Crimson Ascension

The creature, woven out of darkness, snapped its fingers, and its surroundings changed. No hexion flowed to manifest its will into reality, yet a seamless layer of reality superimposed the bare landscape of Draven's soul.

Where darkness once reigned, now mountains sprouted from the ground like spires, clouds swirling amidst their glorious peaks like waves surrounding a patch of land. The sun glowed in the sky, but instead of assuming a single color, the horizon bled with a multitude of hues. Stars shone through the distance, unveiled and naked to those standing beneath them.

Draven examined the changes, but his focus stayed on the man—the creature. Its dark outline gained color. What was fuzzy became crispy. Silver was his skin, like polished metal. His eyes burned brighter than the suns of the Old World, difficult to meet for longer than a second. Flames burned in his head, replacing hair. A set of obsidian horns, sharper than any spear, curved behind his head like hooks.

"Sha'Vitri. You're one of them, like Asthagon," Draven said, reinforcing his hold over his hexion and will. He couldn't afford to let his guard down, not against one of them.

"Beautiful, is it not?" The Sha'Vitri spoke. "Asthagon, The One Who Watches… do not sully the vision of my home with the name of that traitor."

"Who are you? Are you also a Keeper of the Sixfold Corridor?" He needed information, anything that would make facing a Sha'Vitri not a lost cause.

"Ask not the questions to which you already know the answers, human. You have entered my tomb, yet you know not who I am?" The Sha'Vitri watched over the mountains, standing barefoot in the clouds, its white robe flowing as if made from air. "The Sixfold Corridor is all that remains between all realms and utter collapse, yet it was not always so."

"Once, long before your kind disturbed the balance, all realms existed in equilibrium." The Sha'Vitri sighed, waving his arm in the clouds. "Eternity held all of existence in a state of peace—of balance. But humanity, a race untouched by its arcane gift, reached their hand too far into what it understood little."

The clouds frothed like a raging sea. The Sha'Vitri clenched his fist, his wrath barely contained in the words that left his lips. "Was it not enough to discover the arcane? Was it not enough to witness Eternity with their own filthy, unworthy eyes? It was the destruction of balance that brought satisfaction to your kind. Destruction runs red in your veins."

"You talk about destruction, but we built the Haven to shelter us from you. From the things that wander in the Beyond." The Sha'Vitri's ramblings confused him. "Look at what you made!" Draven reined his will, mimicking what the horned figure had done, and changed the landscape. Rather than mountains and peaceful scenery, his soul became a mirror to the desolation of the Old World.

The Sha'Vitri looked around, perplexed, then burst into laughter.

"You think I have done this? I thought the Fragment of Eternity sitting in your soul would have granted you wisdom beyond your ilk, but it seems foolishness is a characteristic impossible to extricate from humans." The Sha'Vitri raised his hand, effortlessly seizing control of the projection. "You wish to know what caused this? Witness the actions of your ancestors then."

The projection trembled like a canvas. Draven knew he could have stopped it, but for the first time in a long time, he had met someone who wasn't secretive about the information he sought to obtain, so he allowed it. The scenery changed once again, making him gasp at the astounding sight.

Buildings made of glass and stone rose from the ground, piercing the sky until they almost reached the clouds. Humas walked the streets on top of black stone, now lustrous and well-tended. Threes and a vast arrangement of flowers decorated a city of proportions vaster than anything Draven had seen before.

The Old World, he thought, before it was called that. Before whatever happened destroyed it. Humans travelled across the city, taller than a miner yet smaller than a Sovran, while the Sha'Vitri floated in the sky like a sun. None of them sported the quickness of step known to the rulers of the Haven, or the diminutive frame only a miner would possess. There was no division, no visible distinction between them dictated who should rule and who should serve.

"I thought the Sovrans were the rulers of the Old World," Draven spoke, not for one second forgetting the threat of the creature that stood inside his soul. "These people aren't Sovrans, and they are too big to be miners."

The Sha'Vitri ignored the remark, molding the vision to another place. Men dressed in white, pristine vestments all too familiar with the one worn by Overseers, prowled about with glowing devices in their hands. Images flowed seamlessly in the frame they carried—artifacts of great power, no doubt—changing with a flick of a finger, as if it were a painting that changed with the will of its carrier. None spoke, yet their mouths moved.

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A man wore a contraption on his face, like windows to protect his eyes. He moved with importance and confidence, and others made way, listening to his wordless speeches and nodding. He stood in front of a greater version of those interactive painting artefacts, witnessing the waves painted on it, lines that went up and down, rising and falling to a mysterious tune.

Draven saw the moment an idea took hold of him. The man's eyes widened, a smile parting his lips. He spoke to others, and the reaction was similar. A blond-haired woman approached, drawing symbols on the artefact she carried. The wall on the far right, woven out of metal and glowing lights, shuddered before opening to reveal a room protected by thick glass. In the center, surrounded by many glowing contraptions, a dark rent in space hovered.

The man with windows in his eyes tapped on his artefact, observing the fissure as if expecting a reaction. One of the surrounding artefacts moved, pointing at the rift, its light building until it shot a red beam of energy at it. The lines painted in the larger artefact oscillated violently. Some men and women dressed in white paled, while others stood resolutely.

The man, their leader, as Draven understood, stood in front of the glass with a fixated look. Multi-colored light shone from the fracture. The room shook as the lines in the larger artifacts spiked up and down with an unpredictable fierceness. For the first time, doubt flickered in the man's expression, soon turning into fear as the glass surrounding the fissure cracked.

He furiously tapped on his artefact, waving his hand around to order the others to various tasks. The metal jaws for walls closed, hiding the view of the fissure, yet the shaking in the room only grew stronger. Equipments were knocked to the ground. Some people even missed a step and fell. The blond woman ripped a tube connected to the large artefact.

The room abruptly stopped shaking. She looked at the man, relief clear in her eyes. It only lasted one moment before blinding light consumed everything.

The Sha'Vitri waved his hand, and the vision changed. Draven was back in the sky, in the glorious city of the ancients. A pillar of light illuminated the world in the distance, overpowering the brilliance of the sun. People turned their attention to it, stopping their routine and life to witness something that must not have been ordinary.

Glass shattered in the buildings, falling to the ground like rain. Though the light seemed impossibly far away, the people of this city toppled to the ground. Dead. When the first fell, others observed with morbid curiosity. When others followed suit, those who remained ran.

Draven saw, witnessed in dreaded silence as most of the city's population died to something he couldn't understand. Was there something in the air? Was it a soul attack? Perhaps a powerful Mender had somehow Ruled the blood of the inhabitants of an entire city. It seemed unlikely.

While most fell, some continued to run, seemingly unaffected. Something changed in the pace of a few survivors. Men and women alike, a selected few amongst those who survived, ran faster, easily outrunning others.

Draven understood the meaning behind the vision then. It all made sense now.

"There was never a distinction between Sovrans and miners. We were all just… human, once." Sovrans ruled with the authority given through power and physical prowess, by the ability to unveil the Empyrean secrets. "Most died. Some adapted. Others didn't. It's not an attack or anything, it's just hexion."

"Indeed," the Sha'Vitri waved his hand again, and the vision vanished. "I know not why those men destroyed Eternity—it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to understand the reasoning of fools. But this is the world they created, not I. My wish is to return reality to what it once was."

Draven had been expecting the Sha'Vitri to lie and deceive, but he could feel the creature's words were true. Inside his soul, every word spoken could not hide its true intent from him. The same way he knew the Fallen spoke no falsehoods, he also understood he was hiding something.

"We need not fight, Draven," the Fallen stared at him. "Relinquish your Fragment to me. With it, I shall have enough strength to reform my soul and challenge the usurper once more. You have witnessed how things were before. You feel I speak the truth."

"I've witnessed death, Fallen."

In the vision, most of humanity had died when hexion flooded the world, with the remaining few turning into what Sovrans and miners would one day become. What would happen if hexion were to vanish? Sovrans had adapted to it, their bodies instinctively relying on hexion for nourishment. Without it, they would eventually die.

Draven had no love for those who oppressed his kind, but to commit genocide? To have his actions cause the extinction of all Sovrans in the Haven? The mere thought of it sickened him. Miners, on the other hand, could survive—none of them relied on hexion. It was as if they had adapted to become resistant to it.

A world where Sovrans died and miners lived. It did not sound like an awful place to live. Even though it sickened him, Draven considered it. His family would not have died had Sovran's not existed.

"Tell me, Fallen—"

"Untaak'Dor," the Sha'Vitri corrected with a frigid expression.

"Untaak'Dor. If I gave you the fragment, what would happen to the Haven? To the miners. To everyone who survived the fall of the Old World?" Draven narrowed his eyes at the Sha'Vitri. His astra burned behind him like a sun.

"Most would perish," Untaak'Dor said in a callous tone. "But a fragment of what remains could live on."

Draven felt the fluctuation in his soul as the Sha'Vitri's words left silver lips. A half-answer. A lie. He could feel the emotion behind the Fallen's collected voice. Anger. Hatred. He had been slain, like most of his kind, killed by the Maker in a time long past. Why had they fought in the first place? Draven knew he would not get an answer from him. He knew he could not trust him, not with the fate of his entire race.

"I decline, Untaak'Dor," Draven said.

"Then you will die with the rest of your kind!" Hatred burned into the Fallen's molten eyes.