The Riftborn Hunter

The air hung heavy.

Aiden's breath was steady, controlled—but beneath the surface, his pulse was a hammering war drum.

The battlefield behind them had vanished, the war silenced, but the Rift had not let them go.

And they were no longer just intruders. They were being tested.

Aiden clenched his jaw.

They were keeping them here.

Aiden exhaled. "They're waiting for something."

Silas shot him a sharp look. "Yeah? Waiting for what?"

Aiden's gaze lifted, scanning past the phantom ranks.

And then he saw it.

The shadow had moved.

It stood at the heart of the Rift.

Waiting.

The phantoms parted as it approached.

Jenna stiffened beside him. "No way—"

Marko muttered something under his breath. A curse. A prayer.

Because the shadow wasn't alone.

More figures emerged.

Some flickering like the phantoms. Others shifting wrong, their outlines blurred, as if the Rift itself was trying—and failing—to keep them stable.

Aiden's grip on his knife tightened. His golden irises flickered, the static hum of awareness pressing against his skull.

A pulse slammed through his mind.

[RECOGNITION EVENT DETECTED.]

[UNKNOWN ENTITY ACKNOWLEDGES CANDIDATE.]

[CALIBRATION IN PROGRESS…]

[ERROR: SYSTEM OVERRIDE.]

[EXTERNAL INFLUENCE PRESENT.]

Aiden's breath caught.

This was the System reacting.

Something had acknowledged him.

And the System didn't know how to process it.

Aiden inhaled sharply. His pulse thundered.

The shadow turned toward him.

Aiden's vision shifted.

The world around him broke apart into golden light.

Three futures unraveled before his eyes.

In the first, lightning surged through his body as he lunged.

His knife pierced a phantom's form, golden arcs igniting through its flickering body. It convulsed, struggling—but the moment it collapsed—

The others moved.

Aiden saw Jenna disappear first. Then Silas. Then Marko.

The Rift swallowed them whole. No screams. No remains.

Failure.

 The second, a desperate sprint. He grabbed Jenna, yelled for the others to move.

They ran.

The phantoms didn't chase.

They didn't need to.

Because one by one, his team vanished.

Dragged into the Rift's depths.

By the time Aiden reached the exit—he was alone.

Failure.

In the third future

His golden gaze locked onto the shadow.

And in that moment—

It moved.

Not with hostility, or aggression.

It stepped forward.

The phantoms didn't react.

Aiden understood.

He exhaled. His grip loosened on his blade.

And he stepped forward.

One step.

Then another.

Silas swore under his breath. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jenna didn't move, but her hand tightened around her pistol. "Aiden—"

The moment his foot touched the ground past the phantom line—

The shadow stopped.

The air shifted.

Aiden felt it before he heard it.

A whisper, not through sound, but through thought.

The world dimmed around him, the Rift's presence closing in—

And then—

It spoke.

The world shrank.

The Rift's vast expanse—the jagged peaks, the silver rivers, the fractured sky—faded away, as if existence itself had been peeled back.

Aiden stood at the center of something deeper than shadow.

And then, a voice—not from the air, not from sound, but from the Rift itself—spoke.

"Seer."

Aiden's breath slowed. His fingers twitched at his side, his muscles coiled—but he did not move.

This wasn't like the System. It wasn't a cold notification or a preprogrammed script.

This was something else.

"You have awakened, but you are not yet whole."

A shudder crawled down his spine.

He had been called that before. Seer.

Back in the S-Rank Rift.

Back when he should have died.

Aiden forced his voice steady. "What are you?"

The shadow didn't answer.

Instead—

The Rift shifted.

And Aiden's vision fractured.

Aiden's golden irises burned as the System jolted violently through his skull.

[SYSTEM ALERT.]

[EXTERNAL INFLUENCE DETECTED.]

[RECOGNITION EVENT CONFIRMED.]

Something was overriding it.

[CANDIDATE SYNCHRONIZATION RATE: 10%]

[VISIONARY CODE: PARTIAL ACTIVATION.]

[SEEK THE SOURCE.]

Aiden inhaled sharply as a rush of raw understanding slammed through his mind.

His Visionary Code had surged again.

It should have been overwhelming, like before. The first time had nearly torn him apart.

But now?

The golden light that once flickered unpredictably at the edges of his sight now flowed smoothly.

Like his mind wasn't fighting against it anymore.

Like it had always been there.

The System wasn't in control of his growth.

But maybe neither was he.

The shadow took another step forward.

The phantoms did not react.

They weren't guarding it.

They were waiting.

Aiden's pulse thundered. This wasn't a confrontation.

It was something else.

A test.

The voice spoke again, the weight of it pressing against reality.

"What do you see?"

Aiden's mind sharpened.

His gaze flickered through the Rift, and golden threads of possible futures stretched before him.

He saw the same three paths unfold again.

One— he fights. They die.

Two— he runs. He is left alone.

Three— he listens.

Aiden clenched his jaw.

The first two were traps.

The third…

He exhaled, his voice steady.

"I see a choice."

The shadow tilted its head in acknowledgment.

"Good."

A pause.

Then the voice shifted.

Lower. Closer. More real.

"Then choose."

Aiden took a step forward.

And the Rift changed.

The ground beneath Aiden cracked—not from destruction, but as if something beneath it had awakened.

The air became heavier. The world around him warped.

Jenna stepped forward, alarm flaring in her voice.

"Aiden—"

Her tone was sharp, uncertain.

Because they had all heard it.

The shadow had spoken.

And Aiden had answered.

Silas's grip on his crossbow was white-knuckled. Marko's stance had shifted—less certain, more wary. Vance's hand hovered over his rifle, his breath too slow, too measured.

They weren't just questioning what was happening.

They were afraid.

Aiden's golden irises burned as the System surged to life.

[SYSTEM UPDATE]

[CALIBRATION COMPLETE.]

[VISIONARY CODE: PARTIAL SYNCHRONIZATION.]

[NEW TRAIT UNLOCKED: SHADOWBOUND.]

[STATUS: UNSTABLE—INCOMPLETE.]

[AWAITING FURTHER INTEGRATION.]

Aiden froze.

The phantoms standing beside the shadow turned.

Not toward the Rift.

Toward him.

Jenna's breath hitched.

"Aiden, what the hell is—"

He barely heard her.

Because his vision flared.

For the briefest moment—

He felt it.

A connection.

He reached for it, his golden irises flickering—

And something responded.

One of the phantoms flickered. Its shifting form froze in place—then, slowly, it knelt.

Silas staggered back. "No. No, that's not—"

Marko muttered something under his breath, something that sounded like a prayer.

Jenna's grip on her pistol tightened, her gaze flicking between Aiden and the creature.

"Aiden… what did you just do?"

Aiden barely breathed.

Because this wasn't just his power increasing.

It was being given to him.

Or worse—

It had always been there.

The shadow tilted its head once more.

"You are not yet whole, Seer."

The Rift pulsed.

And the phantoms vanished.

The path ahead—the way out—was open.

But Aiden knew.

This wasn't an escape.

This was an exit only because it had let him go.

As Aiden stepped forward, something shifted in the Rift's depths.

Something beyond the shadow.

Beyond the phantoms.

Something waiting.

And as he crossed the threshold—

It saw him.