The descent continued.
Deeper.
Darker.
The current that had been pulling Makun strengthened, dragging his astral form through layers of reality that shouldn't exist. Each layer felt heavier than the last. Thicker. Like sinking through tar.
But something else was fighting back.
The chains.
He could feel them now. Not just their presence, but their weight. Ethereal iron wrapped around his astral body, digging in, anchoring him. Each link was intricate, ancient, covered in symbols that hurt to perceive.
They were trying to drag him back.
Up toward his dying body. Up toward the silver cord that connected him to life.
But the second force pulled harder.
Down.
Into whatever waited in the deepest dark.
Makun's astral form stretched between the two pressures. His consciousness flickered. In. Out. Blurry. Sharp. Like a signal cutting through static.
Pain.
Not physical. This was deeper. Soul deep.
His body, somewhere far above, convulsed. He felt it through the silver cord. Muscles seizing. Heart stuttering. The pills doing their work.
But that pain was nothing compared to this.
The pain of a soul being torn apart.
The chains bit deeper. Tightened. Each link blazed with cold fire that seared through his astral form. They were trying to collapse him, fold him back into the neat little box they'd kept him in for twenty three years.
The other force pulled harder.
Makun's vision blurred. His form wavered, threatening to dissolve entirely.
The agony was beyond description. Beyond endurance.
He wanted to scream but had no throat. Wanted to die but was already dying.
Instead, he fought.
Not against the chains. Not against the pulling force.
With it.
He threw everything he had into descending. Into following that current deeper into the dark. Because whatever was down there, whatever wanted him, it was the only thing that had ever truly pulled at him instead of pushing him away.
The chains resisted. Fought back. But as Makun struggled downward, as he committed fully to the descent...
CRACK.
One link shattered.
The sound was impossible. Like breaking the foundation of reality itself.
Power flooded into him.
Not strength. Not energy. Wholeness.
Like a piece of himself that had been missing suddenly clicked back into place. A fragment of his soul that had been locked away, suppressed, hidden even from himself.
He could see more clearly. Feel more deeply. The layers of the Veil became distinct, visible, navigable.
This was what he'd been without. What the chains had stolen from him.
This is what I was supposed to be.
The realization hit him like lightning.
But there was no time to process it. The other chains tightened in response, trying to compensate for the loss. The pulling force yanked harder, taking advantage of the crack in his prison.
Makun dove deeper.
The Veil parted around him. Layers of existence he had no names for flowed past like dark water. He sank through realms where physics didn't apply, where thought became substance, where nightmares took shape and fed on reality.
And still deeper.
Until finally, the pulling stopped.
Makun hung suspended in absolute darkness.
Not the absence of light. The presence of nothing. A void so complete it made his astral form feel like a candle flame in an infinite cavern.
Here, the weight was unbearable.
Pressure that could crush mountains. Destroy worlds. Birth stars and snuff them out with a thought.
His soul flickered in and out of existence, unable to maintain coherence under the immensity of *whatever this was*.
The chains around him trembled. Vibrated. The remaining links began to crack, hair thin fractures spreading along their length.
They were going to break.
All of them.
Now.
But something held them back. Reinforced them. Like invisible hands reaching out to prevent the final shattering.
Not yet, the presence seemed to whisper. Not here.
Makun tried to look around but there was nothing to see. Just the crushing weight of something vast and patient and impossibly old.
Then it spoke.
Not words. Not sound. The communication bypassed his ears entirely, resonating directly through his consciousness like a tuning fork struck against his soul.
The voice was soft. Almost gentle. Female, if such concepts applied here.
But the pressure behind it was otherworldly. Divine and terrible and absolute.
When it spoke, reality listened.
"You are here."