Kelvin struggled to make it home but the sigil continued to burn under his skin as if it had been engraved with molten iron and each step he took felt as if he was dragging the weight of a dying huge man whose full weight is left for him to carry.
Kelvin kept going home but he thought to himself can that place be called a home because it is a deep empty shell of an old container situated under the bones of a collapsed overpass. The walls of the house is made of scraps and broken traps with the smell of rusted metals lingering in the air like a choking Sulphur.
Immediately Kelvin got home, he dropped he scavengers bag just inside the door way and dropped onto his patched old blankets.
For some hours he lay still on his blankets with his muscles paining him heavily as he experience muscle contractions with blood still flowing through his palm where he had sleet open to break the Xerion's chain.
While he lay down sleep was not forth coming as his mind became the battlefield for hovering images and sensations, his body has vehemently refused to sleep.
The roaring voice of Xerion, the crimson light from the sigil, the way and manner in which the chamber shattered under the Xerion's rage and power, all lingered in his head, making it a busy ground that could not allow sleep.
By the time it was morning he had given up on rest as he had so many questions in his mind, at that time all he needed was answers
Kelvin stood up and headed to where he stacked his old books like: The Guild Tomes with torn pages, materials that were written in many dialects, there he found an old book he got from his dad that he never opened until that morning, titled Fractured Rift Codices that scavengers had looted from tamers that were long dead, the book was stitched with a dragon-like hide, it has half of the chapter on sigils of dominion.
As Kelvin flips through the book, his eyes meet a part that spoke of blood-bonds, ancient rituals and the way of binding that usually requires months of ritual preparation, getting a sanctified ground and been focused on training which he got none of it. Only his first encounter was all he had.
This kept him wandering but he stumbled upon a hint in the book that says that a sigil like his could only be formed when a beast of cataclysm has willingly accepted his bond but in Kelvin's case the Xerion had not just accepted him but he had chosen Kelvin to be his bond…
Despite what he had read from the book and the knowledge he had gathered, he is yet to understand what all of that meant.
Worse, the books warned of backlash. Power that surged too quickly could consume a new tamer. There were accounts of would-be heirs who burst into flame when channeling a beast too great for their will. The sigil, without control, would rebel.
Still, he read. Poured over glyphs. Sketched dominion circles in the dust of his container's floor. He memorized incantations, beast-classifications, and flame manipulation mantras until the ink on his hands stained his food. He needed more than theory.
Still curious to have a full understanding, he stumbled on a warning about blackash. This is power that surged quickly, which has the ability to consume a new tamer. There were accounts of supposed heirs who burst into flame on the account of channeling a beast too great for their will. A sigil without a proper control will definitely rebel.
Kelvin needed to test this.
After three nights has passed, when the riftstorms have finally calmed down, Kelvin prepared and went to the old monorail station.
Monorail station is a place where very few scavengers ventured into, not because of monsters but because they want to have the memory but only few strong hearted scavengers visited.
It had been the pulse of old Valebreach's industrial district. Massive mag-rail lines connected resource zones to guild fortresses, ferrying cargo, refugees, and beast specimens in containment chambers.
When the Cataclysm struck, a Rift opened beneath the central line, splitting the station in half. Now, its rails floated ten feet off the ground, suspended by malfunctioning grave-nodes, while fragments of twisted steel hovered in mid-air, frozen in a loop of magnetic denial.
Beyond that the station is saturated with some residual energy that was close to a rift scar with an unstable and overwhelming wound in reality where beasts sometimes slipped through which is just enough to scare most scavengers away.
This is a perfect place for testing his limits and resonating with his powers.
Kelvin moved over the debris while he climbed a beam that is made of steel and concrete, that is not positioned horizontally or vertically but slanted and he stood on that platform which once bore schedules and fare prices now the only thing it bore were moss, ash and silence.
With the knowledge he gathered from the book he read, he knelt down and started sketching a dominion circle using a chalk and ash, tracing the runes he had memorized from the codices.
The glyphs which is a visual representation of symbols pulsed as he whispered the incantations under his breath. While doing that his blood burned, the Xerion's mark was responding but he forced the energy to slow down and be under control not to exert power.
As he was doing this he closed his eyes and reached inward.
He remembered the flames, the chains and the bunker where he first heard the Xerion's voice and opened himself to the sigil, he kept whispering the beckon rite which is not to summon the Xerion, he thought to himself "I am not ready for that", his intentions was to draw the Rift energy to himself to enable him touch the veil.
The air became very thick as the sigil flared up.The Rift Scar shined with a soft, slightly wavering light.
And from the shadows emerged a creature.
A Lesser Rager that is a Riftborn beast shaped like a wolf but is been armored in black, crystalline plating. Its fangs were dripping violet ichor, and its eyes burned with Riftfire. The creature didn't hesitate, it moved like a lightening.
It charged at Kelvin.