Rix hesitated. He'd spent so much time guarding this information that he found it difficult to form the words to explain. But he'd committed now.

"You were right about me," he said. "What you saw with your bloodline. I don't just have mana. I have something else too. It's called qi, and it's part of something called cultivation. Breaker says it's an old source of power. Older than the System."

Breaker gave a derisive sniff at the mention of the word.

Luna's eyes had grown bright as he spoke. "I knew it! I knew that stuff felt too different."

"I'm sorry I lied to you, especially given how open you've been with me. But we didn't know one another as well then, and it's not something I can just freely advertise. From what Breaker says, it's basically forbidden here."

Luna's face split into a fierce grin. "An ancient energy that could get you killed? And here I thought you were just antisocial."

She hesitated, her smile faltering for just a moment, before her usual sunniness reasserted itself. "Look, I understand. We're all guarding our own secrets. Besides, I know just how you can make it up to me." She looked between Rix and Breaker. "You can teach me to use it too."

"This was not part of our agreement," said Breaker, his voice a low growl.

Rix wasn't surprised. He knew Luna well enough now to realise that the moment he told her, she'd want it for herself. He had a moment of childlike resistance, of wanting to be the only one with a special secret, but he shoved that away. If the situation were reversed, he'd demand the same thing she was. Perhaps this was a way he could pay her back for all the help she'd given him.

"The agreement was that you would trust her," Rix said. "That includes trusting her with your knowledge. Do you really expect her to just sit here while we work together?"

"But she will be starting from scratch. Assuming she can even learn to sense the qi, just that part of the process can take months. I do not have that much time to dedicate to this endeavour! This is why I searched for someone like you, Zao Rixian. Someone who has proved they can walk this path."

"I'm a quick study," said Luna. "But if we run out of time, so be it. I'll take whatever you can give me. You cannot just dangle the words 'forbidden power' in front of me, then take them away."

The older man looked to Rix, who nodded again in affirmation. "She might surprise you. Worst case, she could be a backup?"

Breaker's jaw tightened, and he took several seconds before sighing loudly. "Very well. If that's the way things must go, then so be it." Though his tone was mild, there was something slightly wooden about his smile.

Luna clapped. "Excellent. Now, tell me everything. How many fades will I be able to cut through? What are the techniques like? Ooh, will it let us do the 'turn into a fadeborn' trick?"

Rix held up his hand. "Before we get to all that, I have a more pressing question." He looked to Breaker. "I know I already agreed to help you, but I'd like to understand how exactly I'm supposed to do that. When I asked last time, you didn't really give me an answer. So, with respect, who are you and why do you need my help escaping? And please be straightforward. We need to understand what we've signed up for."

Breaker's expression grew resigned, then he gestured to the ground nearby. "We should sit. A story should be properly told."

Once they were all seated cross-legged in a circle, his eyes flicked to Luna. Again, a moment of tightness crossed his face, but it was gone in an instant. "I suppose introductions are in order. As Zao Rixian knows, I am Breaker-of-Heaven's-Law, Nine-Times-Named, Master-of-Forbidden-Keys, Last-of-the-Starborn."

Luna blinked several times. "That's quite a name."

"It was well earned over a long time," he replied with pride, though it bled away quickly. "You may call me Breaker, as Zao Rixian does, if you wish something shorter."

"I do wish. Pleased to meet you, Breaker. I'm Kai Luna."

Breaker inclined his head.

"As for my story, I will give you the summary, for we have limited time. I came to this planet — which it was back then — some time ago in search of a treasure."

"From where though?" asked Rix. "The way you talk about the System…it implies you're from somewhere else."

"I am," Breaker said. "My home is a place called First Light. There is no System there."

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Despite already knowing that, hearing him say it out loud was startling. Until he'd met the man, Rix hadn't realised there were places without the System.

"What's it like?" he asked.

A hint of nostalgia entered Breaker's expression. "Describing it to people of a less…advanced origin can be challenging, but I will try. Think of a structure larger than any you can imagine. A singular floating megacity living in the orbit of two dying suns. Its outer edge is wrapped in rings of crystal and soul-forged alloys that amplify the ambient qi. At the city's heart, a caged singularity provides ample power, a testament to what true cultivation can achieve."

While Breaker's alien nature had been clear for some time, the specifics filled Rix with a sense of awe. "It sounds amazing," he said.

Breaker nodded. "It is."

"And where you're from, everyone does this 'cultivation'?" Luna asked.

Breaker sniffed. "No. Not everyone. Cultivation is a path of endless trials, and even with the advantages First Light offers, most lack the talent or fortitude to walk it."

"That sounds familiar," said Rix.

"Still, I don't understand how we've never heard of it before," said Luna. "If it's as powerful as you say."

"The universe is infinitely large," Breaker explained, his voice indulgent. "There are many dark corners where the light barely shines."

Rix opened his mouth, but the man cut him off with a gesture. "You've asked for my story, so let me tell it. As I said, I came here in search of something specific. A grand treasure that might help me break through to the next realm of cultivation. This planet was called Aia at the time, and they were in the late stages of an entropy incursion." He gestured around him. "As you can see, they sadly succumbed."

An entropy incursion was the event that turned planets into Fractured Realms. When a planet was attacked, entropy took root at its core, and breaches began forming on the planet, letting fades spill out from the endless deep to wreak havoc on the surface, almost like reverse Fractured Realms. In the Chronicles, those breaches were handled by the planet's strongest Martial Souls. If they were closed in time, the entropy could be cleansed. If not, the planet was lost.

Incursions were also something of a legend in Cloudpiercer. Akane Prime, their planet, had never experienced one. Many of the Chronicles were stories of such battles. Incursions were the blade that hung over the heads of humanity. The reason Martial Souls trained the way they did.

"Could you have helped?" asked Rix.

"I intended to, but the planet was further gone than I realised," Breaker replied. "By the time I understood how close to the precipice they stood, it was too late. They were taken. And I was taken with them."

Despite his arrogance, the man had a strange combination of intensity and theatricality that had Rix completely drawn in. Breaker may not have been a Chronicle hero as Rix thought of them, but his tale was like something plucked straight from legend.

"How are you alive?" asked Rix. "The Chronicles say nobody can survive that."

"Almost nobody," he countered, a hint of bravado creeping into his voice. "But you're right, it is not common. In truth, I don't know exactly what I did. As everything slipped away around me, I desperately reached out and anchored myself to this place somehow. The experience was agony unlike anything I've ever known, but eventually, heavens know how much later, I woke again." His face grew hard. "Though I am not what I once was."

He paused, as though steeling himself. "I am diminished and grow worse the longer I stay here. You have some understanding of entropy, I assume?"

"Some," Rix replied. "But mostly just what I've seen with my own eyes. The way it combines things, merges them."

"My elders spoke of entropy as a hunger in the bones of the world," offered Luna, her voice unusually soft. "They said it starts in the deep places, gnawing at the boundaries between things until they collapse into each other."

Breaker looked like he'd forgotten she was there. "Poetic, but inaccurate," he said with a hint of derision. "It does not hunger, though it does have intent. Entropy is the great unmaker, the force that remembers when all things were one and seeks to restore that pristine unity."

"You make it sound almost beautiful," said Rix.

Breaker blinked several times, his gaze momentarily distant. "I do not mean to. Perhaps I have been here too long. Believe me when I say, I know the terrible effects of entropy better than most. My bond with this place…it is changing me. Though I'm strong by many standards, even I cannot resist its effects forever. It pulls at the threads of me. My cultivation, my physical form. The fraction of my power that remains is tainted. And soon, I will be gone entirely."

His eyes found Rix's. "This is what stops me from simply walking through your portal, and in my current state, I can no longer unbind myself. This is why I need your help. Since the workings that keep me here were formed with qi, it is qi that needs to undo them."

"How long do you have?" asked Rix.

"I do not know exactly, but it is not long."

Rix studied the man for several seconds. "That's a lot to take in." He hesitated, trying to put his uncertainty into words in a way that didn't sound insulting. He mostly failed. "You say this place is changing you, that your power is tainted. That makes you sound…almost dangerous."

Fortunately, a wolfish grin appeared on Breaker's face. "That is a bold line of conversation, Zao Rixian, but perhaps not unwarranted. The question is, dangerous to whom? To my enemies? To you? To the wider cosmos? I would argue that a man such as me is always a danger, but in practical terms no, you have nothing to fear from me. What this realm is doing to me will be undone the moment I depart and can reassert my authority over myself. And when that happens, I will leave you and yours behind. There is nothing on a System planet that holds any interest for me. I simply wish to be free."

It was difficult to weigh such an answer. The man seemed sincere, but how could Rix possibly hope to judge the words of a being so far above himself? Anyone with the power to flit between planets, to survive being taken by entropy, would have desires and agendas Rix couldn't possibly comprehend.

But he also had knowledge Rix desperately needed.

Rix glanced over at Luna, but she merely shrugged. "Ancient power, mysterious master, possible doom...What could go wrong?" The girl seemed to be taking all of this in stride remarkably well.

Rix let out a sharp breath. She was right. This was the sort of situation you just didn't turn down. "Our deal stands. You train us and we help you."

"Wonderful," said Breaker. He raised an eyebrow. "Given that I can practically feel the hunger radiating from the two of you, would you like to begin now?"

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