The air in the Celestia Council chamber was thick with tension.
Tall pillars of obsidian carved with glowing star-maps surrounded the assembly. Dozens of robed adjudicators sat in concentric rings, their eyes flickering with Corelight as they debated in low murmurs.
At the center, High Arbiter Thalen surveyed the reports.
"An anomaly," one voice whispered. "An unregistered CelestiaCore born from a rift in space itself."
Thalen's gaze hardened. "Impossible. The Trial of Inheritance cannot be bypassed."
"But the Spire's records show… it happened. Kaien Vale survived. He wielded the Riftcore."
A ripple of gasps echoed.
From the shadows, a lithe figure stepped forward.
Syrin Alaris, the Dreamborne Seer, her eyes glazed in pale starlight, spoke softly. "The Riftcore is a fracture in the fabric of our laws. His survival threatens to unravel the balance."
Thalen nodded slowly. "Then he must be found. Captured if possible. Eliminated if not."
Meanwhile, far below in the city of Aerenas, Kaien crouched atop the shattered remnants of the Spire, his body still humming with fractured light.
His vision swam with overlapping realities.
The world no longer followed simple rules.
He tested it — reached out with a finger, folding the street beneath into a loop that brought him back to the same spot.
A smile cracked his lips.
"I'm no longer bound," he thought. "And this power… it's just the beginning."
But Kaien knew the Council's gaze was upon him.
And they would send everything they had to drag him back — or destroy him.
Back in the chamber, Thalen's voice grew colder.
"Prepare the Corebinders. The Rift Sovereign cannot be allowed to turn our skies into chaos."
Syrin's eyes flickered with distant stars. "And yet, in his chaos, there lies a dream of freedom we may not fully understand."
The stars outside seemed to pulse in response — as if the cosmos itself waited to see which path Kaien would carve through the divide.
The sky had fractured once.
And Kaien Vale had become the crack.