It started again. Low, quiet, persistent.
A hum. No, not a sound exactly. More like a vibration in his bones. A presence brushing against the edge of his thoughts, subtle as a dream half-forgotten.
Ren Zian stood on the rooftop of his apartment, the wind tugging at his jacket, the lights of New Moon City painting the sky in neon reflections. His gaze wasn't on the skyline. It was on the dark ridge beyond the southern wall, where the Outer Zone began.
Where the hum came from.
He'd felt it for weeks, ever since his Awakening test date had been set. At first, he thought it was nerves. But this wasn't fear. It was a pull. Like something ancient had noticed him and was waiting.
Calling.
He left early the next morning, slipping past patrol drones and taking a forgotten service tunnel that led under the outer wall. It wasn't hard, New Moon City had grown over the skeletons of older cities. Beneath the polished astral towers were broken systems, dead roads, forgotten zones.
The Ashfield Scar sat beyond those borders, a torn gash in the land from one of the first recorded battles after the Awakening. Now it was overgrown and avoided, not because of danger—but because it was heavy.
The hum grew louder as he approached.
It wasn't sound, but resonance.
As he stepped into the crater, Zian paused. The world felt thinner here. Like the barrier between earth and something deeper had worn down. His fingers tingled. The air was cooler. And he felt it—a presence, deep underground, pulsing like a buried heartbeat.
He climbed over twisted metal, scorched rock, and ash-choked soil, down into the heart of the ruin. Beneath a collapsed section of ancient tech, burnt plating, melted support rods, and he found a half-buried tunnel.
And the hum became a song.
He followed it down, flashlight flickering, boots crunching on rubble. The passage narrowed, then opened into a hidden chamber. Whatever this had been, a bunker, facility, or machine, was long dead.
Except for the light.
At the far end of the room, nestled in a cradle of broken alloy and petrified bone, floated a crystal sphere. Smooth, pulsing, and utterly alien. Not resting on a pedestal. Floating, as if it rejected gravity itself.
It pulsed not with light, but with depth. A star in miniature. A prison. A seed.
Zian didn't hesitate. The second he approached, his hairs stood up, and he instinctively felt the resonance grow stronger.
He stepped forward, the hum now inside his skull. A whisper threading through the marrow of his bones.
And when he reached out, the moment his fingers brushed the surface.
"What the F…" Before he could even get out a full sentence.
The world shattered.
No noise. No flash.
Just silence.
Then came the voice, inside his mind, ancient and heavy and calm as a star:
You are not aligned.
Your soul lacks formation. Begin resonance.
Stabilize your threshold form. Reach the Threshold Realm.
Hurry... before I fade again.
Zian screamed without sound.
His body was frozen. His spirit, torn free.
He fell.
And then, he was standing.
But not on Earth.
Above him stretched a sky of endless black pierced with spiraling galaxies. Beneath his feet, nothing but air and starlight. Floating islands shimmered in the distance, some glowing with golden light, others drowned in cold mist.
Pressure slammed into him. Weightless, but crushing. Like the air itself was made of judgment. Like the stars were watching.
Zian gasped, knees buckling.
This wasn't a dream.
This was real.
This was the Astral God Space.