The sky of Elira rumbled. Not because of a storm or lightning, but by something deeper. Something not of this world. Between the torn cracks in the sky, a dark streak slowly dripped like blood from a wound in the body of reality.
Kael stood atop the ruins of Solith Tower. Wild winds tore at his tattered, burn-scarred cloak. His gaze was empty as it pierced the crack in the sky, as if peering into a past he didn't want to remember but couldn't forget.
His voice was hoarse as he spoke to himself. "The Seventh Rift... the last place left by the gods."
---
Flashback - Eight Years Ago
The little boy trembled amidst the pile of corpses. Rain fell slowly, washing away the blood that had begun to darken on his pale skin. He had just witnessed the butchers burn his entire camp not for power, not for land, just... for fun.
"You're the only one who didn't scream as your body burned," said a tall man with a blank face, before leaving him without killing him.
Since that day, Kael never slept soundly. Every night, the faces of the burnt stared at him from behind his closed eyelids.
---
Now
"Master Kael. We are from the Sky's Eye... we have been observing you," said a young woman in a silver-blue robe. Her voice was polite but carried tension. "The Rift... has responded to your existence."
Kael slowly turned. His left eye glowed faintly, not from power, but from the lingering effects of direct contact with the void in Limbo. "What do you want?"
"To offer an alliance... or a warning. No one who has gazed into the Seventh Rift has returned unscathed."
Kael smiled thinly, the smile more like a scar. "I haven't been whole since I was five. You're too late."
---
The Seventh Rift: A Gateway to the Unfathomable
Before Kael, the crack in the sky fused into a vortex emitting a sound like a scream in a language that even demons no longer used. Reality trembled. Time felt as though it were spiraling out of control. The hearts of those around him began to beat backwards. The Seventh Rift was not a place it was a concept that defied understanding.
Kael took a step closer. His footfall cracked the earth beneath him, not because of his weight, but because the world rejected his presence, which was now too close to the existential boundary.
"This Rift... calls to you."
The voice did not come from outside, but from his own marrow. The voice was his own, one who had lived too long in suffering.
---
Another Past - Three Years Ago
A girl the child of refugees wiped the blood from Kael's cheek with a torn cloth. "You... don't have to kill everyone. I'm still alive."
Kael smiled weakly at the time. He had saved the family amidst the chaos of Gairon City. But a week later, when he returned, he found that the family had been hanged by a militia group. On the wall, a message was written: "They spoke with demons."
Kael sat before the bodies for two days. He did not cry. He did not get angry. He was just... empty. When he rose, Gairon City was no longer on Elira's map.
---
Back to the Present
Kael extended his hand. His fingertips touched the vortex of the Seventh Rift. The world groaned. An invisible line was drawn, marking that Kael was no longer fully part of Elira's reality.
"Sky's Eye," he said in a voice that was like the whisper of death. "If you truly want to know who I am... meet me on the other side of this rift."
And he jumped.