Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 78: THE NINTH FRAGMENT

Chapter 78: THE NINTH FRAGMENT

Reality fractured around them as Reed’s transformed body—half crystalline, half metallic—shimmered in the dissonant light of the dimensional breach. The Keeper’s assault had torn apart the very fabric of space, leaving their expedition team scattered across multiple probability planes. Only Reed and Shia remained in what could be called the "prime" reality, their forms altered beyond recognition yet somehow more themselves than they had ever been.

"Can you still sense the others?" Reed’s voice resonated with metallic undertones as he addressed Shia, whose liquid-energy form pulsed with arcane power.

Shia’s essence contracted, her consciousness spreading through the dimensional echoes around them. "They live... but scattered. Each exists simultaneously in several realities." Her voice came not from her fluid form but directly into Reed’s mind, their connection transcending physical constraints. "The temple reveals itself."

Before them, the ancient structure materialized as if condensing from cosmic mist—a geometrically impossible edifice of black stone and living crystal. Its architecture defied Euclidean principles, angles connecting where they shouldn’t, corridors that seemed to fold inward upon themselves. The walls pulsed with veins of quicksilver that carried whispers of forgotten languages.

Reed stepped forward, the crystalline components of his body resonating with the temple’s frequencies. "The Keeper wasn’t guarding the fragment. It was guarding from the fragment."

Blood dripped from his human hand where the raw energies had flayed skin from flesh. He paid it no mind; pain had become merely another input of data. The liquid droplets didn’t fall to the ground but orbited his body briefly before Shia absorbed them into her essence.

"The others died to bring us here," she said, referring not to their scattered companions but to the parallel expedition they had witnessed being obliterated. "Their echoes remain trapped between states of existence."

Indeed, as they approached the temple entrance, ghostly afterimages of their doomed alternates shimmered in and out of perception—faces frozen in eternal screams, bodies contorted by dimensional forces never meant to interact with mortal flesh.

The temple entrance yawned before them like a wound in reality itself. Reed placed his transformed hand against the archway, feeling the pulse of ancient mechanisms stirring beneath the surface.

"The key isn’t physical," he said. His crystalline eye—a perfect geometric sapphire where his right eye had once been—perceived overlapping layers of reality. "The puzzle requires simultaneous action across multiple planes of existence."

Shia’s form elongated, tendrils of her liquid consciousness probing the edges of the doorway. "I can reach into three adjacent realities. Perhaps enough to trigger the first mechanism."

"And I can anchor four more through the crystal matrices in my body," Reed replied, the metallic plates on his left arm reconfiguring themselves into complex geometric patterns. "But we need all eight points activated simultaneously."

The temple shuddered, as if aware of their intentions. From deep within its impossible architecture came a low, grinding sound—like the movement of gears that hadn’t turned in millennia.

"The fragments," Shia whispered. "The eight fragments we’ve collected—they’re not just artifacts of power."

Reed nodded grimly. "They’re keys. Dimensional anchors. The ancients split the ninth fragment into eight pieces to prevent exactly what we’re attempting."

With practiced movements, Reed withdrew the eight fragments they had collected across continents and realities—each one having cost lives, sanity, and humanity to obtain. In their raw form, they appeared as jagged shards of impossibly dense material, each pulsing with its own rhythm.

Reed positioned the fragments in a complex three-dimensional array around the doorway. As each found its place, it levitated, suspended by forces beyond conventional physics.

"Our mental link," Reed said. "We must use it to coordinate across the dimensional boundaries."

Their consciousnesses intertwined as they had done countless times before—but this time, Reed felt Shia’s essence penetrate deeper than ever, infiltrating the crystalline structures that had replaced portions of his brain. Their thoughts merged into a single complex entity existing simultaneously across multiple planes.

We are one and many, their unified consciousness acknowledged.

Through this expanded awareness, they reached into parallel realities where echoes of themselves stood before identical temples. With precise synchronization, they activated the eight fragments in perfect sequence.

The temple’s entrance dissolved, not opening so much as ceasing to be separate from them. They passed through without moving, finding themselves within a vast central chamber whose dimensions seemed to fluctuate with each heartbeat.

At the center floated what appeared to be a tear in the fabric of existence itself—a vertical fracture through which emanated light that was somehow both blinding and absolute darkness.

"The Ninth Fragment is no object," Reed said, his voice barely above a whisper. "It’s a breach. A gateway."

Shia’s form rippled with revelation. "A passage to the realm of the Watchers themselves."

The entities they had come to know as the Watchers—ancient, incomprehensible beings who manipulated reality from beyond dimensional barriers—had orchestrated conflicts throughout history, using mortal civilizations as pieces in cosmic games beyond understanding.

"This is why the Kingdom of Aetheria fell," Reed said, memories of ancient texts flooding his enhanced mind. "They came too close to this truth. The Watchers didn’t destroy them—they destroyed themselves trying to harness this power."

The fracture pulsed, widening slightly. Through it, they glimpsed impossible geometries and entities composed of concepts rather than matter. The sight alone caused blood to seep from the remaining human portions of Reed’s face.

"We were meant to find this," Shia said, her liquid form solidifying slightly as she struggled to maintain coherence near the breach. "But not to harness it as a weapon as we planned."

Reed’s metallic hand clenched into a fist. "No. The Watchers have manipulated us, just as they’ve manipulated everything. They want us to open this gateway fully."

The realization crashed through their shared consciousness: they weren’t the hunters but the prey. The expedition, the kingdom’s fall, even their transformations—all orchestrated to bring them to this point, to use them as the final keys.

"Then we use their plan against them," Reed said, the crystalline structures in his body glowing with intensity. "The eight fragments aren’t just keys—they’re anchors. We can stabilize the gateway."

"To what end?" Shia’s voice resonated with doubt.

"Not to allow the Watchers passage to our reality," Reed said, a plan forming in his transformed mind, "but to create a path for us into theirs."

The audacity of the plan hung between them. No mortal had ever entered the Watchers’ realm and returned. It wasn’t merely death they risked, but complete erasure from the cosmic equation.

"The fragments must be arranged precisely," Reed continued, his crystalline eye perceiving multidimensional calculations invisible to normal perception. "We create not an open door but a directed weapon—a spear thrust into the heart of their domain."

They worked with desperate precision, repositioning the eight fragments around the fracture. Each placement required calculations across multiple realities, their enhanced minds straining to comprehend forces that defied conventional physics.

The temple began to shake violently. Reality itself seemed to protest their actions, space-time buckling around them.

"They know," Shia hissed, her form fluctuating wildly. "The Watchers perceive our intentions."

Through the widening crack, massive appendages of pure concept reached toward them—not physical tentacles but protrusions of will and dimensional force. Where they touched the temple walls, matter simply ceased to exist.

"Almost complete," Reed grunted, blood flowing freely from his nose and ears as the pressure of working against cosmic forces took its toll on his remaining humanity.

The final fragment—a shard of crystallized reality that had once been the heart of an ancient king—found its place in the complex array. The eight fragments began to rotate around the fracture, their movement describing complex patterns that human mathematics had no equations to express.

"Now!" Reed shouted, extending both arms—one human, one metallic—toward the breach.

Shia’s liquid form merged with his, their consciousnesses achieving perfect unity. Together, they channeled power through the arrangement of fragments, not to close the breach but to direct it.

The fracture contracted, its wild energies suddenly focused into a concentrated beam that shot outward—not into their reality, but into the realm beyond. They had created not a doorway but a weapon, using the Watchers’ own gateway against them.

A scream resonated through dimensions—not a sound but a fundamental disruption of existence itself. The breach began to pulse erratically, the fragments spinning faster around it.

"It’s working," Reed whispered, awe and terror mingling in his voice. "We’ve struck at them in their own realm."

But as the words left his lips, the breach suddenly expanded. The carefully directed energy inverted, the weapon they had crafted turning back upon itself. The fragments’ rotation became chaotic, their carefully calculated arrangement collapsing.

From beyond the breach emerged a single entity—neither tentacle nor appendage, but a perfect geometric shape that somehow contained all shapes. It hung in the air before them, pulsing with power that made reality itself shrink away.

"FASCINATING," it communicated, not in words but in concepts that burned themselves into Reed and Shia’s merged consciousness.

The entity—unmistakably one of the Watchers themselves—expanded, filling the chamber with its impossible presence.

"YOU HAVE EXCEEDED PARAMETERS. RECALCULATION REQUIRED."

Reed and Shia tried to withdraw, to separate their merged consciousness, but found themselves frozen in place—not physically restrained but locked in a single moment of time.

"THE EXPERIMENT CONTINUES," the Watcher communicated. "BUT WITH ADJUSTED VARIABLES."

The entity reached toward them with an appendage that existed in dimensions beyond human perception.

And then, everything changed.

The temple, the fragments, even their transformed bodies—all suddenly rendered meaningless as a fundamental shift occurred at the most basic level of existence.

Reality reset.

Reed blinked, finding himself standing in the royal court of Aetheria—the kingdom that had fallen centuries ago. His body was fully human. Beside him stood Shia, also untransformed, dressed in the ceremonial robes of a court mage.

King Aldreon—the ruler whose death had initiated their quest—sat alive upon his throne, studying them with curious eyes.

"Are you well, Lord Reed?" the king asked. "You seemed lost in thought for a moment."

Reed opened his mouth to speak, but found himself saying words he had not intended: "Merely contemplating the journey ahead, Your Majesty. The eight fragments await."

But deep within his mind, beyond the reach of whatever force had reset their reality, a small spark of true consciousness remained. He felt Shia’s presence there too, their mental link persisting beyond the cosmic manipulation.

And they both recognized the terrible truth: they had never escaped the Watchers’ game. They had simply advanced to the next level.

The quest would begin again. But this time, with the faintest memory of what awaited at its end.