The corridor stretched forward in silent reverence, lit only by the soft, ambient glow of ancient mechanisms humming beneath the floor. Neil's footsteps echoed gently against the polished stone, each step a rhythmic whisper in a hall that had not heard life for millennia. The language of the Vaelthara carved into the walls shimmered softly as he passed, adjusting to his awakened perception, offering no active guidance—just context, just memory.
There was no sound of machinery. No wind. No life. Just the echo of existence wrapped in silence.
The corridor narrowed and curved slightly before opening up into a wide, circular chamber. Neil stepped over the threshold, his gaze sweeping the room instinctively, his new senses scanning with practiced efficiency despite having only hours of use. The changes to his perception hadn't just enhanced what he saw—they had given him new instincts, new categories of observation.
The chamber was lined with shelves built into the stone walls, eight levels high, forming a perimeter of knowledge meant to cradle untold wisdom. But they were empty.
Completely barren.
Shattered fragments of stone littered the ground like bones. Pieces of data tablets or recording crystals lay in ruined heaps. Some bore the remnants of once-beautiful carvings—runes that had been carefully etched into them, now illegible. Others were scorched or melted, the effects of some intense destructive force.
Neil crouched and picked up one of the pieces. It was cold and heavy, the kind of dense, smooth stone that didn't occur naturally on Earth. A sliver of luminous script flickered briefly across its surface before dying. Dead.
His eyes narrowed.
This hadn't been decay. This had been violence. Deliberate and complete.
And it hadn't happened long ago in galactic terms. There was still a faint scent of ionized air. The sharp, brittle smell of energy discharge. Like lightning had struck in a sealed room and left its anger behind.
Neil stood and surveyed the rest of the chamber. Everything that had been placed here had been smashed. Erased.
All but one thing.
In the very center of the room stood a pedestal, twin in shape and design to the one he had touched in the first chamber. A smooth cylinder of white stone, its surface etched with looping patterns that gave the illusion of motion. Atop it sat another orb.
Cracked.
A spiderweb of fractures laced its surface, some shallow, others deep. Faint pulses of internal light still flickered from its heart, but it was dim—a fading ember compared to the sun he had awakened earlier.
Neil stepped closer. As he reached the pedestal, he saw the familiar pattern of six finger slots arranged around the orb's surface.
It was identical to the first sphere he had encountered—not shaped for human hands.
Six elongated depressions curved around the orb's equator. The pattern seemed somehow both graceful and utilitarian—designed not just for identification, but for resonance.
He hesitated. No action yet. First, observe.
He walked a slow circle around the room, checking the floor for signs of entry. Dust patterns told no stories. Either time had buried them, or something had come and gone without disturbing the air at all. He examined the walls for hidden compartments or tools but found nothing. If this place had been designed to hold backup records, the method had failed.
He turned back to the orb.
There was something about the shape of the cracks. They weren't chaotic. They weren't the result of impact. They looked almost like—stress fractures. As though something within had tried to escape. Or had simply broken down over eons of decay.
His Core pulsed as he drew near, reacting faintly to the object. There was something still living within it. Weak, but not gone.
Neil placed his hand next to the six finger slots, pausing just a moment. Then, with careful intent, he laid his fingers across the orb's surface.
A ripple passed through the room.
The air went still.
Light bled from the cracks, swirling into the air in front of him. The glow condensed and folded into a figure, coalescing like mist wrapping around bone.
An ancient man stood before him.
Tall, clad in robes of geometric elegance, his form shimmered with partial transparency. His face was long and narrow, deeply lined, but not frail. His eyes—six irises of layered brilliance—looked directly into Neil.
"It worked," the specter said, his voice low and layered, like multiple tones speaking at once. He looked around the ruined room. "Not all of it, but... something."
Neil remained still. The figure seemed more aware than the last. Less of a recording. More... conscious.
"Who are you?" Neil asked.
The ancient man's eyes closed briefly. "I was Arch-Seer Thaevan of the Vaelthara. Chief Architect of the Inheritance Program."
He gestured around them. "This was meant to be a library. A guide. A map. We preserved what we could. But it wasn't enough."
Neil glanced at the broken shelves. "What happened?"
"The gods happened," Thaevan said. No emotion. Just fact.
He turned his head slowly, gaze sweeping the ruined chamber. "They discovered our plan. We tried to hide it beyond their reach. Beneath perception. But when they knew, they acted. A casual gesture from across the void. A fraction of their attention turned toward disruption. They didn't even need to come here—just reached out from whatever distant realm they inhabit and... scattered our work."
Neil felt the weight of the words sink in. The Vaelthara had dared to defy gods.
"This room... managed to preserve a fraction," Thaevan continued. "A secondary mechanism activated. Designed only for catastrophic failure. Their distant interference was thorough, but not complete. Still, the losses were staggering. Ninety-nine percent of our work... gone."
He looked directly at Neil again.
"You are not who we expected."
Neil nodded. "I gathered."
Thaevan stepped closer, now only a few feet away, though his body remained only half-real. "You are not of the Chosen Species. The template was designed for them. For their biology, their energy signature, their mental structure. Everything was tuned precisely. Every detail accounted for."
He raised one translucent hand. "These trials you face were meant to bring a Chosen candidate to at least Rank Six of the Mortal Path. Soul Genesis. The point at which the soul begins to crystallize into its true form. Where the spirit becomes more than flesh."
Neil's chest tightened. "And now?"
Thaevan's face showed nothing, but his tone grew heavier. "Now, even Rank Two may be beyond reach. The supporting materials are gone. The tailored constructs, the calibration fields, the guiding matrices. All of it, vaporized or corrupted."
Neil clenched his jaw. "Then what happens if I try?"
Thaevan tilted his head. "We don't know. Your biology differs. Your Core responds differently. It should work... but not as we intended."
He looked down at the orb.
"The last fragments of what we saved are still here. Not instructions, but essence. Compressed knowledge. Impressions. Traces of energy structures. Most cannot be safely transmitted, not in pieces. They must be integrated as one. A direct transfer."
Neil swallowed. "So plug it into me and hope it doesn't kill me."
"In essence, yes."
A pause.
Then Thaevan added, with what might have been a trace of bitterness, "It was never meant to be like this."
Neil studied the ghostly figure. There was no deception. No trickery. Just the last lingering intention of a civilization that had dared to defy extinction. And failed.
And yet, here he was. A human. Not Chosen. But alive. Awakened. Standing in the ruins of their hopes.
He exhaled slowly. "If you don't know what effect it will have, how can you be sure it won't kill me?"
Thaevan met his gaze. "We can't. But it was designed to elevate, not destroy. It may reject you. It may do nothing. Or it may do something... new."
Neil looked at the cracked orb again. He could feel it now. Faint threads of energy, like tendrils of smoke rising toward him, drawn by resonance.
There was risk. Of course. But what choice did he have?
Earth would soon be part of a cosmic trial. Other species would come. And they would not wait. They would not show mercy.
He laid his hand on the orb.
Thaevan stepped back.
The orb flared with sudden intensity, blinding white light bursting through the cracks. Neil cried out as the energy slammed into his chest, tearing through the channels of his Core. Not pain—not exactly. But pressure. Force. Mass poured into a vessel not built to contain it.
His eyes burned. Fire raced through his optic nerves, and for a moment he thought he might go blind. Then the sensation shifted, becoming something else entirely. The world around him exploded into new colors—threads of light he'd never seen before weaving through the air. The ancient stone walls pulsed with faint amber radiance, and even Thaevan's ghostly form shimmered with ribbons of silver energy.
He fell to his knees.
The specter watched, silent, his ethereal body now clearly visible as streams of luminous mist to Neil's transformed sight.
The light shifted color, becoming iridescent. Neil's mind opened, stretched, reshaped again. Memories flooded him—but not his. Visions. Not coherent. Just fragments:
A being levitating above a star.
A battle fought with no weapons, only will.
A death scream that shattered the moons of a world he'd never seen.
Structures of energy twisting into complex patterns, theories of existence given form. New laws. New physics.
He cried out again as something inside him cracked—not bone, not muscle. His very sense of self expanding under pressure.
And then—
Silence.
The orb dimmed. A fine web of dust fell from its surface. It had given everything.
Neil slumped forward, bracing himself on trembling arms. Every nerve sang with energy. But it didn't hurt.
Thaevan's specter stood over him.
"You survived."
Neil looked up, eyes glowing faintly with internal fire. He nodded once.
Thaevan faded, his voice the last to go.
"Then there is hope."
The chamber dimmed.
And Neil was alone again.