Erend stayed seated in his room, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the bare ceiling above him.
The light panels humd softly, steady and indifferent to the turmoil inside his mind.
Minutes passed without him realizing it. His body rested, but his thoughts spiraled.
Another problem. Another threat with the potential to end worlds would co out.
He felt a tightness settle in his chest at the realization. He had just begun to breathe again. Just begun to live without constantly bracing himself for catastrophe. The idea of stepping back into sothing on a world-ending scale made a deep, weary reluctance rise within him.
"I don’t want this again. ugh..."
The thought ca honestly without sha. He was tired. Not physically tired, but he felt tiredness that sank into his bones and lingered there.
Tired of being the one thing that happened to. Tired of being the answer every ti sothing went wrong on a cosmic level.
His fingers curled slowly against his palm. And yet... he knew this feeling well.
Erend sighed through his nose and straightened slightly in his chair. He had felt this weight before so many tis. Every ti, he carried it anyway.
This was the price of his power.
Power never ca without cost. And his power was vast, unnaturally vast. He had accepted that long ago. The responsibility was not sothing he could discard just because he wished for peace for himself.
He endured because he could endure. Because no one else stood where he stood.
"This is what it ans to have this kind of power," he reminded himself.
For a brief mont another thought surfaced. A dangerous thought in its temptation.
His power had long surpassed mortal limits. Now even ti bent to him. Elents answered him. With the System reinforcing his growth, refining him endlessly, it felt as though there truly was no ceiling left in sight.
It made him feel godlike.
The word echoed faintly in his mind.
He frowned and pushed it away at once.
That was how arrogance began. How mistakes were born and he could beco evil by it.
He had seen what happened to those who believed themselves untouchable by the power of the system. Zerathul had been one of them.
Erend closed his eyes briefly and steadied his breathing.
Then the fear crept in.
This ssage hadn’t co from an admin of the system, Veyrun himself. It ca from the Void Architect. The being Veyrun had described in careful, asured terms, as the dark counterpart to the Creator. The origin behind the System’s twisted reflection.
An existence that should not have been reaching out at all.
What did it really want? Why him? Was this manipulation, or necessity? A warning or a hook for him to fall into their trap?
Possibilities unfolded rapidly in his mind, each worse than the last. A trap, test, maybe a proxy war between entities far above him. Or sothing even more insidious, an attempt to use him as a bridge.
His jaw tightened.
Veyrun needed to know. That much felt obvious. But the mont the thought ford the next mont doubt followed.
What if contacting Veyrun was exactly what the Void Architect wanted? What if the connection lingered, hidden, waiting for Erend to open the door wider to the system? What if he beca the pathway for the Void Architect into the System itself?
Erend let out a long, quiet sigh and leaned back again, one hand dragging slowly down his face.
"I don’t know," he murmured to the empty room.
Erend truly didn’t know what the right move was.
He finally chose to push the thoughts aside, again. Turning them over any longer would only grind him down without giving answers.
Whatever the Void Architect intended, it was not sothing he could resolve alone, and certainly not at this mont. But he certainly couldn’t contact Veyrun for now because he still wasn’t sure about the safety.
"I’ll talk to Eccar later," he decided. "We’ll figure this out together. Maybe Aesa will want to help as well."
For now, he needed normalcy again. Sothing solid. Sothing human.
He rose from his chair, straightened his uniform, and left his living quarters.
By the ti he returned to the office, Adrien and Billy were already back at their works, the earlier tension smoothed over by routine. No one pressed him with questions. Work resud as if nothing strange had happened, and Erend was grateful for it.
Hours passed quietly.
When night fell, the weekend finally arrived. The base emptied gradually, personnel filtering out in small groups.
Erend left alongside Adrien and Billy. Their hos were close enough that they shared the ride, the vehicle humming steadily through dimly lit streets.
No one ntioned visions, systems, or architects of reality. Erend didn’t want them to worry about sothing uncertain for now.
They talked about mundane things instead like food, rest, small complaints about schedules and their families. It felt almost unreal how normal it all was for Erend, after a few hours before he was just in contact with one of the most dangerous beings in the world.
Once he was ho, Erend stepped inside and was greeted by familiar warmth. Dinner was already prepared.
After washing himself, he sat with his mother and Arty at the table, listening more than he spoke.
His mother talked about her day. Arty rambled excitedly about sothing trivial in her school, her energy filling the room.
For a while, Erend let himself just be there.
After dinner, Arty goes to her friend’s house to play, her humming noises echoing faintly down the hallway.
Erend retreated to his room and closed the door behind him. The quiet settled again, but this ti it felt steadier.
He sat on the edge of his bed and exhaled slowly.
"Alright... now."
Erend reached inward, not toward the System, but toward a far more familiar presence.
He focused, aligning his thoughts, letting his consciousness extend across the link he shared with another Dragonborn.
He wanted to contact Eccar.
The connection ford smoothly.
—
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