The Ember Rebellion had begun to spread like wildfire through the fractured realms, but with its rise came echoes of an older threat—one long buried in the Rift's forgotten abyss.
Kael Drayven stood atop the wreckage of the collapsed dimension known as Thal-Korr, its crystalline towers now nothing more than smoldering ash and shards. The last Rift Surge had torn the sky open, pouring temporal chaos into every crevice of the realm. He and his closest rebels had saved as many civilians as they could. But many had been lost. Too many.
"Report?" Kael asked, still breathing hard, Emberfire flickering around his gauntlets.
Zira stumbled up beside him, her visor cracked. "Two thousand rescued. A hundred missing. The Rift closed minutes ago—but the sky's still unstable."
Kael nodded solemnly, watching the wounded being ferried through stabilizer portals.
But before he could turn to help, the fire in his core shifted.
It pulsed. Screamed.
A rift shimmered—not open, but torn—like a wound that refused to heal.
And from it, stepped a figure.
Not voidspawn. Not Syndicate.
Something worse.
---
The figure stood tall and silent, cloaked in obsidian armor that pulsed with violet light. A mask, expressionless and pale, concealed its face—etched with ancient glyphs from a language Kael had seen only in the Trial.
Zira raised her rifle. "Contact! Unknown origin—"
The figure moved.
One gesture—and Zira was flung back like a doll, crashing through a half-toppled tower.
Kael's eyes widened. "You're not Syndicate. Who are you?"
The figure didn't answer.
Instead, it drew a blade. Not forged of metal, but of Rift-light given shape. The air around it howled with entropy.
"I am Balance's reckoning," the figure finally said, its voice like two universes overlapping. "The Rift General. And you, Kael Drayven, are the fracture."
Then it attacked.
---
Kael met the blow with flame.
Steel and fire collided mid-air in a storm of kinetic energy. For a moment, it seemed equal—but Kael was thrown back, his body skipping across rubble. The Ember Core inside him pulsed erratically. It wasn't just reacting—it was resisting.
This thing... it wasn't merely wielding the Rift. It was a conduit.
The battle tore across the remains of Thal-Korr. Towers exploded. The earth cracked open. Time warped. Lightning twisted backward.
Kael unleashed every technique Shao and the rebellion had taught him, every maneuver he had forged in fire.
Still, the General advanced.
"You embrace chaos," it growled. "You are unworthy of the Flame."
"I never asked for it," Kael snapped, summoning a ring of flame around him. "But I'll burn if it means protecting them."
The General hesitated.
Not in fear. In curiosity.
Then it stabbed Kael in the chest.
---
Time slowed.
Kael gasped, feeling the Riftlight pierce his Ember Core. For a moment, he saw nothing but white. Not death—but memory. The Trial. His parents. The Syndicate's lies. The Flame. The Rift. The truth:
There had never been a choice.
The Emberfire within him erupted.
Not in fury.
In revelation.
The explosion rocked the realm.
Half of Thal-Korr was consumed in an eruption of crimson and gold, a firestorm so intense it scorched the very sky. The General was thrown back into the Rift, howling in alien rage. Reality twisted. Screamed.
Zira, barely conscious, dragged Kael from the epicenter as his body radiated unstable energy.
"Don't you dare die on me," she whispered, tears streaking her soot-covered cheeks.
---
Three days passed.
Kael awoke on a rebel medical cruiser orbiting the dead realm.
His chest was bandaged. The Ember Core was cracked—but intact. The flame within him was quieter now, but deeper. Older.
Dehra Voss stood at his bedside. "You nearly took out an entire quadrant."
"I saw him," Kael croaked. "The Rift General. Not Syndicate. Something older. Something... designed."
Shao entered, grim-faced. "We found fragments of tech from the ancient Rift Wars. That blade wasn't made by any current power. The Nexus Council has issued a summons. They want to meet you."
Kael frowned. "The Council?"
Zira stepped in, smiling faintly. "You're not just a rebel anymore. You're a force. And they're scared."
Kael sat up slowly.
He looked out the viewport. The remnants of Thal-Korr glimmered like broken glass in the void.
"I'm not done. Not by a long shot."
---
Far away, in a Rift beyond time, the General knelt before a glowing throne of shifting void matter.
"He resists," the General admitted. "But the Ember Core is unstable. He will fracture soon."
A voice older than stars replied:
"Good. Let him burn. When he does... we will rise."
---
Volume One Ends.