Rune spent the next few days in the makeshift sanctuary of the office building, letting his body heal and his mind process the immense changes within him. The raw power of Vorn and a sliver of the Eternal Gate's chaotic energy had integrated into his being, turning his Assimilation ability into something far more profound. He now felt a deeper resonance with the world's underlying energies, a subtle hum beneath the surface of the Ruined City.
His revenge was complete, but a new, more fundamental hunger stirred within him: a hunger for knowledge. Vorn's mad ramblings about the Eternal Gate, the "blood vessels of the world," and the "recreation of reality" had ignited a burning desire to understand. What exactly were Awakened abilities? How did this apocalyptic world come to be? Was there more to the Eternal Gate than just Vorn's twisted experiments?
He began his search in the most logical, yet dangerous, places: abandoned libraries, universities, and government buildings. These structures, though often ravaged by time and conflict, sometimes held remnants of the pre-apocalyptic world.
Rune moved with newfound purpose, his movements fluid and efficient. He used his electromagnetic manipulation to silently disable old security systems and his quartz manipulation to safely clear rubble, creating pathways where none existed. His flesh weaver abilities allowed him to survive on scarce resources, transforming mutated flora and fauna into sustenance, while his chaotic kinetics provided the burst speed needed to evade stray, feral mutants.
The libraries were ghostly husks. Books, once sacred repositories of knowledge, were now often waterlogged, burnt, or scattered by looters. Yet, Rune persisted. He wasn't looking for novels; he was searching for scientific journals, historical texts, and forgotten reports.
He found fragmented data chips in a crumbling university, barely functional. With his electromagnetic sensitivity, he managed to coax a few flickering images and corrupted text files from them. What he saw was chilling: pre-apocalypse scientific theories on dimensional rifts, exotic energy sources, and the potential for rapid biological evolution under extreme environmental pressure. There were hints of a government project, a desperate attempt to harness an unknown power source that somehow led to the Awakening event and the subsequent collapse of civilization.
In a desecrated government archive, he found more clues. Documents, partially intact, spoke of a "Phase-Shift Experiment" and "Exotic Matter Resonance." There were warnings from scientists about "unstable reality anchors" and the dangers of "tampering with the veil." He recognized diagrams similar to the ones Vorn had displayed, depicting the "blood vessels" of the world as conduits for this "exotic matter."
The pieces began to coalesce, forming a terrifying mosaic. The Awakened were not just random mutations; they were a direct consequence of the cataclysm, a byproduct of humanity's attempt to control a power it didn't understand. The Eternal Gate wasn't just Vorn's obsession; it was the origin point, the nexus where reality had fractured, unleashing the very energy that empowered Awakened and warped the world.
Rune realized he wasn't just a survivor seeking revenge. He was now inextricably linked to the very force that shaped this post-apocalyptic world. His Assimilation ability, which allowed him to absorb and integrate the powers of others, was perhaps the ultimate expression of this forced evolution.
As he sifted through another pile of decaying documents, a name appeared repeatedly in bold letters: Project Chimera. This wasn't just about controlling exotic energy; it was about engineering humans to wield it, creating super-soldiers or perhaps even controlling the dimensional rifts themselves. Rune felt a cold dread creep into his heart. Could he have been a part of this project, even before the apocalypse? Was his Assimilation ability a designed outcome, rather than a mere mutation?
The questions piled up, deeper and more unsettling than any vengeance could satisfy. Rune had defeated Vorn, but the true nature of his existence and the world's fate remained shrouded in mystery. He needed to find Project Chimera.