The grand revelation settled with the dead, crushing weight of silence. Rhyse remained motionless amidst the hall, the final remnants of his ancestor's message dissolving into the quiet of the long-forgotten complex.
He was thirteen years old.
A week ago, his greatest burden had been the grief for his parents and the vultures circling his inheritance. Now, that felt like a child's problem. Theron Synkar hadn't just placed the weight of an empire on his shoulders; he had placed the weight of the world itself.
Earthforged Colossi. The Abyssal Tide. The Shifting Wilds. The words were a catalogue of unimaginable terrors. He pictured himself standing before the King's court, or even his own bannermen. 'Excuse me, but our family has been hoarding gold for centuries not out of greed, but to prevent reality-eating horrors from awakening giant-sized doom-constructs.'
They wouldn't just call him a liar. They would call him a madman. The thought was a cold knot of dread in his stomach. Who would ever believe him? How could he possibly prove a danger that even his all-powerful ancestor could only prepare for, not prevent? Was he, a boy who couldn't even produce a single spark of mana, truly the one meant to bear this responsibility?
A bitter, lonely thought surfaced. Did he even have a choice? Without his parents, the circle of people he truly cared for had shrunk to a handful of loyal retainers. Did he really have to worry about the entire world? For a fleeting moment, he considered the alternative: to use the Synkar wealth for what it was—a means to secure his own power, to build his own impenetrable fortress, and let the rest of the world burn.
But the thought soured as quickly as it came. His nature wasn't that cold. He thought of his parents, who died serving their kingdom. He thought of the desperate villagers in Dawmoor, and the flicker of hope in their eyes. He thought of Vance, Flint, and Bellweather, who stood guard for him even now. To abandon them, to abandon everything his family had built and stood for... it was unthinkable.
He wanted to shoulder the responsibility. The resolve was there, a hard kernel of determination in his chest. But the fear was there, too—a chilling certainty that he was not, and could never be, enough. The conflict was plain on his young face, a war of will against overwhelming doubt.
"I see the worry in you," Theron's projection said, his voice gentle now. "As my heir, this burden is yours to carry, but that does not mean you must carry it alone. There are many things my lingering consciousness cannot tell you, but know this: we set many plans in motion. I, and the allies I made. They will find you, or you will find them. And you will forge new bonds along the way. You have already begun."
"Great-grandfather…" Rhyse began, his voice barely a whisper.
"Your true power, however, lies in the System and the legacy we built," Theron continued, his form beginning to flicker slightly. "Not even I know the full depths of the System, or the ultimate power of the Core. You see, I was the architect, but I was not the perfect key."
Rhyse looked up, his confusion momentarily overriding his dread.
"You are my first descendant to achieve one hundred percent compatibility with the artifact. My own compatibility only ever reached ninety-two percent." Theron's echo allowed a faint, proud smile. "Imagine what that could mean for you. Master the Core. Use its power wisely. There are no random Synkar outposts, my heir. Each was built with a purpose. The System will eventually lead you to the others."
"Even this one?" Rhyse asked, gesturing to the chamber around them.
"This one most of all," Theron said, his voice growing faint. "Sunpass was built as a frontline bastion against monster tides and, more importantly, at the place where the Abyssal Tide is most likely to strike. Consider it as important as the Ancestral Manor itself. This is only a lingering consciousness... I cannot stay long, nor do I know the situation outside. It is useless for you to explain it, as I cannot advise you further. If my plans were followed, Sunpass must already be a formidable fortress. Just know that the System was designed to guide your growth through these overwhelming tasks."
Rhyse opened his mouth, then clenched his jaw shut as bitter words clawed at his throat. How could he tell this fading specter of his ancestors that Sunpass Outpost now lay buried beneath generations of Synkar failures?
That instead of standing as a magitech bastion against the Abyssal Tide, it had become a forgotten tomb of broken ambitions? His fingers flexed at his sides, grasping for words that wouldn't come—how could he explain the strategic withdrawals, the lost battles whispered about only in hushed tones within the manor's archives?
The proud fortress Theron envisioned had instead become a casualty in the slow unraveling of Synkar supremacy, reduced to scrap metal scavenged by opportunists and half-drowned in Krellian brine. Rhyse's gut twisted as fragments of reports surfaced in his memory—dispatches filled with terms like "unsustainable losses" and "tactical relinquishment" regarding Sunpass' last days.
He watched Theron's visage flicker, his ancestor's unknowing pride as bright as the chamber's crystalline lights. The weight of unsaid truths pressed against Rhyse's ribs—no, he couldn't speak of the dwindled patrols that let voidspawn creep through abandoned checkpoints, nor the generations of managers who'd written off this sector as a money pit. The outpost's story wasn't one of glorious resistance, but of decaying pylons and re-routed security funds. Whatever remained of Theron's grand design now lurked beneath layers of bureaucratic failure and strategic retreats—a truth too cruel to voice as his ancestor's spirit faded.
While Theron spoke of frontline defenses, the Synkar of recent generations had been fighting a losing battle at their own backlines. The great architect had left them a sword, and his descendants had let it rust in its scabbard.
The golden projection began to dissolve into motes of light, his final words echoing in the chamber with the weight of a sacred oath. "My Heir. I have done all that I could to protect this world I love. Now... I leave it in your hands."
With that, the last wisp of Theron Synkar vanished. With his ancestor's departure, the chamber fell silent, but it was a new kind of silence. It was no longer dormant. Rhyse felt a profound shift as the outpost's core systems fully and irrevocably synchronized with his own Synkar Core. He had not just been granted access; he had been handed the keys to a forgotten kingdom.
A massive, arcane display materialized before him, far larger and more complex than his personal interface. It showed a detailed, real-time schematic of the Krellian Deeps and the surrounding territories. One section, far below even this outpost, pulsed with a sickening, light-devouring violet energy—a wound in the fabric of reality itself.
[OUTPOST SUNPASS STATUS: ONLINE. ABYSSAL CONTAINMENT FIELD: ACTIVE AT 78% EFFICIENCY.]
[REGIONAL ANALYSIS: VOID ENERGY CORRUPTION IS CONTAINED AT THE SUNPASS NEXUS. LACK OF RECENT SYNKAR EXPANSION HAS RESULTED IN MINOR ABYSSAL BLIGHTS SPREADING TO UNWARDED PERIPHERAL ZONES.]
Rhyse stared at the map, his breath catching in his throat. The Void Energy—the Abyssal Tide—was a tangible, creeping stain upon the world, and for centuries, this ancient, automated outpost had been the silent, solitary dam holding it back. But the dam was cracking. The 78% efficiency wasn't a static number; Rhyse could see the faint, almost imperceptible flicker of the digits that followed, a slow but relentless erosion. His ancestors had built this fortress to last millennia, but now, untended and unsung, its mighty wards were crumbling in silence.
His eyes traced the edges of the map, where the clean lines of Synkar territory blurred into the chaotic wilderness. The display was peppered with smaller, angrier crimson markers, each one an ulcerating sore on the face of the world. These were the other breaches, the ones far from the direct influence of Sunpass. Some clustered near the ruins of abandoned watchtowers his father's generation had deemed too costly to maintain. Others festered in the deep wilds, lands that should have been under the protection of the Crown or other noble houses.
A chilling question formed in his mind. The Sunpass breach, even with this mighty fortress containing it, had still grown. What had happened over the centuries in those other places, the ones without a secret Synkar outpost to staunch the bleeding? Were they dormant, ticking time bombs waiting for a critical moment? Or had they already erupted, their corrupting influence spreading through the world like a slow, undetectable poison, with no Synkar warning systems left to even sound the alarm?
The weight on his shoulders settled, no longer a sudden, crushing burden, but a permanent fixture, as integral to his being as the Synkar Core itself. This was the true legacy his ancestors had left him. Not just the gold, not just the power, but the terrible, silent war that had been waged in the darkness for generations. It was not a choice. It was his inheritance. The true, magnificent, and horrifying weight of Synkar gold. And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he would need every last coin.