The Devourer's Dominion

The silence after Aetheron's words felt heavier than the ruins themselves.

Lyara folded her arms. "You really need to start explaining things properly."

Veyrin didn't speak, but his gaze was sharp. He was waiting, watching.

Aetheron exhaled. He could still feel it—the weight of what he had seen, the presence that had spoken into his very being. It wasn't something he could just put into words. But there was one thing he knew for certain.

"The path ahead… it's already broken."

Veyrin frowned. "Meaning?"

Aetheron's eyes flickered. "Meaning we're heading straight into something worse than we expected."

Before anyone could respond—

The ruins shifted.

A deep, resonating crack echoed through the chamber, and suddenly, the ground beneath them fractured.

"MOVE!" Aetheron shouted.

They barely had time to react before the stone floor split apart, sending jagged pieces tumbling into the abyss below. Aetheron leapt back, catching himself on the crumbling edge. Lyara twisted midair, flipping onto a stable section, while Veyrin used his blade to wedge himself into a crack in the wall.

But the ruins weren't just collapsing.

They were reforming.

Stone twisted, reshaping itself into jagged spires and shifting pathways. What had once been a stable structure was now a moving labyrinth, and the very air around them vibrated with an unnatural energy.

Lyara cursed. "This place is alive!"

Aetheron pulled himself up, his Dominion pulsing in warning. Something wasn't just changing the ruins—it was reacting to them.

Then he saw it.

A figure, standing on the newly formed path ahead.

It was humanoid, but not human. Its body flickered like a mirage, shifting between solid and transparent. It had no face, no eyes—just a hollow void where features should have been.

And then—

It moved.

The Guardian's Test

The figure didn't attack in a normal sense.

It became the battlefield.

The moment it stepped forward, the ruins reacted, spikes of stone shooting toward Aetheron and his team.

Veyrin's blade flashed, slicing through the incoming shards. "It's controlling the entire place!"

Lyara flipped over a collapsing section of the ground, barely landing before another part of the ruins shifted beneath her. "Fantastic!" she snapped. "How do we kill something like that?"

Aetheron's Dominion flared around him. He didn't hesitate—he lunged.

The moment he got close, the air warped.

The figure's form split—three, no, four copies of itself emerging, each moving in separate directions.

Aetheron's instincts flared, and he twisted mid-strike, barely avoiding a blade of stone that shot from the ground. The copies weren't just illusions—they were real.

And they attacked all at once.

Veyrin blocked an incoming strike, his body moving on pure reflex. "This thing doesn't fight fair."

Lyara ducked under a swipe of razor-sharp air, flipping backward. "Neither do we."

Aetheron's Dominion pulsed, analyzing. The entity wasn't alive in a normal sense. It was part of the ruins, a living defense mechanism. That meant—

"Destroying its form won't work," Aetheron muttered. "We have to break its control."

Lyara scowled. "Great. And how exactly do we do that?"

Veyrin's eyes flicked around. "It's connected to the ruins. That means—"

Aetheron's Dominion flared.

"The core," he realized. "It's drawing power from something nearby."

The moment he said it, the air shifted again. The figure knew they had figured it out.

Which meant—

It was about to go all out.

Breaking the Cycle

The ruins trembled.

Aetheron didn't wait. He turned toward the largest shifting structure—the one section that hadn't moved despite the chaos around them.

"The core is there!" he shouted, already moving.

The entity reacted instantly, its copies flickering into position, blocking his path.

Aetheron gritted his teeth. "Veyrin, Lyara—cover me!"

Veyrin's blade flashed. "You better be right about this!"

Lyara dashed forward, spinning midair as she threw a barrage of daggers, forcing the copies to split their attention.

Aetheron didn't slow. His Dominion surged, and he tore through the battlefield, dodging collapsing stone and weaving between attacks.

Then—

He reached it.

A pillar of twisted stone, pulsing faintly with the same energy that controlled the ruins.

Without hesitation, Aetheron raised his hand—

And devoured it.

The effect was immediate.

The ruins froze. The shifting structures stopped. The air itself went still.

And the entity—

It shattered.

The copies disappeared first, dissolving into mist. The main form trembled, its body breaking apart like fractured glass.

Then—

It was gone.

The ruins no longer moved. The test was over.

Aftermath

Aetheron exhaled, feeling the power of the core dissolve into his Dominion.

Lyara landed next to him, panting. "You ever not run headfirst into death?"

Veyrin walked up, shaking his head. "At least this time, it worked."

Aetheron didn't respond immediately. He was still processing the new sensation within him. The ruins had given him something—not just power, but knowledge.

And within that knowledge—

A warning.

He turned, staring toward the end of the chamber. A doorway had appeared, leading deeper into the unknown.

Lyara followed his gaze. "We going in?"

Aetheron exhaled.

He already knew the answer.

Without a word, he stepped forward—

And crossed the threshold.