The silence of the Infinite Planes was oppressive.
Seeker had thought it was just the absence of sound—his heartbeats, the scuff of his feet against the ground—but now he knew better. The stillness, the way the world held its breath, was something deeper. A presence that crept over his skin, a weight pressing in on his chest.
As he stood over the decomposing remains of the strange entity he had slain, the world seemed to hold him in its gaze. The faint glimmer of light from the shattered sky above flickered like a dying star, casting long, unnatural shadows over the landscape.
It felt as though the Planes itself was watching him, waiting.
Waiting for what?
His breath came slowly, trying to steady himself. His ribs burned from the blows he'd taken in the fight, the sharp sting of his side marking each breath. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He didn't even know where to go. But standing still wasn't an option.
---
Seeker turned away from the corpse, forcing his legs to move.
The Infinite Planes stretched out in every direction—nothing was consistent. One moment, the ground was cracked and dry, like an ancient desert, and the next it was wet, slick with thick, dark liquid that seemed to swallow the light from his surroundings. He had no map, no guidance. Only the pull of something that kept whispering in the back of his mind, a presence that urged him forward.
There was no road, no direction—but there was a strange magnetism in the air, like invisible fingers gently guiding his steps.
But for what?
What did the Planes want from him?
He wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to live. The other Strikers, the failed experiments, had all perished before they could even reach the depth of the Planes. Even his creators, the Amalthean scientists, hadn't expected him to make it past the first gate. Yet here he was, walking through the ever-changing chaos of a place older than existence itself.
Somewhere, deep within the recesses of his mind, an answer began to form—something more than instinct, more than the training of the lab. It was a raw, almost primal pull. The feeling that something was calling him.
---
Hours passed, or maybe it was days. Time here didn't flow the way it should. Time bent in strange ways in the Infinite Planes, like the laws of the universe were warped beyond recognition. He felt the weight of each second dragging at his bones, but also, paradoxically, like he had only just arrived.
The horizon twisted, like a ribbon unraveling, pulling him forward.
The whispers grew louder.
They were faint at first, distant murmurs—so far beyond his comprehension that they made his head ache. But as he walked, the voices grew clearer. Not words, not sentences, just... thoughts. The echoes of others who had come before. The ones who had failed.
[What is this place?]
[I have nothing left.]
[I was once great. Now I am nothing.]
And then—
[He will come.]
---
Seeker stopped. His chest tightened. His senses flared. The voices had stopped—but he wasn't alone.
He had been warned about the dangers of the Infinite Planes. No one had explained what it meant, though. They never did. The researchers had spoken of the Planes as a place of death, a void that consumed the foolish and the weak, a place where monsters lurked and forgotten gods fell to silence. But no one had ever told him about the other inhabitants—the ones who had long ago become part of it.
---
A form emerged from the shadows, moving like a shadow itself, a being without shape. The air around it shimmered, bending and warping, like a mirage.
It was tall—taller than any creature he had ever seen, with skin that shifted like liquid silver and eyes that glowed a deep, unsettling red. Its voice was a whisper in the air, heavy with centuries of forgotten knowledge.
"You are... different."
Seeker took a step back, his hand instinctively reaching for the shard of obsidian still clutched in his palm. The entity before him seemed to notice the gesture, its smile stretching unnaturally wide.
"A STRIKER. Yet you live. How strange."
Seeker didn't answer. He couldn't. His mind was reeling. The being—if it could even be called that—didn't seem hostile, but it was unlike anything he had ever encountered. There was power in its presence, a kind of cold inevitability that pressed down on him like a storm waiting to break.
It was too old to be an ordinary creature of the Infinite Planes. It was something that belonged to the forgotten places—something older than time, older than the gods themselves.
"What are you?" Seeker finally managed to ask, his voice barely a whisper.
The entity's smile stretched wider.
"I was once known as Dra'khar, the Watcher of the Endless Gates. I was born before the First War, before even the gods learned to fear the Planes. I am the one who has watched. The one who knows. And now, I watch you."
Seeker's grip tightened around the obsidian shard, his mind racing. There were so many things he didn't understand, so much that was beyond him, beyond even the realm of his creators' knowledge. But one thing was clear:
Dra'khar had seen him. It had recognized him as something different, something new.
And if it was watching him…
It meant that others would, too.
---
The entity's gaze didn't shift. Its red eyes pierced through him, and Seeker felt something stir within him—a kind of recognition that chilled him to his core.
"You are not here by accident, Seeker."
The words echoed within him.
He hadn't told the entity his name.
Seeker's heart dropped. He hadn't spoken his alias aloud. He hadn't even whispered it into the planes. Yet the being had called him Seeker.
"How do you know that name?" His voice was steadier than he felt, but his fingers clenched so hard around the shard that a trickle of blood ran down his palm.
Dra'khar tilted its head slowly, as if the movement was an ancient ritual. "Names in the Infinite Planes are not secrets. They are truths. You may think you chose the name, but in reality, the name chose you. I simply speak what the Planes already know."
Seeker remained silent, but his mind spiraled. What did that mean? That Seeker wasn't just an alias? That the Planes had seen something in him long before he escaped that hellish laboratory?
"You are marked," Dra'khar continued, the weight of its voice pressing into him, "not just by the Planes, but by something deeper. Something ancient. The echo of your steps has reached corners you cannot yet imagine."
It stepped forward.
Seeker didn't move.
"I have watched many. I have seen the rise and fall of gods. I witnessed the First Descent. The Burning of the Rooted World. The Sundering of the Moon-Sky. I watched it all. I never intervened."
It stopped barely a breath away, its form flickering between shadow and flesh.
"But you, Seeker… I am curious."
The air grew still again. The silence returned—but now it carried something else.
A promise.
Or a warning.
"Curiosity," Seeker said, finding his voice again, "gets things killed."
Dra'khar chuckled. It was a soundless thing, like sand grinding against stone. "Indeed. Let us see if you survive it."
And then the entity vanished. No flash. No sound. One blink—and it was gone. Like it had never existed.
---
Seeker stumbled back a step, the sudden absence making the world feel emptier. The weight of the presence was gone, but the pressure lingered. It would take time to shake off the feeling of being seen—of being known.
His hand was still bleeding. He wrapped the strip of fabric torn from his coat around the wound. It wasn't clean, but it would hold. For now.
He turned, but the landscape had changed again.
The black wasteland had shifted into jagged cliffs under a pulsing violet sky. Wind howled through the cracks, bringing with it a stench of rot and metal. In the distance, there were structures. Not buildings. Not ruins. Something in between—like skeletons of towers long collapsed, their bones jutting into the sky like defiant fingers.
There was no question about it—he was being herded.
By the Infinite Planes? Or by something within them?
Did it matter?
He moved.
---
The cliffs were sharper up close, the edges unnaturally smooth, like they'd been carved by hands older than history. He passed between them silently, his steps muffled by a thin layer of dust that coated everything.
The deeper he went, the darker it became.
Not just the absence of light—but a darkness that felt. It pulled at the edges of his thoughts, made him doubt each step. A kind of living void.
His breaths were shorter now. Not because of fear, but because the very air fought him. Like it resented being drawn into lungs that didn't belong.
He pressed forward.
Then he heard it.
A rhythm.
Soft. Faint.
Not footsteps. Not a heartbeat.
Dripping.
---
The path opened into a narrow chamber—if such a word could even apply here. Black stone surrounded him. At the center was a pool, perfectly round, filled with liquid that shimmered like a starless night sky.
Floating above the pool, suspended by unseen forces, was a mask.
It was bone-white, featureless except for a single vertical line carved down the middle.
As Seeker approached, the mask turned on its own, facing him. There were no eyes, but he felt it looking at him.
[An alias has already been chosen.]
[Designation: Seeker.]
[Do you accept this truth?]
He stared at the message in the air. The square brackets. They shimmered briefly, then dimmed.
It wasn't a prompt. Not a system. Not some reward.
It was confirmation.
He nodded.
And the mask floated downward, coming to a gentle stop in his outstretched hands.
He didn't remember moving. Didn't remember reaching out.
But it fit perfectly into his palm. Cold. Smooth. Weightless.
And when he placed it against his face—
The Infinite Planes shuddered.
---
[UNIVERSAL ANNOUNCEMENT]
A ripple echoed across the Infinite Planes. Across shattered moons and buried temples. Across star-buried battlefields and the silent eyes of ancient watchers.
[A new Presence has arrived.]
[Alias: Seeker.]
[Origin: Unknown.]
A dozen old things stirred in their slumber.
And somewhere, far from this place, behind a wall of crystal time, an eye blinked open for the first time in ten thousand years.
---
Seeker dropped to one knee.
The mask burned against his skin, not in pain—but in weight. It was heavy with memory, with power, with meaning.
The message had been broadcast to the whole Infinite Planes.
Every being, every monster, every hidden king and forgotten queen—
They all now knew the name: Seeker.
And none of them would let it go unchallenged.