The medic riftborn helped me straighten my clothes and secure my equipment as we walked through the hallway. Her hands moved with quiet efficiency, tightening straps, checking seals, making sure nothing was loose. I could still feel a faint tremor in my limbs, like my body had not fully agreed that it was safe yet.
The corridor was filled with the aftermath of the veil's touch.
Several riftborns lined the walls, some seated on the floor, others leaning against the stone with blank stares. A few were still shaking, breaths shallow and uneven. One recruit clutched their head, whispering to themselves as if repeating their own name might anchor them to reality. Another stared at their hands, flexing their fingers over and over, as though afraid they might fade if they stopped moving.
Medics moved between them, murmuring reassurances, administering injections, pressing glowing palms to bruised skin and strained nerves. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and heated metal, mixed with something else, something sharp and unfamiliar, like ozone after a storm.
I was not much better than them.
Every step felt careful, measured. My legs obeyed, but only just. My chest still ached from the way I had fought to breathe, and my eyes burned as if they had been held open against my will for far too long.
As we passed, some recruits glanced at me. Their expressions mirrored my own fear, relief, and the dawning realization that this was only the beginning.
None of us said a word.
We did not need to.
The silence carried the same unspoken thought through the hallway.
If this was only the opening call of the veil, what would Arkael itself feel like?
We stood there, gathered in uneven lines, the weight of her words settling over us like a second gravity.
The hall was quiet except for shallow breathing and the soft hum of warding devices embedded in the walls. No one shifted. No one whispered. Even the ones who had been shaking earlier now stood still, as if movement itself might tempt the veil to reach for them again.
Garrenya's voice came through the speakers steady and clear, without a hint of hesitation.
"Some of your comrades have already crossed. That was not failure on their part. It was chance, timing, and the nature of the veil itself."
I clenched my fingers at my side. Thirty recruits. Gone in an instant. Somewhere beyond our reach, beyond preparation, beyond even fear.
"You will not have the luxury of waiting for them," she continued. "Arkael does not pause. It does not care for your readiness, your doubts, or your grief. The moment the veil fully opens, all of you will be pulled through."
A medic nearby finished adjusting a brace on another recruit and stepped back. The glow faded, leaving pale skin and wide eyes behind.
"Listen carefully," Garrenya said. "Once you enter, there will be no regrouping here. Your first objective is survival. Your second is ignition. Do not chase glory. Do not chase answers. If you feel overwhelmed, retreat, hide, endure."
My heart beat harder with every word.
"Trust your training. Trust your embers. And most importantly, trust yourselves. Panic kills faster than any blade in Arkael."
The speakers crackled softly before her voice returned one last time.
"The veil will reach full manifestation soon. Prepare yourselves."
The announcement ended.
For a brief moment, no one moved.
Then the hall seemed to breathe again. Recruits tightened straps, checked weapons, pressed hands to charms or silent prayers. Some closed their eyes, just for a heartbeat, as if memorizing the feeling of standing on Earth.
I swallowed, my throat dry.
This waiting was worse than the pull. Worse than the pain.
Because now we knew.
The next time the veil touched us, we would not be fighting to stay.
We would be crossing.
"The veil is opening. To all one hundred fifty official riftborn, prepare to depart immediately."
The announcement rang through the hall, sharper than any alarm. The air itself felt thinner, like it was being stretched toward something unseen.
The medic who had been guiding me slowed her steps and turned to face me. Up close, I could see faint lines of fatigue around her eyes, the kind that no healing art could erase.
"From here on, you'll walk alone," she said softly. "Take care of yourself. May the gods watch over you, recruit. What is your name?"
"Seyfe Regina," I replied, my voice steadier than I felt. "Thank you… for earlier."
She smiled, warm and genuine, and gave a small nod. Then she blinked.
Just once.
Her form fractured like a reflection disturbed by water. Light stuttered around her outline, and in the space of a breath she vanished, erased as if she had never stood there at all.
I froze.
No sound. No wind. No residue. Just absence.
My stomach twisted as the realization hit me. She had been taken. Pulled early, the same way the others had been.
The hallway trembled faintly beneath my boots. Runes along the walls flickered, their glow pulsing like a strained heartbeat. Somewhere nearby, a recruit let out a choked sob. Another dropped to their knees, whispering a name over and over.
I tightened my grip around the strap of my bag.
This was no longer a warning.
This was happening.
Ahead, the doors to the departure chamber slid open, and from within poured a low, oppressive pressure that pressed against my eyes, my chest, my thoughts. It felt like standing at the edge of a vast depth, something staring back from below.
I took a step forward.
Then another.
Whatever waited beyond the veil, it was no longer a distant terror or a future trial.
It was here.
And it was calling my name.
For fifteen minutes we waited.
My eyes burned, my vision swam, tears gathering but never allowed to fall. Every muscle in my face trembled from the strain. The world felt unreal, stretched thin, as if one wrong motion would tear it apart.
Then the speaker spoke again, calm and absolute.
"Recruits. Blink now."
I blinked.
The world collapsed.
When I opened my eyes, there was no floor beneath me.
I was falling.
Wind screamed past my ears, ripping the breath from my lungs. My stomach lurched violently as gravity seized me, my body flipping once before instinct forced me to spread my arms. My scream was torn apart by the rushing air, swallowed whole.
Above me was a sky unlike anything I had ever seen. It was not blue. It was not black. It was a suffocating gray, thick and heavy, like ash packed into the heavens. Veins of dull crimson stretched across it, slow and pulsing, as if the sky itself was alive and bleeding.
Below me, Arkael waited.
The land rose up in broken layers, a vast biome coated in pale gray and white. Ash drifted upward instead of falling, spiraling lazily around my body as I descended. Jagged formations pierced the ground like exposed bones, some glowing faintly red from within, others cracked and hollow.
The air smelled wrong. Bitter, metallic, and dry, like burnt iron and old smoke. Every breath scraped my throat, leaving a faint sting that settled deep in my lungs.
I could see movement far below.
Not people.
Shapes crawled across the terrain, too distant to identify clearly, but their motions were unnatural. Jerking. Crawling. Dragging themselves across the ash fields as if the land itself rejected them.
My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
This was not a dream.
This was not training.
The ash thickened as I fell, clinging to my clothes, coating my skin with a cold, powdery touch. The wind howled around me, carrying distant sounds that might have been screams or might have been laughter. I could not tell which terrified me more.
My corruption gauge vibrated faintly against my arm, its presence suddenly very real, very heavy.
I was entering a world that did not want me.
And it was far too late to turn back.
I braced myself, curling my body and drawing my arms in as the ground rushed up to meet me.
The impact came dull and heavy.
Instead of bone shattering pain, I sank.
Ash swallowed my legs almost to the knees, bursting upward in a pale cloud that coated my face and filled my mouth. I gagged, coughing hard as the fine powder scraped down my throat. The landing knocked the air from my lungs, my chest burning as I sucked in a ragged breath.
It felt wrong.
Too soft. Too yielding.
I staggered upright, heart hammering, wiping ash from my eyes with trembling hands. My boots shifted beneath me, the ground compressing and slowly rebounding like wet soil that refused to stay still.
Then something touched my ankle.
I froze.
A hand pushed up through the ash.
Gray fingers broke the surface, skin split and raw, nails blackened and cracked. The hand twitched, grasping blindly, ash spilling from between its knuckles. Another followed beside it. Then another.
My breath caught in my chest.
The ground moved.
Not like an earthquake, but like something breathing beneath my feet.
The ash parted in places, revealing shapes just below the surface. Faces pressed upward, half buried, mouths stretched open in silent screams. Eye sockets filled with powder stared without seeing. Limbs were tangled together, fused at impossible angles, ribs jutting through thin layers of ash and decayed flesh.
This was not soil.
This was not earth.
These grounds were made of corpses.
I stumbled back, my heel sinking deeper, nearly losing my balance. The ash shifted again, swallowing the reaching hand as another burst through nearby, fingers clawing weakly at the surface before collapsing back into stillness.
A low sound drifted through the air. Not a scream. Not a voice. A wet, collective murmur, as if thousands of throats were trying to remember how to breathe.
My stomach twisted violently.
I pressed a hand to my mouth, bile rising, my body screaming at me to run even as my legs locked in place. The smell hit me then, sweet and rotten beneath the ash, layered with iron and something far older. Death that had been here for a very long time.
This was the welcome.
This was the land I had been dragged into.
I forced myself to take a step, then another, lifting my feet slowly as if the ground might grab me again. Ash clung to my boots, heavy and warm, like it remembered being alive.
I swallowed hard, my throat tight.
This was Arkael.
And it was built on what remained of those who never made it back.