not from rage or fear, but from understanding.
This being—this failed guardian—was not a monster. It was a monument. A relic of a world that had chosen fear over faith. A warning and a gift wrapped in one.
He rose from the vision, back into his body, the lance of golden choice flaring like a sun.
He struck again.
And this time, the construct yielded.
VEXEN-0 fell to one knee, the mask splitting open to reveal not a face, but a swirling core of fractured star-light.
("Trial concluded.")
("You are more than Riftborn.")
("You are Inheritance.")
As the light faded, a pedestal rose from the center of the chamber, bearing a shard of immense density—a jagged crystal etched with spiral runes. The air around it was warped, like space was folding to accommodate its presence.
("The Helm of Paradox,") VEXEN said. ("One of thirteen. It was left here... because the Accord feared what it could reveal.")
Haraza stepped forward, heart pounding, and took the Helm in both hands.
It pulsed with warmth.
And suddenly, he understood. Not everything. Not the whole truth. But a shape. A direction. A feeling.
The Shards were not just pieces of power.
They were memories.
Remnants of the Dream itself.
And the Accord had tried to erase them.
As they left the Dread Vale, the sky began to shift.
The stars realigned above them, and a single constellation—long forgotten—reappeared in full.
Lirien looked up in awe. ("You did something. You changed something.")
Haraza held the Helm of Paradox close.
And for the first time since he'd entered this world, he didn't feel like an intruder.
He felt like a key.