Rise of the Nullborn

The morning air was still, but not silent. Wind carried faint whispers over the eastern ridges, threading through the tall, broken spires of stone like breath through a flute. Pulsewinds, Nala had called them, soft pressure currents stirred by distant Aetherfields. They were harmless, usually. But sometimes, they sang warnings.

Zayn listened as he walked.

He and Nala had left Brinehook behind two days ago, trading the safety of its stubborn walls for the unpredictable folds of untamed land. The terrain had changed rapidly, green valleys gave way to steep crags, and strange silver moss began coating the rock. It glowed slightly when touched. The map fragment from the ruin dive pulsed faintly in Zayn's system log, constantly reorienting based on his direction.

They were following it east.

But Zayn wasn't just following the map anymore.

He was chasing something he had seen before the ruin, before the Brinehook Trials, before everything changed, a flickering portal in the sky, far off, like a glitch in reality itself. It had pulsed once, then vanished. Since then, the image hadn't left him.

And now, the pull had returned.

The Aether was thicker here. Not heavy, but vibrant. His steps kicked up tiny motes that glowed and spiraled in the air before fading. Nala walked beside him, her senses sharp, her body moving with quiet precision.

"Still think it's just a phantom echo?" she asked.

Zayn shook his head. "No. It wasn't a hallucination. And it didn't behave like a ruin ghost or reflection. Whatever it was, it was tethered to something real."

"Like a spatial rift?"

"Or worse. A bleed."

They paused on a plateau just before noon. The landscape spread wide... deep ravines carved like claw marks through the rock, and strange growths arched upward like fossilized trees, tall and hollow. Zayn scanned the area, activating Pulse Link.

[Active Trait: Pulse Link]

[Surrounding Field: Stable - No immediate threats]

[Distortion Detected: Direction - East-Southeast, approx. 3.7 km]

"There," Zayn pointed. "Distortion pinged again. Same pulse range as the last reading."

Nala adjusted her grip on her spear. "Still stable?"

"For now."

They descended the plateau carefully, moving through thick grass and shattered pillars half-swallowed by earth. A herd of low-skulled grazers moved in the distance, their backs shimmering with green-tinted light. None of them approached. None needed to.

Hours passed. The sun dipped lower, the shadows longer. Zayn felt it before he saw it, the way the air bent slightly, shimmered faintly, as if refusing to stay in place. At the base of a wide basin, tucked between two cliffs, a strange glow flickered.

Zayn slowed his steps.

There it was again.

A circle... fractured and flickering, not unlike a mirror rippling underwater. It hovered three feet above the ground, silent and unstable. Within the shimmering surface, a cloudy image moved, then warped.

[Unstable Rift Detected]

[Origin: Unknown | Anchor Weak]

[Risk: Medium to High]

Nala stepped up beside him. "It's bleeding energy."

Zayn nodded. "The system can't trace the origin. That's... rare."

They circled it slowly, not getting too close. From some angles, the rift appeared as nothing more than heat haze. From others, it looked like a shattered window into another sky.

"Maybe a failed portal?" Nala suggested. "Or a leftover Gate from pre-Aether tech?"

Zayn knelt, placing his hand near a root cluster growing beside the rift. The plants were dead. Dried and blackened. Aether had not touched them.

"Whatever came through wasn't kind," he muttered.

Just as he leaned back, the rift pulsed.

A flicker of sound... distant, muffled, then sharp. Zayn's vision blurred for a second. His system flared.

[WARNING: Proximity to Rift Core Unstable] [Initiating Limited Projection Sync...]

His surroundings darkened. The world shifted.

He stood on a ridge not his own, sky above torn open with swirling lights. Figures ran, blurred, armored, chasing a beast unlike any he'd seen. The beast was made of fractured signal and bone, its shape shifting constantly, and its mouth opened with a scream that shattered the rocks around it.

Then light flared.

The vision ended.

Zayn gasped, stumbling back. Nala caught him.

"Vision?" she asked.

He nodded, breathing hard. "I saw... something hunting. Or being hunted. Signalborn, maybe. But distorted."

Nala turned back to the rift. "And this place is where it happened?"

"Or where the echo still lives."

They backed away and set up camp a safe distance from the rift. The night arrived with eerie calm. No beasts wandered close. Even the wind seemed hesitant.

Later, Zayn sat cross-legged near the fire, blade beside him, and opened his interface.

[System Update: Spatial Rifts Category Unlocked]

> Rifts are unstable Aether-space intersections formed by reality distortion or high-energy convergence. May lead to other realms, corrupted zones, or echo fields. Interaction requires Core Resonance above threshold.

> User Core Resonance: 62.4% | Required: 70% minimum to stabilize this rift.

> Sub-Objective Unlocked: Trace origin of flickering rift.

Zayn let the interface fade.

He looked at Nala. "We need stronger resonance."

She nodded. "And guidance. These aren't normal ruins. This could lead to another world entirely."

Zayn tilted his head, watching the rift from afar. "I'm beginning to think... the Aether isn't just a power. It's a map. Or a memory trying to rewrite itself."

Nala was quiet, then whispered, "What if we're part of its rewrite?"

The question hung there between them.

Dawn came slowly.

Zayn stood at the cliff's edge again, looking down at the rift. It pulsed gently in the growing light, no longer violent, just... waiting.

"We leave it for now," he said. "But I'll mark it. We'll come back when the core is ready."

Nala stood beside him, pulling her hood up as wind brushed her hair back. "Then where to next?"

Zayn's system blinked.

A new signal pinged from the map, just east of the ridge. A ruin marked with a symbol he had seen before in the crafting chamber.

"The forge path," he said quietly. "It's calling again."

They broke camp and walked east, further into the folds of wild land and whispering sky. The rift behind them flickered once... then went still.

But it had seen them.

And far away, others had seen the rift respond.

The hunt was beginning.