Thanex felt it before he saw it.
The currents of the Subrift began changing.
For a long time, the endless darkness had flowed around him like a deep ocean. The Void had guided him upward through its shifting layers, carrying him closer and closer to the distant Rift Gate.
But now the currents behaved differently.
They grew thinner.
Less violent.
Less chaotic.
The oppressive pressure of the Subrift weakened slightly.
Thanex slowed his climb.
Something ahead was changing.
The darkness above him shimmered faintly.
At first he thought it was another distortion of the Void.
But the closer he drifted, the more obvious it became.
A boundary.
The edge of the Subrift.
Thanex pushed upward carefully.
The Void parted smoothly around him as he approached the boundary between worlds.
Then he finally saw it.
Above him shimmered the broken edges of the Rift Gate.
Reality itself looked damaged.
Fractured.
Like a massive sheet of glass that had been cracked but not completely shattered.
Jagged lines of glowing energy spread across the barrier separating the Subrift from the world above.
Each fracture pulsed with faint golden light.
Thanex hovered just beneath the boundary and stared upward.
For the first time since falling into the Subrift, he could see something other than endless darkness.
A sky.
Golden.
Radiant.
Soft clouds drifted slowly through an endless horizon of glowing light.
It was breathtaking.
Beautiful in a way that almost didn't feel real.
Thanex felt his breath catch slightly.
The Divine Realm.
Although he had seen it upon arriving with the cohort, he was too tense to appreciate the beauty.
Rift explorers often spoke about the strange skies surrounding stabilized gates.
Places where the fabric of reality was thinner.
Closer to the divine structures that governed dimensional travel.
But Thanex had never imagined it would look like this.
He had been to several places in the divine realm through the portal gates, all of which were places of relative safety; that is compared to other places in the divine realm.
There was definitely no safe place in this forsaken realm. But this part of the realm was unusually beautiful.
After hours—maybe days—inside endless darkness, the sight of open sky felt surreal.
It almost hurt to look at.
His thoughts drifted for a moment.
Thanex stared through the cracks quietly.
It looked peaceful.
Calm.
Untouched by the horrors of the Subrift below.
A strange bitterness crept into his thoughts.
Funny.
The human world was a very vast place, a place where only the great were adored or missed.
As for the life of a mundane living in the outskirts, no one cared, no one knew.
Their lives were insignificant, feeble, trivial.
He was left to die in the subrift, but that didn't matter, not to the world or the people in it, life went on.
He pushed the thought aside.
Escaping came first.
Reflection could wait.
Thanex reached one hand upward toward the fractured boundary.
The moment his fingers touched the Sub-rifts edge—
Pain exploded through his arm.
Lightning-like energy surged through his skin.
"—!"
Thanex jerked backward instantly.
The violent discharge threw him several meters down into the darkness.
His arm burned intensely.
The pain spread through his shoulder like wildfire.
Thanex gritted his teeth.
The sensation was unlike anything he had felt before.
It wasn't simply heat.
It felt more like rejection.
As if the world above had pushed him away violently.
Thanex stared at his arm.
Thin streaks of glowing energy crawled across his skin before fading slowly.
The wound healed quickly.
The Inchor of Chaos pulsed through his veins, repairing the damage within seconds.
But the message was clear.
The World above the subrift rejected him.
Thanex looked up again at the fractured boundary.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Of course it rejects me.
His mind began piecing things together.
The Void inside him stirred faintly.
Cold.
Endless.
The Inchor of Chaos pulsed beneath his skin.
Wild.
Unstable.
Those powers did not belong to the natural world, nor was it welcomed in the divine realm.
They were contradictions.
Anomalies.
And the Rift boundary was designed to maintain balance between dimensions.
Of course it would resist him.
Thanex hovered silently beneath the fractured barrier.
The golden sky beyond the Rift looked calm and inviting.
Yet an invisible force blocked his path.
He clenched his fists slowly.
So the world above doesn't want me back.
The thought made him laugh quietly under his breath.
A bitter sound.
After everything that had happened…
After Valerius had abandoned him…
After the Subrift had nearly erased him…
Now the exit itself tried to push him away.
Thanex stared upward again.
Then exhaled slowly.
"Too bad," he muttered softly, a jagged smile stretching across his face, "too bad".
He pushed upward again.
His hand reached the Rift boundary once more.
The reaction was immediate.
Crackling energy exploded across the fractured surface.
Lightning-like arcs of golden power surged outward.
They struck his body violently.
Pain shot through his chest and arms.
Thanex gritted his teeth as the energy burned across his skin.
His body trembled under the pressure.
For a moment, it felt like the Rift itself was trying to tear him apart.
The Void inside him reacted instantly.
Darkness surged outward from his body.
It wrapped around his limbs instinctively, forming a protective shell against the golden lightning.
The two forces collided violently.
Void and Rift energy clashed in bursts of crackling light and shadow.
Thanex forced himself upward.
Every centimeter felt like pushing through a wall of fire.
Pain stabbed through his muscles.
The lightning burned across his skin again and again.
His healing struggled to keep up with the damage.
Still he climbed.
His thoughts raced.
So this is the final test.
Thanex's breathing grew heavier.
He looked upward through the fractured surface again.
The golden sky seemed closer now.
Just beyond the cracks in reality.
Freedom.
A normal person would probably turn back.
The pain alone would be enough to break most people.
But Thanex had already fallen through the worst place imaginable.
The Subrift had tried to erase him.
The gods themselves had tried to kill him.
And he had survived all of it.
This?
This was just another obstacle.
Thanex clenched his fists tighter.
"You think this stops me?" he muttered quietly.
The Void inside him surged again.
The darkness wrapped more tightly around his body.
Not violently.
Controlled.
Thanex pushed upward again.
The Rift boundary crackled furiously.
Lightning exploded across his shoulders.
His skin burned.
His muscles trembled.
But he did not fall back this time.
He forced himself higher.
Another few inches.
Another burst of lightning tore across his back.
Thanex gritted his teeth.
His thoughts hardened into pure determination.
I'm not dying down there.
Not after everything.
The Void roared silently around him.
Chaos pulsed violently through his veins.
The two forces stabilized his body against the Rift's rejection.
The barrier still fought him.
But it could no longer push him down easily.
Thanex climbed again.
And again.
The fractured surface of reality trembled under the pressure.
Golden lightning flashed across the cracks like violent storms.
His body burned.
His muscles screamed.
But his grip held firm.
Thanex forced himself higher.
Closer to the golden sky above.
Closer to the world that had tried to abandon him.
Closer to escape.
Yet the Rift continued rejecting him violently.
The barrier crackled with furious energy.
Lightning burned across his skin again.
Still…
Thanex refused to stop.
He climbed anyway.