The Shadow Faction wing of the Zenith Institute was not built of glass and sunlight like the ivory towers above. It was carved directly into the ancient, prehistoric roots of the mountain—a labyrinth of obsidian corridors and jagged stone arches that felt like the throat of some sleeping beast. Here, the air was thick with the scent of old parchment and the ozone-heavy tingle of forbidden energy.
Nyx led Reed deeper into the silence. The only light came from violet "Void-Lamps"—glowing crystals held in the iron claws of statues that looked more like demons than heroes. Reed leaned against the cold stone walls as he walked, his legs still heavy and trembling from the lingering effects of the Aether-Cuffs. Every footstep felt like a mile; every breath felt like he was inhaling needles.
"Where are we going?" Reed whispered, his voice echoing hollowly in the narrow hall. "The Council... they'll realize I'm gone. They won't just let us walk away."
"The Council thinks they own every shadow in this mountain," Nyx replied, her footsteps making absolutely no sound on the polished obsidian. She didn't look back at him, but her hand stayed near her belt, where her glass daggers were tucked. "But the Shadow Faction was here before the Council existed. We have places they haven't mapped in a thousand years."
She stopped abruptly in front of a wall that appeared solid and seamless. There were no doors, no handles, not even a crack in the masonry. But as Nyx approached, the shadows on the wall began to ripple like the surface of a disturbed pond. She stepped forward, and to Reed's horror, her body didn't collide with the stone—it melted into it.
Reed hesitated, his heart hammering against his ribs. The "Evil" in his mind gave a low, appreciative hum. Step through, vessel, it whispered. The truth is waiting in the dark.
Reed squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward. The sensation was like walking through a curtain of ice-cold water. For a second, he was in a sensory void, and then, he emerged into a chamber that defied every law of architecture he knew.
They were in a vast, circular cathedral of knowledge. It was the Archive of the Unspoken. Instead of books lining the walls, thousands of glowing memory-crystals floated in the air, drifting through the dark like slow-motion stars in a captured galaxy. In the center of the room sat a single, massive stone sarcophagus, etched with the same jagged, violet runes that had appeared on Reed's skin during the Arena fight.
"This is the heartbeat of our faction," Nyx said, her voice dropping to a solemn tone. "Everything the High Council erased from history—every bloodline they ended, every power they feared—is stored here. Including the origin of your Core."
Reed walked toward the central sarcophagus, drawn by a magnetic pull he couldn't resist. As he drew near, the whirlpool in his chest began to throb with a rhythmic, heavy beat. The "Evil" in his mind went silent—not the silence of sleep, but the heavy, expectant silence of a king returning to his throne room.
"The Void System isn't an 'Error,' Reed," Nyx said, standing on the opposite side of the tomb. "Three thousand years ago, it was the primary power of the world. It was called the Primal Verse. It wasn't about elements like fire, water, or earth. Those are just surface-level parlor tricks. The Primal Verse was about the fundamental balance of existence and non-existence. It was the power to decide what was real and what was... not."
Reed touched the cold, rough stone of the sarcophagus. At his contact, a memory-crystal drifted down from the ceiling, vibrating in sync with his pulse. It flared to life, projecting a holographic image that filled the entire chamber.
The image showed a war that looked like the end of the world. Figures shrouded in violet darkness stood against an army of beings made of pure, blinding light—the ancestors of the High Inquisitors.
"The ones who used the Void became too powerful," Nyx explained, her eyes reflecting the flickering holographic light. "They didn't just defeat their enemies in battle. They practiced 'Subtraction.' They didn't just kill a man; they erased him. They erased his family, his city, and eventually, they began erasing entire bloodlines from the memory of the world. It was as if those people had never been born. The world grew terrified. The other Factions realized that if the Void was allowed to grow, there would eventually be nothing left but an empty universe."
The hologram shifted. It showed the Void-users being hunted down by the thousands. But they weren't just executed. The image showed a massive, golden seal—a ritual of world-tier magic—being slammed into the earth by a circle of demigods.
"They didn't just banish the people, Reed. They banished the concept," Nyx whispered. "They used a spell to rewrite the laws of reality so that the Void System could no longer be accessed by any human soul. They turned the Primal Verse into a myth, then a whisper, and then... they made the world forget it ever existed. Until the stranger found you."
Reed looked at his hands. They were pale, shaking, and marked by the scars of a scavenger. "Why me? I'm nothing. I'm a Null from the Wastes. I don't have a hero's blood."
"Because the seal is breaking," Nyx said, stepping closer to him. Her eyes were sharp, searching his face. "The 'Evil' you feel inside you? That's not a demon. That's the collective consciousness of everyone who was banished three thousand years ago. It's been rotting in the dark for millennia, and it wants its world back. It chose you because you were a 'Zero'—an empty vessel with enough room to hold its hunger."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: CORE HISTORY SYNCHRONIZED]
[HIDDEN STAT UNLOCKED: ANCIENT RESONANCE]
[NEW MISSION: THE VEIL OF SECRECY]
Objective: Suppress the Corruption while training in the Shadow Faction.
Warning: If the High Council confirms you are a 'Primal Verse' user, the 'Great Banishing' will be repeated. You will be deleted from time itself.
Reed felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. He wasn't just a student or a glitch. He was a walking declaration of war against the modern world. The Council didn't just want to punish him; they wanted to finish the job they started three millennia ago.
"The Shadows kept this place secret because we knew the Void would eventually return," Nyx said. "The Council wants to study you like a relic. But the leader of my faction... he wants something else. He wants to teach you how to control that thing before it eats you alive."
Suddenly, the Archive doors—the solid stone wall they had just passed through—shuddered violently. A muffled, thunderous boom echoed through the chamber, causing the floating crystals to rattle and chime like glass bells.
"They're here already," Nyx hissed, her casual demeanor vanishing. She reached into her cloak and drew two daggers made of translucent glass that seemed to hum with a dark, subsonic frequency. "The Inquisitors don't take 'Council Orders' well when it involves the Forbidden Arts. They aren't here to bring you back for questioning anymore, Reed."
"Then what are they here for?" Reed asked, his hand drifting toward the lid of the sarcophagus.
Nyx looked at the wall as a second explosion caused dust to rain from the ceiling. A faint, golden light began to bleed through the cracks in the stone.
"They're here to make sure the Void stays buried," Nyx said, her eyes turning back to Reed with a desperate intensity. "This time, they won't leave a single atom of you behind. Reed, you have to choose. If you don't use that power now, we both die in this room."
Reed looked at the sarcophagus. The lid was starting to slide open, responding to his presence. Inside, a dark, liquid-like substance shimmered—a concentrated pool of Void Essence that looked like a piece of the night sky had been poured into a bowl.
Drink... the voice hissed, louder than it had ever been. Take back what they stole from us. Erase the light. Show them that the dark never truly left.
Reed looked at the door, where the golden light of the Inquisitors was moments from breaching. He looked at Nyx, who was standing her ground to protect him. And then, he looked into the pool of darkness.
He wasn't a scavenger anymore. He wasn't a Null. He was the Error that was about to break the world.