As the world collapsed around Chronus, he stood still, calmly observing the changes. He felt his spatial awareness start to distort as Earth was forcibly merged with the Distorted Void. The whole process resembled a planet crushing onto an egg. Colorful swirls of black, brown, and purple filled his vision and blended together with shattered shards of the starry sky as the rules of his current world were stripped away and swallowed. He watched it all and found the destruction to have its own unique, morbid beauty. Even though he had watched the same process of planes being devoured countless times, watching it happen to his own birthplace held an indescribable charm.

As space folded and warped, he found himself pulled through the air, finally landing in an expanse of mud. Chronus wiped the putrid sludge off himself as he surveyed his surroundings. Newcomers from just devoured planes are always scattered into far flung areas to give them time to adapt. As he expected, there was nothing notable in the area where he landed.

Everything around him was an unremarkable wasteland that made up a large part of the Distorted Void. A vast plain with no end in sight. Unsightly patches of muck, large craters, and fissures disfigured the flat landscape. The only vegetation in sight were sparsely populated patches of grass and lonely crooked trees. The dull sun that Chronus was so used to radiated its gloomy light onto the ground from overhead.

Near him were seven other people who arrived in an identical manner as he did, all looking at the hellscape around them in varying amounts of panic and confusion. Chronus secretly sighed. He had still held some hope, but not recognizing any of them meant what the Crystallization of Time said was true, it wasn’t possible to rely on his memories of past events as a guide. After a few moments, dull rays of purple light descended from the miasmic void onto each of the people present, soothing them and leaving a message in their mind.

The first to speak was a blonde haired teenager. He was cleanly dressed and looked slightly more composed compared to when they first arrived. “We should all introduce ourselves. My name is Edward.”

Chronus took note of the charismatic young man and clearly identified Edward’s purpose to establish himself as the leader of this group of people. Chronus didn’t mind. In fact, this was his preferred situation.

Everyone introduced themselves in turn. Emily was a shy girl who seemed frightened by the changes happening around her. A muscular man wearing hiking gear and carrying a backpack similar to Chronus’ introduced himself as Kenan. Leopold was a young teenager that excitedly muttered, “I crossed! I crossed!” under his breath. Griffin was an old man praying to god as he clutched the rolled up newspaper he had carried with him. Alice was a teenage girl wearing glasses who curiously examined the environment around her. And finally Charlene was a middle aged woman carrying two plastic bags filled with groceries on her arms.

“I think everyone received the same message I did,” continued Edward, “We arrived in a place called the Distorted Void. While the message said we were placed in a relatively safe location, that also means that there might be danger. Our best choice is to work together to ensure our safety.” Chronus was the first to agree. While he knew this alliance wouldn’t be able to last, it would be able to help facilitate his early actions. Following his example, the rest of the group quickly assented.

Edward nodded in satisfaction. “I know everyone is nervous, but the first thing we do should be to investigate the surrounding area. We need to search for a safe location and take note of any potential dangers or anything unusual.”

After the group scattered toward their respective directions, Chronus peered inside his mind. Floating in his consciousness was a transparent sphere, the embryonic tower core. This is the form in which a small spark separated from the Distorted Void’s world origin is manifested, given to sentient lifeforms swallowed by the Distorted Void as both a kindness and a way for the plane to expand its influence. It is also the starting point of a tower master.

Tower masters are individuals who master extraordinary power through their tower, birthed through the embryonic tower core. At the same rank, a tower master is unrivalled by other professions. In a simplified sense, the tower of a tower master is comparable to a world bound to oneself. Due to the nature of the embryonic tower core, the tower can grow to form its own rules that apply to itself, just like a normal world.

A tower master’s responsibility is to develop their tower. The tower can have all the abilities it has been designed and constructed to have, as well as provide the tower master with power. The friendly rules within the tower also provide a huge strength increase while the master is inside. A person will be bound to their one tower in their lifetime, and there is nothing that can change this fact. Or at least Chronus used to think so.

He found one exception to this statement, the statement that was seen as an unquestionable fact in the Distorted Void. By using the Crystallization of Time to travel to the past, his previous mage tower was erased from existence. He had now received a new embryonic tower core and could reconstruct a tower for a second time. This thought filled him with excitement.

Regarding the other new traversers from Earth, they had received some basic information about the embryonic tower core and gaining extraordinary power as part of the message from the plane. However, this information was laughably simple and almost amounted to only informing them of the core’s existence. Everything was left for them to figure out on their own, as Chronus had done in the past.

Chronus shook his head and cleared his thoughts, placing all of his attention on his surroundings. Edward was correct, there is no such thing as a safe area in the Distorted Void. While danger would be minimized in the areas where new arrivals are sent, one can still easily perish if not careful.

While mapping out the space in his vicinity, Chronus also paid attention to any plants or materials that could be useful. Finding the starting materials to birth his future tower core is his most important objective now that he had entered the Distorted Void. After taking a brief rest and resolving his thirst, Chronus continued searching, constructing a mental map of his surroundings while scouring the roughly hewn land for any potentially useful materials.

Climbing over a ridge, Chronus discovered a nesting area for Twisted Abominations in the distance. These creatures are the most common ones in the Distorted Void. As the plane’s rules are made of an amalgamation of rule fragments of devoured planes, the lifeforms native to the plane reflect that, being composed of random aspects from different species, civilizations, and power systems. The Twisted Abominations in the nest in front of Chronus appeared to mainly be a combination of a lizard and some sea creature, with a reptilian head and a tentacled body.

Realizing it would be dangerous to approach any further, Chronus returned following the same path he took when he arrived. The explorations of the others were likely to be completed as well. As he neared the landing spot, he found five others waiting for him. The last two members of their group, Griffin and Leopold, joined them soon after. A good start, no deaths so far.