Finally… rest.
My breath steadies as consciousness creeps back in. I don't know how long I was out. Minutes? Hours?
But when my eyes open, I don't find peace—only something darker.
The world is quiet now.
Too quiet.
The once-lush forest has become a graveyard of ash. Trees reduced to charred husks stand like twisted monuments to the dead. Smoke drifts upward in fading ribbons. The heat has lessened, but the stench of blood and scorched earth still clings to everything.
I shift slightly. A slow, dragging ache spreads through my body.
My clothes are in tatters, burnt and ripped in places I don't remember being hit. The wound across my side—once gushing, now sealed—leaves behind a fresh scar that still burns faintly against my skin.
Everything aches.
But not in the way I expected.
This isn't the sharp pain of broken bones or torn muscle. It's deeper. Thicker. Like my very cells are reshaping.
I raise my trembling hand and make a loose fist. It doesn't hurt from weakness.
There's something… different inside me now. A low hum. A steady pressure in the depths of my core.
No… not something.
My Weather Core.
It's changed.
I drag myself toward a charred, half-standing tree and collapse against it. The bark crumbles under my weight, coating my back in soot. I close my eyes—not to rest, but to look inward. Beyond the fatigue. Beyond the scars. Into the storm inside.
It's still there. My Core.
But it's not the same cold void I've carried all my life.
It pulses differently now—heavier, slower, but more stable. Like molten black energy swirling inside obsidian walls. Dense. Alive.
The memory hits me like a wave.
Vulkran's body, twisted in agony—his limbs pulled apart as the singularity collapsed around him. The way he resisted the pull longer than anyone I've ever fought. The hatred in his eyes when he realized he was dying—not as a warrior, but as prey.
But it wasn't his death that stayed with me.
It was his fear.
Not of pain. Not even of me.
He was afraid I'd take it.
His Weather Core.
Even as his lungs collapsed and his blood boiled, he clutched onto it. Desperately. As if it was all that made him real.
But I didn't hesitate.
I didn't ask.
I reached through the ruin of his chest and tore it from his dying body.
And now?
There's no fire in me. No blaze that answers when I reach for it.
Because my Core doesn't imitate.
It consumes.
It transforms.
His power—the fire he lived by, the force he murdered for—it couldn't survive inside me. My Weather Core devoured it, crushed it, and reforged it into something else.
Dark. Pure. Mine.
It didn't blend or fuse like others do. It didn't echo his essence.
It drowned it.
Because mine wasn't granted. It wasn't found in the aftermath like the scavengers who pick through ruins, hoping for leftover sparks.
My Core was born at the epicenter.
April 12, 2999.
I don't remember the blast—I was too young. Barely alive. But I've heard the stories.
The world stopped spinning. Literally. For three seconds, the planet froze. Time didn't stop—but gravity bent, air fractured, and every clock on Earth shattered from within.
They say it was beautiful. For the ones who survived it.
A light so bright it burned shadows into stone. A silence so pure it broke the minds of those who heard it.
The Momentous.
The failed experiment of White Mystic. They tried to force the sky to obey. To reshape the weather with fusion tech and molecular precision.
And in doing so, they cracked the world open.
Sixty-nine percent of humanity lived through it… but not all survived as humans.
Some mutated. Some were blessed. Others cursed.
And then there were people like me.
The ones born during the fallout. Shaped by it.
I never knew a normal world. Never saw a blue sky that didn't scream. Never walked through rain that didn't whisper.
The first thing I remember is fire.
The first voice I heard was my own—crying alone in a ruin with blood on my hands.
I don't even know who I killed.
But I remember the pain when my Weather Core first awakened. The cold, unnatural sensation of dark matter curdling through my chest.
I was six.
And by the time I turned ten, I'd already learned how to hide. How to run. How to kill.
That's why I survive.
Because my Core isn't just dominant.
It's sovereign.
It doesn't bend. It crowns.
It devoured Vulkran's Core the way a predator devours meat—piece by piece. Refined it. Pressurized it. Bent it into a fuel source that now feeds my entire system.
I feel it now—my body responding to it. My stamina hasn't increased much, but my efficiency has.
Teleportation barely burns now.
Dark Matter Constructs stabilize faster. No more flickering, no more forced shaping.
It's like my abilities have… sharpened.
Not stronger. Just better.
Like a blade that's been reforged in the fires of war.
I push myself to my feet. My legs tremble at first, but they hold. The ground beneath me collapses into soot and bone.
I stretch, feel every tear in my body screaming. And then—I vanish.
Shadow Step.
The world flickers as my form blinks forward several meters in less than a second. I reappear with a jolt of breath. A dull throb in my head follows, but it's manageable now.
Better than before.
I lift my palm. Focus. Channel.
Black, swirling matter bleeds from my skin, solidifying mid-air into a long, jagged blade.
Dark Matter Construct.
It feels perfect. Balanced. Familiar. I swing.
The charred tree behind me splits in two, its trunk falling apart like old parchment. I swing again. The edge hums as it slices clean through scorched bark.
Still draining. But less than before.
I dismiss it. The weapon dissolves into mist, fading like smoke.
Then—I jump.
High into the air. Just enough.
Mid-descent, I activate it.
Gravity Manipulation.
My body spikes in weight, slamming into the ground like a meteor.
"—Grk!"
A shockwave cracks outward. The earth splits. Dust explodes upward. I land hard—knees buckling, lungs gasping.
It still takes a toll.
But it's bearable.
I stagger back and drop to one knee. Sweat rolls down my spine. My muscles ache, but they don't tear.
I lift my head to the sky.
Smoke clears. A few stars peek through the darkness above.
And I remember him.
Vulkran.
His eyes, filled with disbelief. Not because I won. But because I took something from him that he thought was untouchable.
His fire. His pride.
And I made it mine.
But not as flame.
As fuel.
He fought harder than most. Clung longer than any before him.
But in the end… he still lost.
And I didn't flinch.
I didn't hesitate.
I reached into his broken ribs, past the ruin, and claimed what he had no right to possess.
It's mine now.
And it's not fire anymore.
It's gravity. Pressure. Command.
My Core didn't absorb his power.
It rewrote it.
Still… the ache in my chest isn't just exhaustion.
There's a thought gnawing at the edges of my mind.
How many more?
How many more Weather Cores will I take?
How many more lives will I end?
How long until the dark matter inside me isn't just a weapon—but something else?
Something hungrier?
I don't just survive The Momentous.
Some days… I think I'm becoming it.