Dread Vault Space Lock, Stage -6 Planet Korrvhex
The planet floated in the darkest stretch of the galaxy, sealed in a pocket of warped reality known as a Space Lock, where even light moved slower and sound held no meaning.
The planet itself was dead. No wind, no water, no motion.
Only a hollow rock, buried in spatial chains crafted by ancient Primordials, forged to imprison what should never rise again.
At its heart lay The Dread Vault, a prison so deep it pierced the planet’s mantle. Buried in its final cell—chained by reality, time, and space—sat a man.
His name was Varnak Y’rul, once a General of the Forgotten Suns. Now, just a prisoner at the edge of the end.
Varnak didn’t look human.
His skin was dark blue. It cracked at the edges with faint, glowing lines running beneath—traces of the Sunfire still locked in his body.
His eyes were a dull gold, dimmed by unknown years of isolation inside Space Lock where time held no meaning.
Sharp black horns curved back from his temples, partially broken. His once-regal armor had rotted, reduced to rusted scraps clinging to his gaunt form.
He sat slumped against the cold emptiness, bound by thick bands of time-lock metal that shimmered with a faint blue glow.
His wrists were crushed into the floor, legs pinned, head hung low.
“One million years of war,” he muttered, voice dry like stone scraping stone. “And we lost. Just like that.”
Silence answered him.
He looked up, slow and tired.
“They’ll execute us today. All of us. The traitors… the heroes… doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
His voice cracked at the end. He didn’t cry. There were no tears left in him.
“Why did this happen?” he whispered. “Where did it all go wrong…?”
A sudden ripple moved through the air.
It was subtle, and barely noticeable.
But in this dead, sealed prison, even the smallest tremor felt like thunder.
Then it happened.
Space folded inward, twisted like a torn cloth—and from that tear stepped in a boy.
He was young. Maybe sixteen by appearance.
He had short black hair, lazy silver eyes, hands in his pockets.
A sheathed katana hung from his back, and his school uniform looked so out of place it made the entire vault seem like a joke.
He had a carefree smile, almost mocking, like someone who showed up to a funeral with party balloons.
In other words, he looked suspicious as hell.
Varnak stared at him, unblinking.
“…Kane… Williams…? Why are you here? No… how did you even get here…”
The boy didn’t respond immediately. He looked around casually, like inspecting a junkyard.
“This place is gloomier than I expected,” Kane said with a grin. “They really buried you down here.”
“Kane,” Varnak said again, slowly. “This is not a place for you. Leave. Before they find you—”
“I’m here to help,” Kane interrupted, already kneeling beside one of the seals. “Took me a while to locate this prison, by the way. I thought it’d be in some flashy fortress, not in a cracked potato in a dead Stage 6 collasping planet.”
Varnak shook his head. “Don’t waste your effort on me. I’m finished. Instead…. Please, go to our leader. They’re going to publicly execute him soon. The last of our cause dies with him.”
He paused, eyes suddenly sharper.
“Maybe… if it’s you. The Demon of Sword. He might still—”
Kane waved a hand lazily, cutting him off. “Nah. Don’t stress it. Zeus is already there.”
Varnak froze.
“…God Killer Zeus?”
“Yup. Him.” Kane nodded, standing up again and dusting his hands.
“But… he had left—” Varnak’s breath caught in his throat.
“He did,” Kane said, finishing the sentence. “But, he’s back now, and he returned with what he had wanted.”
Varnak didn’t speak. His mouth hung slightly open, eyes locked on the floor as if trying to reprocess time itself.
Kane smiled wider, showing a bit of teeth this time.
“With him here,” he said, resting his hand casually on the hilt of his katana, “we haven’t lost the war now.”
He tapped the tip of his boot against the chain-lock holding Varnak’s feet.
“Come on, old man. You’ll want to stand for what comes next.”
…
Neo POV
Neo entered below the planet’s surface, following Yaleth’s directions.
It was a void of shattered landmasses and floating stone debris. Suspended in the middle of this chaos was a city that hovered in space, bound by anchors of pulsing gravity that twisted around its perimeter like ropes trying to hold a collapsing structure.
And in the center of the city, rising like a monument, was a floating ‘stele’, covered in invisible runes that bent light without glowing.
“That,” Yaleth said, pointing. “That’s my [Mind].”
Neo stared at it for a moment.
He stepped forward.
Darkness surged around him. It spread like a tide, coating everything. The city, the stone debris, the air. The stele was engulfed entirely.
There was silence. Then stillness.
Then nothing.
Neo frowned.
“…It’s empty.”
Yaleth blinked. “What?”
Neo didn’t repeat himself.
“That can’t be right,” Yaleth said. “Don’t joke like that. There’s no way it’s empty. I stored millennia of research and memories in there.”
Neo didn’t respond. He just turned to look at him with a serious expression.
Yaleth stopped.
He didn’t say another word for a few seconds.
Then his face changed. His expression twisted, his eyes widened, and his skin grew visibly paler.
“Who stole my research?” His voice was more confused than angry.
He didn’t even mention his memories, only the research. That was what mattered to him.
It wasn’t just the data. It was his life’s work. The sum of every theory, every test, every failure and breakthrough he had compiled since the First Collapse. Losing it was like losing his own hands.
Then, without warning, the now empty space flickered—where the stele was before Neo devoured it.
In its place, a projection appeared.
It showed a man.
He looked human, but there was a tilt to his pupils, and his ears were angled differently. He had blue black hair, slicked back, and a cold, practiced smile.
He raised a hand in a casual wave. “Thanks for the research.”
Yaleth stared, frozen.
Then his voice exploded.
“Kevin, you bastard! How dare you steal my research! No—how did you even access my [mind]?! That’s locked! That’s my space!”
As if the hologram had been programmed to respond, the man’s face twitched into a grin.
“Your angel, Velkaria, gave it to me. In return, I told her your location.”
Yaleth didn’t say anything at first. His mouth opened slightly. Then shut. Then opened again.
His aura flared.
“That traitorous—! That winged eyeball—! I fed her! I saved her from being disintegrated by a chaos storm! And she sold me out?! For what?!”
Neo didn’t speak.
But his mind churned to fit the pieces together.
The Velkaria with him wasn’t the one Kevin was talking about.
Kevin spoke of Velkaria who destroyed the entire Hephaestus God Clan.
He sensed her before, far in the distance, beside his brother. The two seemed to have been in an contract. Neo didn’t question his brother why he was with the one who killed their parents.
Knowing his brother and his temper, he wouldn’t stay with Velkaria unless he had an important reason.
Long story short, Neo was with the Velkaria who attacked earth during the Age of Gods.
The Velkaria Kevin talked about was with his brother.
The hologram ended, dissolving into faint light and then fading completely.
Yaleth turned to Neo.
“We’re going to his planet. Now. I’m going to burn his house down, throw his lab into a black hole, and shove his own data cubes up his—”
“Later,” Neo said.
Yaleth froze, then his voice boomed.
“Later? Later?! Neo, that man stole everything! Years of research! He has my notes on Demon! My true soul-weapon schematics! My equations! The theory on negative-matter incantation! Do you know how long it took me to build that!?”
“I know,” Neo said calmly. “But first, I need to do something else.”
“What could possibly be more important than retrieving stolen research from a backstabbing psychopath who—?”
“I’m going to start building my Path of Ascension,” Neo interrupted.
His tone wasn’t sharp, but it didn’t leave room for debate either.
“We’re going to meet Kevin soon, and he seems decently strong.”
Neo’s gaze turned toward the fading light where the hologram had been.
“I need to be at my best when I meet him.”
By Neo’s calculation, his trait would evolve soon too. It would give him a major qualitative boost in strength.
Unfortunately, he had no idea how close ‘soon’ was since he couldn’t access the status screen.
Yaleth was still pacing, muttering something about encrypted barriers and dimensional firewalls. Neo let him rant. He needed to focus.
He had enough of always being the weaker one.
This time, he would make sure he was decently strong, if not stronger than his opponent, before he went to meet them, and if he couldn’t do that, then he would prepare countermeasures that would deter his opponents from attacking him.
