For a time, Mark drifted. He didn't know how he'd gotten here—or where here even was. Darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and silent. He wandered, weightless and untethered, hoping for something to make sense, but it never did. The only saving grace was that he was sure he wasn't dead…yet.

This wasn't the grey spirit world he knew, nor his mental space, but something in between. Sadly, any attempt to figure out what was going on around him failed.

For one, his Mana would not respond to him, and his Prana was leaking out of him before he could make any request of it. Instinctively, he could tell that this was not his strength. It was coming from somewhere else, bringing with it a warm sensation of home.

It grounded Mark and was the only thing keeping him sane as the void around him seemed to call for him. The mix of energy was a potent anchor, and while it stopped him from fading completely, it wasn't able to stop the leaking of his strength.

As time went on, Mark's scattered thoughts became clearer. Enough that he could begin searching for the problem, but as he quickly found out, this was incredibly difficult. It felt similar to diagnosing a problem without the use of his sight.

Fundamentally, Mark knew he'd broken something–he'd felt it–but as for how to fix it without the use of his Prana, he was in the dark.

Instinctively, he knew he couldn't use anyone else's, or he would have already tried to seal the rift.

No, this had to be his Prana alone that got him out of this situation, but therein lay the problem.

Mark's Prana was unable to gather in any meaningful way.

After some testing, her discovered he could still manipulate his core in this state, but that wasn't the saving grace he was hoping it was.

Moving the points of Prana over his chest had been his first idea, but that hadn't seemed to help. He tried to patch up the wound in every way imaginable, but nothing was working. Mark had even attempted to find his Corruption in this place, but it seemed as if there wasn't a shred of the foul stuff nearby.

After trying everything he could think of, he was left drifting amongst a sea of Prana, but no way to use it.

Mark had no idea how much time had passed, but during all of this, the flow of life entering his space never ceased.

With nothing better to do, Mark watched the incoming energy with growing interest.

It drifted toward him like a glowing tide, and as it passed, he felt that usual warmth radiating from its, gentle but deliberate.

However there was something more this time. As though something else woven into its essence, something that stirred echoes in him.

Curiosity. Concern. Hope.

With narrowed eyes, he focused, tilting his head as though he might hear more clearly. From above, the energy swirled, thick with sorrow and concern—for him. It carried countless whispers, some soft as sighs, others distinct and urgent. "Wake up." "Heal yourself." "Open your eyes, Mark."

The voices rose and fell like the overlapping harmonies of a vast, unseen choir—each distinct, yet part of a greater whole. A commanding, authoritative voice rang out, firm and unyielding. Then came a soothing, motherly tone. A curious soul murmured with wonder, followed by the resolute presence of a staunch believer. A young friend's voice trembled with hope. And there, faint but steady, was the warmth of a mother-to-be.

Mark couldn't grasp their exact words, but he felt their intentions, and that was enough.

Every now and then, a sudden flash of brilliance flared within the tide—pure and unmistakable—cutting through the noise like a beacon in the dark.

"Mark, we're here, come home," said a powerful, pleading voice.

It was followed shortly by another, strong and challenging.

"Open your eyes, after everything you've done, you're not going down like this."

Mark wanted to answer them, but their energies were fleeting. He tried to cling to them, but they slipped through his fingers like water.

As quickly as they came, they left, but Mark kept an eye out for them in particular and when they came around again, he followed them, getting closer to the point at which his energy was leaking out.

It stood in front of him like a titanic wound in the skies, creating a large gap that drew the Prana from his world. The sheer size dwarfed everything around him. Mark looked up at it and instinctively knew, if he took a step beyond this point, he would die.

Watching the font of energies rush out into the void beyond, Mark felt a great sense of loss; however, giving up was never in his nature.

Mark sat down at the edge of his world and studied the rift. It neither grew nor shrank, so there was that at least, but if things were to go on like this, he would never heal.

He needed information, but nothing was working. His skills weren't responding at this moment in time, but he needed to do something.

That was when Mark snorted to himself.

Since when had skills been the be-all-end-all? In the early days of the fall, he had achieved many things without the need of a skill, so what was stopping him now?

Mark held out his hand and called to the surrounding Prana. He couldn't use it to heal, and even gathering it like this was like pulling something from an event horizon, but still.

What he wanted was not far from what was already happening.

The Prana would still leave–he couldn't stop that- but this time Mark gave it a task.

Observe and report back.

Of course, this was the concept his [Prana pulse] was based on, with one difference.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Normally, the Prana was able to return with the information Mark needed, but he knew once it crossed that threshold, his energy was not coming back.

So instead, Mark let the Prana slip from his grasp, whispering for it tell him what it saw, and to pass the information down the line back to him.

The best way to describe this was like a game of broken telephone. The energy that left first passed what it saw back toward the Mark through the remaining Prana.

Now Mana was far better suited to this task, but Mark's control had developed rapidly over these last weeks.

His relationship to the energy was far more advanced than it had ever been before, and with it, Mark began to get a picture of the void beyond through the eyes of Prana.

After a time of nothingness, Mark started to detect waves of lines, or threads. They were familiar in some sense, and alien in others. But among all of them was pure chaos. It was nothing like a neat living being.

This was discarded fragments of what once was, and what could one day be.

It was as overwhelming as using Mana, but for different reasons.

Equal parts beautiful and horrifying, it felt like sifting through an ocean of impossibilities waiting to take form. Time lost meaning until Mark came upon an island, or more accurately, an entity. It felt like suddenly finding dry land where things made sense.

What Mark had found there was a tapestry, and not only that, it was familiar.

In most cases, the countless weaving threads would make it impossible to memorize each entity, but this one was close to Mark's heart.

He had long since memorized its main threads.

The duality in it was not something one saw every day. At its core was a being of ravenous knowledge.

There was only one person this could be.

Sam was here, or at least nearby.

That realization was enough for Mark.

If he could feel Sam in this beyond, then he wasn't alone.

Perhaps it was only a matter of how he was seeing her.

He explored her tapestry in a way he'd never been able to before.

And it was at this point that something else began to make sense to him. Rather than a flat two-dimensional tapestry. What he was looking at was just a projection of the real thing, or one facet of it.

The longer Mark studied it, the more the blinders fell away. Until he was looking at a perfect sphere of animated threads, all traveling in different directions, only for them to rejoin together perfectly. The change took his breath away, but that was not all.

When the shift happened, more detail came into sight. That sphere of moving threats was housing something. Mark could just make out a vibrant ball of light peeking through the many gaps in the threads.

It felt like a brilliant star covered by a Dyson sphere.

Mark knew right away what that was. It was not hard to make the leap.

A soul.

If the surrounding tapestry was the body, then this star was the spirit within.

Mark stared at it, at a loss for words.

This was what he'd seen in the grey world, only his sight had thrown his guess off. The marionettes must be tied to a person's tapestry, and inside that was the soul.

Mark had inadvertently attacked the high priest Lukcus's soul. Thinking back to his ruptured marionette, it was clear that he'd extended beyond the limits of his body to strike.

It made sense, what could touch the intangible if not for another soul? However, from the looks of things, his tapestry had not been able to handle the strain.

What did this mean? If Mark was able to attack the soul directly, who could block that? He hadn't intended to kill Lukcus, but look at what had happened. What if he hurt someone else?

The implications were enormous, but Mark took a steadying breath. He needed to solve the problem in front of him.

For now, Mark forced the thought aside. A cord of Prana still connected him to Sam's tapestry, but movement caught his attention. Far off in the sea of chaos, he saw more tapestries approaching. The centermost one was rough and frayed, as if some parts had been forcibly replaced.

He smiled as he recognized Jonathan, but the two presences beside him were unfamiliar.

As Mark focused, he realized he was perceiving a small room, yet so much existed between the spaces that it overwhelmed him. Though claustrophobically close, everything still felt vast, like infinite space tucked into a teacup.

For a while, the four surrounding tapestries hovered in place. Though Mark couldn't hear them, he was certain they were discussing something.

When Jonathan moved closer, Mark sensed action coming. He severed the connection to Sam and returned to his own inner world.

Now he saw the space for what it truly was—his body, yes, but more than that. It was his Prana center. He must have ended up here when he suffered that injury.

People moved around him in the real world, but his attention was internal. He expected to feel Jonathan's Prana merging with his—and he did—but not how he was used to. Mana and Aura joined as well, strange but not unwelcome. Right now, his awareness only dealt in Prana, yet the other energies brushed against the edges of his perception.

Then Sam's energy rushed in, too. Finally, a third presence began pouring Prana straight into his core—more than he'd ever held. The sheer volume was astounding. Only a few healers would have this amount a their disposal.

He didn't understand their plan until Jonathan's Aura began to heat up.

It surged to blistering temperatures. Mark broke into a sweat. Then, to his surprise, Sam's Mana followed suit, aligning with the rising heat. What in the world were they doing?! It was his first thought, but after a moment, he realized they wouldn't do anything to harm him if they could help it, so Mark decided to trust them and see where this went.

The moment Prana began to resonate with the other two energies, it hit him— this felt eerily similar to saturating metal.

They were forging him.

Before, he'd helped channel this technique into weapons—but now, he was on the anvil.

It was confusing at first, but then the pressure arrived. His Aura and Mana braced from the outside while his borrowed Prana began to push from within, equalizing the pressure.

One external, the internal.

To Mark's surprise, they had built a temporary blockade. His Prana began regenerating, albeit slowly. But it was enough. Joy sparked in Mark—he could work with this.

Calling to his Prana, he gathered every thread he could. But a new problem rose: the incoming Prana wasn't able to contend with Sam and Jonathan's energy. The imbalance caused the structure to tremble. He needed to align the flows or risk rupture again.

He couldn't warn them—no link, no Mana—so he got creative.

Reinforcing the incoming Prana, Mark bumped against the Mana and Aura, giving them enough pressure to feel his intent. He repeated it until they adjusted.

The pressure softened. They'd understood.

He let out a grunt of satisfaction and continued gathering Prana. The 'wall' held until he felt the flow of Prana weaken. Just before they gave out, Mark took control.

He guided his newly acquired Prana to the edges of the internal fracture and began to stitch them shut with deliberate care. The crack shrank to half its size before his energy failed again.

The energy leak had slowed, but his natural regeneration could finally keep up.

Mark exhaled deeply. He could feel the control of his Mana core slowly returning. The inner world faded as clarity returned. Sensation flowed back into his limbs, and his consciousness slowly rose out of the depths.

When Mark opened his eyes, he found himself lying in a private room at the clinic.

Sam and Jonathan were on either side of him. He gave them a grateful smile. Willow stood at the foot of the bed. Then there was the fourth person—a woman he only half remembered.

She was from the inscriptionists. They'd met once before.

Before he could speak, pain lanced through his chest. He hissed in shock.

Looking down, he saw that his gown had been opened. A jagged silver scar ran across his chest, and worse, dozens of staples had been hammered into his flesh. They still glowed red, like fresh metal from a forge.

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