"What's the meaning of this?"
Asrel stormed into his laboratory, boots echoing against polished stone as the reinforced doors slammed open. His eyes locked onto the control dais, where Moris, the deputy director of Aether Tower, stood smugly among startled assistants.
"As mandated by the top brass," Moris said, unfazed, "I will be continuing this project as the lead researcher."
He wore that infuriating smirk again, the kind that reeked of ambition built on someone else's work.
"You can't just do that," Asrel snapped. "You don't even understand what this project is about."
Asrel was no ordinary mage. A young prodigy hailed across the realm, he had been granted near-limitless resources to push the boundaries of magical science. His innovations had transformed spell design and changed the way Mana was controlled, and earned him the title "The Golden Child", a name spoken with reverence by scholars, and with envy by rivals.
One such rival stood before him now.
Behind the scenes, Moris had long bristled under Asrel's brilliance. Though older and more politically entrenched, he lacked the genius. And so he conspired, with jealous mages, bureaucrats, and cowards in gilded robes to undermine the boy who outshone them all. Their plan? Take over his latest project and steal the credit for what might be the world's greatest magical breakthrough.
Moris handed Asrel a scroll, sealed with the Tower's emblem. "Go on. Read it."
Asrel unrolled it with trembling fingers. The contents were clear: by directive of the Council, Moris was now project head. Asrel was demoted to associate.
His chest tightened. "You bastards…"
"Now step aside," Moris said, waving a hand dismissively. "Begin the test."
Assistants moved to the central platform, activating the arcanic conductors without hesitation. The mana fusion array, Asrel's most advanced creation lit up, its spiraling glyphs drawing in ambient energy at a dangerous rate.
"Stop! You fools!" Asrel barked, shoving through. "It's not ready for testing!"
"Ignore him," Moris snapped. "Keep going. Focus the array!"
Two robed enforcers stepped in Asrel's path, attempting to restrain him. They didn't know who they were dealing with.
"Idiots... move!"
Mana flared from Asrel's body like a storm, and with a sweeping strike of his hand, he hurled one into a wall. The other barely had time to raise a barrier before he was thrown aside by a kinetic pulse. His control over combat magic was just as sharp as his mind, lethal and precise.
Alarms blared. The device shrieked as it drank in mana far beyond safe limits. The walls vibrated. Instruments cracked. Crystalline cores began to glow white-hot.
Moris stepped forward to intervene, only to be knocked back by a flash-blade of condensed arcana. He slammed into the far rail, breathless and dazed.
Asrel reached the array and slammed his palm onto the emergency stop button but it refused to disengage.
"Shit…" he hissed. "Failsafes are offline."
He turned to the stunned technicians. "All of you, get the hell out! Activate the Tower's defense protocols and seal this floor!"
Panic took hold. Moris's subordinates scrambled out as the entire lab shook, some weeping, others praying.
Asrel stood alone before the now-wailing fusion core. It pulsed violently, its luminous frame warping under surging pressure.
He extended both arms and conjured a containment barrier, embedding it deep into the floor and ceiling. The glyphs crackled. Inside, he could feel the mana growing dense, volatile and alive.
This was it. The theory was sound. The design was sound. But something in the calibration…
He reached into the reaction with his own mana, threading into the currents, deciphering the patterns. Countless things ran through his mind, like how fast the energy was moving, how it was coming together, and how it was swirling around.
And then it clicked.
"I see… so that's what it is," he murmured. A sliver of awe broke through the tension. "It wasn't instability, it was resonance. If I had just synchronized the outer ring delay."
But the realization came too late.
Cracks formed across the containment sphere. The core inside flared with a color no one had ever seen, energy beyond aspect, raw and unknowable.
"If those bastards hadn't interfered…" Asrel gritted his teeth. "I could've stabilized the core. I could've done it…"
He pushed more power into the barrier, veins glowing as he overclocked his own flow. The air within the dome howled with pressure. The device was unraveling into something far beyond the material plane.
Asrel stood before it, facing the price of stolen time and trust.
"Void World."
Asrel raised his hand and spoke the command. Darkness surged from his body, swallowing the edges of the room. Light retreated. Space itself seemed to fold inward. It was his last gambit, Void World, a spell designed to remove him from the physical plane, shielding him in a separate layer of existence just long enough to survive the coming disaster.
Time slowed as the veil of darkness began to wrap around him. The air thickened. The mana in the room shifted, reacting to the spell with tension. Shadows closed in, racing to complete the transition.
Crack.
A sharp, splitting sound echoed through the chamber.
Before Void World could finish its work, the mana core ruptured.
A surge of power exploded outward, striking Asrel before he could vanish. The wave of force slammed into him, not just with heat and pressure, but with raw, unstable energy. The mana had turned chaotic, wild and unnatural. It no longer responded to will or structure. It lashed out like a living curse, seeking to consume everything.
Asrel felt it enter him.
The mana was corrupted, not just unstable, but violently hostile. It clawed into his body, flooding his veins with something far worse than pain. His limbs trembled as the energy invaded his core, trying to tear apart his very essence.
It felt like a storm inside him, swirling, screaming, burning. Not like any magic he had ever known. This was destruction made manifest.
He gritted his teeth and braced himself, barely holding on.
Just before his consciousness slipped, the last tendrils of shadow sealed around him.
Void World took hold.
And Asrel disappeared into the dark, his body wounded, his soul branded by the chaos now buried within.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In a desolate, forgotten stretch of land, a sphere of darkness materialized in midair. It hovered silently, pulsing faintly with unstable energy. Then, with a faint shimmer, it began to melt, its surface unraveling into wisps of black mist, revealing a figure suspended within.
The body fell.
Thud.
"AGHH—!"
Asrel's scream tore through the barren silence as he slammed into the cracked earth. He gasped, eyes wide with pain, limbs trembling uncontrollably. Consciousness returned in jagged flashes, dragging him out of what had felt like an eternity of suffering.
His body ached in ways he couldn't describe. It wasn't simple pain, it was the memory of destruction, of being unmade and forced back together.
The last thing he remembered before the darkness closed in was the mana core exploding, and the spell ~Void World~ activating just in time.
Within the Void, he fought. The chaotic mana had surged into him, violent and invasive, trying to break him apart from the inside. He tried to counter it with his own mana, but it was no match. His internal circuits buckled. His spells failed. The Chaos was too aggressive and wild.
He tried everything he could think of, but nothing worked.
Until he stopped resisting.
He let it in.
Not blindly, but in controlled narrow channels, guiding the chaotic energy through threadlike pathways he carved into his own body using his remaining mana. It was like bleeding open wounds to divert poison, hoping it wouldn't reach the heart.
And it worked.
Barely.
The energy rampaged inside him, shredding everything it touched. Muscles tore. Nerves screamed. Cells died. But with each cycle of destruction, something strange began to happen, his body repaired itself, changing with every step, adapting bit by bit to survive the chaos.
It was reconstruction by suffering.
Every second demanded absolute focus. But no mind could endure that agony forever. Eventually, his consciousness slipped, and his body continued the process on instinct, a brutal autopilot, locked in a cycle of death and rebirth.
And then… silence.
Asrel stirred.
"I… survived?" he muttered, voice hoarse.
He sat up slowly, blinking against the dull gray sky. His limbs ached, but no longer felt broken. His skin burned faintly, like embers beneath the surface. He looked down at his hands, unchanged at first glance, but when he reached inward…
"What is this?"
He could still feel it, the chaotic energy, now flowing inside him. No longer tearing him apart, no longer hostile but stable.
Asrel stood, his footing unsteady, and looked around.
The landscape was lifeless.
Cracked earth stretched as far as the eye could see. No trees. No grass. No wind. No sound. Just stillness.
"Is this… what's left of the explosion?"
A chill ran through him. From the heavy silence that pressed in from all sides, a silence that confirmed what he already feared: he was utterly alone.
Had anyone else survived?
He walked aimlessly, letting instinct guide him. As he moved, he reached out with his senses, trying to feel for something or anything.
But the air held no mana.
"There's nothing… it's gone."
He knelt and touched the ground, focusing. There was no trace of leyline activity, no residual mana.
Yet, there was something else. A strange presence lingering in the air, an unfamiliar energy.
It wasn't Mana. It wasn't Chaos.
It was something in between.
Curious and cautious, Asrel reached out to it. It was denser than mana, yet not aggressive. Not destructive. But it felt… tainted.
He inhaled and let it enter him.
Immediately, the Chaos within him reacted.
The moment the foreign energy entered, the Chaos devoured it and converted it into its own. Like fire claiming dry leaves.
"So it can absorb and convert this," Asrel murmured.
He took a few more breaths, letting the energy filter through him. With every cycle, he grew more certain. The Chaos within him could process this new energy, reshape and stabilize it.
He began to experiment. Tried to control the chaotic energy, move and shape it.
It wasn't like mana.
It refused structured casting. No formations, no glyphs, no spells.
Only raw control, like moving molten metal with bare hands.
Controlling it demanded intense focus, each attempt met with resistance as the Chaos fought back against his will. It didn't yield easily, refusing structure or rhythm, but with persistence, Asrel began to shape its flow, crude at first, guided by instinct and technique. The results were rough and limited, lacking any finesse, yet the energy responded.
Eventually, the energy settled and his body stopped trembling.
He looked out at the ruined horizon.
There was no way of knowing what remained. No one to ask. No records to follow.
But he was alive.
And whatever he had become…
He would find out.
Asrel turned toward a random direction and began to walk, each step burning faintly beneath his skin.
As he wandered through the desolate landscape, Asrel continued to refine his control over the Chaos pulsing within him. It hadn't been easy, the energy still resisted him at times, but little by little, he adapted. He learned to channel it through his limbs, use it to strengthen his movements, even sharpen his senses when danger felt near.
But as more days passed, he began to notice something strange.
He wasn't hungry.
Not once.
He hadn't eaten since awakening, yet his body showed no signs of fatigue or starvation. No pangs. No thirst. No weakness. It was as if his very biology had changed, sustained entirely by the Chaos. As long as he continued absorbing that faint, unknown energy lingering in the air, his body continued functioning, maybe even improving.
Still, something about it unsettled him.
It was convenient, yes, but also deeply unnatural. The idea of never eating again of never tasting food, savoring warmth, or feeling that simple human comfort left him uneasy.
"Is this what I've become?" he murmured, his voice low. "A creature fed by the storm inside me?"
He shook the thought away and kept moving. The landscape was rough but familiar now dry ridges, crumbling rocks, and ash-coated hills that whispered of a world long lost.
That was when he felt it.
A presence.
Subtle at first, like a shift in the air pressure, but unmistakable. He paused, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the surroundings.
And then he saw it.
Perched on the crest of a nearby hill was a figure, not human, not beast, but something in between. It twitched unnaturally, its form bent in ways no body should bend. Patchy skin stretched over exposed muscle, with protrusions of bone jutting from its limbs like jagged armor. Its head tilted as if sniffing the wind, its eyes, if it had any, are hidden behind a thick veil of twisted flesh.
He had seen monsters, but nothing like this.
An aberration.
Something that shouldn't exist.
"What the hell is that thing…" he muttered.
Asrel's body tensed. He focused inward, feeling the Chaos stir beneath his skin, ready and waiting. He took a breath to steady himself as the pressure between them thickened.
The creature had noticed him.
Asrel shifted his stance, locking eyes with the twisted thing on the hill, muscles coiled in anticipation.
A fight was coming.