The air was crisp and sharp that time of morning as Asher approached the Industrial Zone. His boots thundered against the cracked pavement; the city streets hummed alive with the usual creaking of traffic and buzzing of pedestrians. But he barely noticed it now.
What he could keep dancing over and over in his mind was the Category-4 Rift he had waiting for him somewhere in the dark belly of District B.
The contract was straightforward: Investigate and cleanse the Rift, recover the core. But there was more riding on this than getting the core — the mission was personal.
Asher already knew that the dungeons of this world didn't simply spawn random monsters. There was something older, blacker going on.
The power that he'd awakened within was woven into these Rifts, into this world's strange, corrupted magic. The only way to get control of it was to charge ahead, confront what lurked inside the Rifts, and find out the truth.
His footsteps were steady, his mind tunnelled. But just as he approached the entrance to where the Rift sat, an eerie sensation started to creep into his chest—something that did not sit well. The atmosphere in his vicinity felt electrified, as though the very surroundings he traversed were bearing witness to him.
He brushed it off.
The Industrial Zone couldn't have been more different than the glitz and shine of the city center. It was shabby, half-abandoned warehouses crammed on top of one another, a tangle of rusty machinery and broken conveyor belts strewn across the lot. The Rift was on the grounds of a defunct, aging factory, a forgotten casualty of the city's history.
A line of guards and enforcers at the perimeter near the end of the road the weapons drew up as they watched the flickering rift before them.
Above them strained the Rift, a paradoxia within the space-time continuum, the contradiction of nature and the stars, its green luminaries caught in the fabric of time like a burning scab. The air surrounding it blurred, the way heat waves boil off hot pavement.
Asher neared, and a guard with a close-cropped beard stepped forward. "Freelancer Vale?" he asked suspiciously, staring at him.
"That's me," Asher said as he presented his ID.
"Glad you're here." The guard gestured towards the Rift. "We haven't seen anything go out for hours, but we can't get anywhere close. It swallowed the last scouting team, and they never returned."
"That sounds promising," Asher said dryly.
"Yeah, well, good luck." The guard smiled faintly, then fell back, gesturing for Asher to move.
Asher stepped forward, his heart steady and his focus sharp. He had a job to do.
The instant that Asher entered the Rift, the universe turned upside down.
The city around him dissolved in a moment, giving way to a cold and foreign silence. Instead of the hard pavement beneath his feet, he stood upon a slick stone floor mired in moss and rot. In the distance, tall, decaying towers pierced the dark, fog-bound sky above. The place was like a city gone to ruin — deserted, but in some way still alive, but dead with dark energy.
It wasn't so much a dungeon as it felt like an ancient ruin. Something more ancient than the modern world.
Asher was on heightened alert. The power in him stirred, alive, beating like a heart. His hand rested on the hilt at his hip, the cold bite of the metal warming his palm with anticipation, prepared for whatever bitch lay waiting.
He inched his way, each step intentional. The tension in the air thickened (and the deeper he delved into the Rift, the more twisted the space around him became). Shadows flickered, disappearing the moment he concentrated on them. It was as if the dungeon itself was alive, and the ground beneath his feet shook with the presence of something watchful.
Then came an echoing shout through the air.
"Who dares disturb my realm?"
The voice was deep, ancient — reverberating in his bones as though it rose up from the very walls around him. Asher froze, whirling around, but found no one.
A dark, hulking form suddenly emerged from out of the shadows. A being draped in ragged robes, hatching a tattered face beneath a cowl.
It hung a few inches over the earth, its shape blurring with the air, as if it were not wholly present in this world.
"Do you really think you can stride into my domain, mortal? the voice boomed again. "The only thing you are is a wild commoner, a nobody who lost track of time.
Asher squinted, examining the figure. This wasn't your usual dungeon-dweller; this was something else.
"You don't belong here," it said, its voice oozing with contempt. "You are a remnant of another world. And that makes you an enemy."
The hooded face of the figure twisted, revealing only an empty void, a darkness I could feel swirling like a mass where its eyes were supposed to be.
Asher's heart raced. It wasn't merely a test of strength — it was something far more intimate. This creature saw him for what he really was.
"Who are you?" Asher demanded. His voice came, ragged but commanding, and yet his chest was tight. "What are you?"
The figure's form pulsated once more, as if its true shape transcended mortal comprehension. "I am the Watcher of the Rift. I am the one who stands between worlds. And I will not let you pass."
Asher took a step forward. The energy within him flared once more, but it was darker this time, wilder. It felt like his former self — the sorcerer, the godslayer — was back.
"Asher said coldly, "You're wrong. "I'm not here to pass. I'm here to take what's mine."
The Watcher shrank, its shape flickering. "You will fail," it hissed. "The past is something you can't control. You cannot control the Rift."
Before Asher could speak again, the creature charged forward, its shadowy substance taking the form of a gigantic black tendril that snapped at him.
Asher's body reacted without thinking. He feared it was too late, lunged sideways, and nearly dodged the impact, but the energized padding slammed him and knocked him into a column.
He forced himself into a sitting position, gritting his teeth. He could feel the raw power pummeling within but hadn't yet tapped into it. This wasn't just a matter of survival; it was about seizing something that wasn't meant to belong to him.
The Watcher's tendril pulled back, and the creature moved in closer, an atmosphere of energy so heavy it suffocated like a storm. It was tireless, and it knew precisely what Asher was.
But Asher wasn't about to quit.
He seized the power within him, concentrating it into a single, ruinous blow.
A silver ray shot out of his palm, roaring through the air as if out of a thunderstorm. The tendril of the Watcher disintegrated, and its shape writhed; its voice screamed in anger and terror.
"You think you've won?" the Watcher screeched. "You're never going to control what you can't touch!"
Asher smirked and took a step forward as the Watcher melted into the shadows.
"I already have."