Chapter 35: Mana Rejection

The energy streams didn't just shift—they converged on Kai.

He felt the change before he understood it. The Flux Realm's power, previously ambient and impersonal, suddenly had focus. Intent. Every stream in his vicinity redirected toward his position.

"Get out of there," Resonance's voice crackled through interference. "Emergency extraction—"

Kai tried to open a rift. His ability activated—the familiar potential, the sensation of reaching for the dimensional membrane.

But the Flux Realm's energy responded first.

Power flooded into him. Not the dimensional energy he was accustomed to—something else entirely. The Flux Realm's native force, raw and incompatible with his biology.

It was like drinking from a fire hose.

His body tried to process the influx. His attunements—designed for dimensional energy, not flux power—activated in self-defense, attempting to convert the foreign force into something usable.

They failed.

The energy built up inside him with nowhere to go. His cells began rejecting it, his biological systems overloading from input they weren't designed to handle.

Kai collapsed.

The ground beneath him shifted between states—solid, liquid, gas—but he barely noticed. Every nerve was screaming. Every cell was fighting a battle it couldn't win.

He'd misread the power system. He'd assumed flux energy was just a variant of dimensional energy. That his attunements would adapt.

They couldn't.

"Rejection response," he gasped into the communicator. "The flux energy isn't compatible. My body is—"

The pain peaked.

For a moment, Kai felt himself breaking apart. The energy inside him was tearing at his structure, trying to convert him into something that could process it. If he didn't find a way to expel it, he would die—or worse, become part of the Flux Realm permanently.

He reached for his rift ability.

Not to open a door—he couldn't control that now. Instead, he used the fundamental principle: creating passages. Channels. Ways for things to flow from one place to another.

He turned himself into a conduit.

The flux energy, trapped inside him, found the channels he created. It poured through him instead of pooling, flowing out the other side, dissipating into the dimensional membrane rather than destroying his cells.

The pain didn't stop immediately. But it became bearable. Sustainable.

Kai lay on the shifting ground, functioning as a living bypass valve, and waited for the energy surge to subside.

---

The attack ended as suddenly as it began.

The energy streams returned to their previous patterns. The convergence on his position dissolved. The Flux Realm became merely dangerous instead of actively lethal.

"Status," Resonance demanded.

"Alive. Barely." Kai pushed himself to sitting. His body felt wrong—the residue of incompatible energy leaving marks he couldn't yet assess. "Someone tried to kill me using the dimension's power system."

"The other rift wielder?"

"Must be. They redirected the flux streams—turned them into a weapon." Kai looked around at the still-dangerous environment. "I misunderstood this dimension. Treated its energy like dimensional power. It's not. It's something else entirely."

"Can you complete the mission?"

"I need to extract. Now." Kai reached for a rift—cautiously, ensuring no flux energy would flow through the aperture. "The Emergence risk is still present, but I'm not capable of addressing it in my current state."

"Understood. Medical teams will be standing by."

Kai opened the rift and stumbled through.

---

The Council's medical facilities were more advanced than Earth's by several orders of magnitude.

The technicians who examined him found extensive damage—cellular stress, neural pathway degradation, metabolic irregularities. The flux energy had left marks throughout his system.

"You should be dead," the lead physician observed. "The energy levels recorded through your communicator indicate exposure that would kill most beings instantly."

"I improvised."

"You turned yourself into a conduit. That's not a documented survival technique."

"Documented or not, it worked." Kai lay on the examination table, feeling the residue of alien power still moving through his system. "How long until I recover?"

"Days, possibly weeks. The damage is treatable but extensive." The physician hesitated. "There may be permanent effects. Changes to how your body processes energy. We won't know until full recovery."

Permanent changes. More alterations to who he was, what he was becoming.

Each mission seemed to cost him something.

---

Vex's whisper came that night, while Kai was still in the medical facility.

"You were attacked by another rift wielder."

"You heard?"

"Council communications aren't as secure as they think. I heard." Vex's voice carried urgency. "Do you know who?"

"No. But they were harvesting flux energy. Using the Emergence risk as a collection mechanism."

"Energy harvesting. That's..." Vex trailed off in their characteristic unfinished way. "I've heard rumors. A rift wielder operating outside Council knowledge. Building power through unconventional means."

"Echo?"

"No. Someone else. Someone who doesn't want to be found." The whisper was fading. "Be careful, Walker. You're not the only one trying to become something different. And some of the others aren't interested in cooperation."

The connection broke.

Kai lay in the medical facility, body recovering from energy rejection, mind processing the implications.

Another rift wielder. One who'd developed techniques for using dimensional power systems as weapons. One operating outside Council awareness, who'd just tried to kill him.

He filed that under "urgent problems" and tried to sleep.