He continued advancing through the void of nothingness.
Suddenly he felt a faint sigh of a vile presence around him.
The Subrift was not empty.
That realization came to Thanex slowly.
At first, the endless darkness had seemed silent and lifeless—nothing more than a vast ocean of Void currents shifting endlessly around him.
But the longer he climbed toward the distant Rift Gate, the more he began to notice subtle changes in the darkness.
Small disturbances.
Ripples in the Void that did not match his movements.
At first he dismissed them.
The Subrift was unstable by nature. Currents shifted constantly.
Strange distortions appeared and vanished without warning.
But this felt different.
These movements were deliberate.
Controlled.
Something else was here.
Thanex slowed his climb.
The faint glow of the Rift Gate shimmered above him, still some distance away, but close enough now that the darkness around him had begun thinning slightly.
The light revealed more details within the Void.
Fragments of broken stone floated silently around him—remnants of whatever structures had been consumed by the Subrift over countless years.
They must have been divine to have survived over a long period of time.
Pieces of metal.
Shattered relic containers.
Even the faint silhouettes of objects that had long since lost their shape.
All of it drifted in slow, endless motion.
Thanex hovered carefully among the floating debris.
The Void inside him stirred faintly.
Not violently.
Just enough to warn him.
Something moved.
Behind him.
Thanex turned slowly.
At first he saw nothing.
Only darkness.
Then the shadows twisted.
The darkness itself seemed to fold inward, gathering into a single point like smoke being pulled into a funnel.
The Void currents warped around the forming shape.
Thanex felt his instincts flare instantly.
Danger.
The shape grew larger.
Longer.
The mass of shadows began taking form.
A body.
Four legs.
A narrow head.
Then the creature stepped fully out of the surrounding darkness.
It looked like a wolf.
But something about it was horribly wrong.
Its body appeared to be made from fractured pieces of Void matter—jagged fragments of black energy constantly shifting and reforming like shattered glass held together by invisible force.
Thin cracks of faint violet light pulsed between the fragments that made up its body.
Its eyes burned with a dull, lifeless glow.
Not intelligence.
Just hunger.
The creature's form flickered constantly as if it struggled to maintain a stable shape inside the unstable Subrift.
Thanex's mind immediately tried to classify what he was seeing.
It looked like a hollow creature, That was what the abominations that plagued earth were called.
They were creatures birthed by the "taint", the taint was the seed of corruption and darkness that gave rise to such monsters.
The Hollows first entered the human realm through the sudden emergence of the rift gates.
There emergence was instant and violent, as humans lost there lives in billions.
The sudden appearance of the rifts also caused certain humans to awaken special abilities, which they used in combating the hollow beings. These group of humans were called resonants.
Since then, human kind had experienced steady increase in the number of resonants, and over the years humans had been able to fight back against the rift beings.
Thanex had never fought a monster before.
Not directly.
Canaries didn't fight.
They carried supplies.
They followed orders.
And most importantly—
They prayed not to die.
The wolf-like creature lowered its body.
Its fractured claws dug slightly into the flowing Void currents beneath it.
Then it lunged.
The attack was sudden and terrifyingly fast.
Thanex barely reacted in time.
Instinct took over.
He twisted sideways.
His body moved far faster than he expected.
The creature's jaws snapped shut where his neck had been a moment earlier.
The monster slammed directly into the shifting Void currents behind him.
The impact sent ripples through the darkness.
The creature snarled as its unstable body flickered violently.
Thanex drifted backward slightly, stunned by his own movement.
That speed…
His body had never moved like that before.
The Inchor of Chaos pulsed through his veins again.
His heart hammered heavily in his chest.
The creature recovered almost instantly.
It twisted in midair and lunged again.
This time its claws slashed through the darkness toward his chest.
Thanex forced himself to move.
Not panic.
Move.
He pushed against the Void currents and shot upward slightly.
The claws missed him by inches.
The creature passed beneath him before twisting again for another attack.
Thanex looked around quickly.
He needed a weapon.
Fighting barehanded against a Rift creature was suicide.
The floating debris around him suddenly became very important.
Broken stone.
Shattered metal fragments.
Pieces of unknown relic materials.
Then he spotted something useful.
A jagged shard of dark metal floated slowly nearby.
It looked like part of a shattered relic container.
The edges were sharp.
Good enough.
Thanex lunged toward it.
His fingers closed around the fragment.
The metal felt cold in his hand.
Heavy.
Solid.
Improvised weapon.
The creature attacked again.
Its body blurred through the darkness as it lunged toward him with snapping jaws.
Thanex raised the shard instinctively.
The monster's teeth slammed against the metal.
The impact jarred his entire arm.
Thanex nearly lost his grip.
The creature snarled violently.
Its fractured body flickered as Void energy pulsed through the cracks between its shadowy fragments.
Up close, it looked even more unstable.
Like a creature constantly on the verge of falling apart.
Thanex kicked forward with both legs.
The impact shoved the creature backward slightly.
Not much.
But enough to create distance.
His breathing was heavy now.
Not from exhaustion.
From adrenaline.
Fear.
Focus.
This fight was brutal.
And clumsy.
Thanex had no training.
No combat experience.
He had spent his entire life avoiding danger—not confronting it.
But he had something the creature didn't.
Experience with suffering.
Thanex had grown up in the outskirts.
A place where survival required constant awareness.
Constant adaptation.
Every day had been a struggle for food, warmth, and safety.
He had learned long ago how to read danger.
How to wait.
How to exploit mistakes.
The creature circled him slowly now.
Its glowing eyes locked onto his movements.
It lunged again.
Thanex dodged.
Barely.
The creature's claws grazed his shoulder.
Pain flared briefly.
A memory, the sound of rain drops over the orphanage. A scent, the fragrance of rain.
"Chaos", Horror washed over Thanex.
He was losing memories, and had to defend against the creatures attacks.
He staggered backward in fear.
The wound sealed almost instantly.
The Inchor inside him responded.
Healing.
Strengthening.
Thanex noticed something important.
The creature attacked aggressively.
Directly.
It relied on speed and instinct.
But it lacked patience.
Thanex steadied his breathing.
He allowed the creature to circle.
Letting it think he was struggling.
Letting it believe he was slower.
Weaker.
Another lunge.
Thanex dodged again.
Closer this time.
The creature's claws scraped across his side.
Another small wound, another memory.
Another instant repair.
The monster growled.
Frustrated.
It lunged again.
Faster.
More reckless.
Thanex waited.
One second.
Two.
Then the creature overextended.
Its body stretched forward too far as it tried to clamp its jaws around his throat.
That was the moment.
Thanex moved.
Not backward.
Forward.
He surged directly toward the attacking creature.
The monster clearly did not expect that.
Its jaws snapped shut behind him as he slipped past its bite.
Thanex drove the metal shard forward with everything he had.
The jagged weapon pierced directly into the creature's skull.
The impact sent a violent shudder through the monster's body.
For a moment, both of them froze.
The shard had sunk deep into the creature's head.
Cracks of violet energy erupted from the wound.
The creature thrashed wildly.
Its body flickered violently as its unstable structure began collapsing.
Thanex held on tightly.
The monster howled silently.
Then its body began dissolving.
The fractured Void matter that formed its shape broke apart into drifting fragments.
The pieces crumbled into black mist.
Within seconds, the creature was gone.
Nothing remained except fading particles of darkness, then he heard a voice in his mind.
[Slayed a Blighted whisper: Wraith Wolf]
[Void fragments gained]
[Chaos fragments gained]
Torrents of Void and Chaos energies, flowed through his being, he felt significantly stronger.
Thanex floated there in silence.
The metal shard slipped slowly from his fingers, drifting into the endless dark.
His breathing was heavy.
Uneven.
His entire body trembled slightly.
Not from weakness.
From the aftermath.
The adrenaline faded slowly, leaving behind a hollow stillness.
He looked down at his hands.
They were shaking.
Not like before.
Not from fear of dying.
Something else.
Something deeper.
For the first time… they felt dangerous.
Thanex clenched them slowly into fists.
The motion was steady this time.
Controlled.
The Void around him stirred faintly in response.
Not violently.
Not chaotically.
It listened.
A faint pulse of cobalt light flickered beneath his skin.
The Inchor answered.
His heartbeat echoed louder in his chest.
Boom.
Boom.
Stronger than before.
Alive.
Thanex stared into the darkness where the creature had vanished.
No remains.
No body.
Just drifting fragments… already fading.
Gone.
Just like that.
Silence returned to the Subrift.
But it was no longer the same silence.
Before, it had felt empty.
Now—
It felt like a waiting battlefield.
Thanex exhaled slowly.
His gaze hardened.
He understood now.
This place would kill him…
Or make him something else entirely.
His fingers tightened into fists.
No hesitation.
No fear.
Only certainty.
"I survived…"
The words were quiet.
But they carried weight.
Then his eyes lifted toward the distant Rift Gate glowing far above.
And for the first time—
There was something new in them.
Not desperation.
Not fear.
Hunger.
Thanex moved.