Ben’s grin faltered when he saw the shadow pass across Asher’s face. For the first time, the elder leaned back, cane resting across his lap, his eyes narrowing with something that was not mockery, but a quiet seriousness.
"Tell me straight, lad," Ben said, his voice lower now, as if the words themselves might summon something. "Is your universe being invaded?"
Asher shook his head slowly.
Ben exhaled, a sound halfway between relief and resignation. "Then you’re in for an answer." He tapped the cane against the floor once, his weathered eyes gleaming with a sharper light. "Here in the higher realms, war isn’t a question. It’s the water we all breathe."
He leaned forward, voice heavy, words carrying the weight of countless graves. "At one place, no matter what you are—human, elf, dwarf, dragon, vampire—it doesn’t matter. All stand on one side. And on the other... are them."
His lips pressed thin as he spoke the names with distaste. "Eldritch. Abominations. Voidwalkers. Hunger-given-shape. Call them what you will, they’re all the same. Monsters not meant for this cosmos."
He struck the cane lightly against the ground again, eyes locking with Asher’s. "That’s the truth of it. This whole dimension, all its trials and banners—it’s just preparation. Because when the seals break, it won’t be races fighting races. It’ll be everything that lives against everything that should not."
Asher’s crimson eyes glowed faintly in the dim café light, his expression unreadable.
Asher’s crimson gaze didn’t waver, but his tone was even, measured.
"Then tell me more. You’re circling something. Start from the beginning."
Ben sat back, rubbing the top of his cane with a thumb, as if weighing how much to say. Finally, he nodded, almost to himself.
"Aye. You deserve to know, at least a fragment."
He gestured with the cane toward the night sky outside the café’s wide glass wall, where the glow of distant galaxies shimmered faintly. His voice lowered, steady but carrying a gravity that seemed to press against the air.
"Billions of years ago—long before these little factions of Light, Law, or Flame came to be—there were whispers. The most powerful sovereigns of the higher realms felt... something. A resonance. As if this whole layer of existence wasn’t the end, but just a veil."
He leaned forward, his lined face stark under the lantern glow.
"They suspected another place, a plane higher than even these higher dimensions. Not the heavens the priests talk about, not the cycles of samsara the monks chant of—but something other. A seat of creation itself. They called it the Pale Beyond."
The words seemed to hang in the air, heavy, old.
Asher’s eyes narrowed. "And they tried to reach it?"
Ben nodded grimly. "Aye. But that’s where folly began. The ancients didn’t just seek—it’s said they carved. They split open what was never meant to be split. And what bled through..." He stopped, tapping the cane once, slow and deliberate. "...were the first Abominations. Creatures with no order, no law, no cycle. They weren’t meant for our cosmos, and yet, once the door cracked, they entered."
He looked down for a long moment, then back up, his expression hard.
"Most of those who tried to pierce that veil died. The rest were erased so completely, not even their names linger. But the things they let in—the Voidwalkers, the Hungerborn—they stayed. And they learned to gnaw at seals, burrow into the gaps of reality, waiting for the day all barriers fail."
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The café had grown strangely quiet, the murmurs of other cultivators dimming, as though even they could feel the weight of the tale.
Ben leaned closer, voice like iron scraping stone.
"That’s why the higher dimensions are what they are today. These ’trials,’ these so-called factions, the endless wars—they’re not just politics, lad. They’re forge-fires. Testing who will stand when that crack widens again. Because it will. Nothing made by hands or laws holds forever."
He gave a humorless chuckle. "So when I say the war’s not optional... I mean it. Every one of us is already enlisted. The only choice you get is whether you’ll be a pawn, or something that shapes the field itself."
Asher’s crimson eyes flickered with a cold gleam, his fingers drumming once against the table. "And the ones who first pierced the veil... do you know if any of them survived?"
Ben went still at the question. His hand tightened on the cane, and for the first time since they’d met, there was hesitation in his eyes.
"...Some say one did." He said finally, voice barely above a whisper. "But if that’s true, lad... then it’s not just monsters you’ll be facing."
Ben’s words drifted into silence, but the old man’s eyes lingered on Asher, gauging something behind that calm, crimson gaze. Finally, with a slow sigh, he shifted the cane aside and reached into his robe.
"But no one has seen them for ages," Ben muttered, voice gruff. "Most likely, they’re long gone, buried with their gods. Still..." he gave a short chuckle that didn’t reach his eyes, "I wouldn’t bet my last coin on it."
Asher inclined his head slightly, neither agreement nor denial, just a quiet acknowledgment.
"Alright then," Ben said abruptly, straightening with a faint creak of his bones. "I’ve done my end. You’ve heard the truth. The rest is yours to decide. When you’re ready to step out proper, find yourself a faction."
From inside his robe, the elder produced a slim slate of pale crystal, edges humming faintly with restrained energy. He slid it across the table with a dry smile. "A contact card. You reach me through this, and I’ll arrange things. But remember—" he tapped the side of his head with the cane, "—don’t just pick strength. Pick wit. Pick survival."
The crystal shifted, glowing faintly as it bound itself to Asher’s soul signature, registering him as its new owner.
On its surface, faint letters etched themselves, a name and a crest flickering in and out— Ben Alderic, Independent Broker.
Asher turned the card once in his hand, studying its faint glow, before sliding it into his ring’s storage. He gave a single nod.
"Good lad," Ben muttered, leaning back. "Now, go on. I’ve said my piece."
Asher rose, silent as shadow. As he stepped outside the café, the world beyond greeted him with the endless bustle of the higher plane—warriors, scholars, merchants, and monsters alike weaving through broad streets of floating stone and light. Yet behind the noise, his thoughts were already tracing the words Ben had left him with.