The city had changed.
Or maybe… he had.
Kael stepped out from the ancient Remnant Node chamber and into the open streets of Aetharis—but the world no longer wore the same face. The sky was still gray. The buildings still towered in their rusted hush. But something unseen now breathed behind the concrete. Shadows stretched just a bit too long. Lights flickered with a rhythm too precise to be chance.
Something was watching.
No… many things.
His footsteps echoed along the sidewalk like they didn't belong to him. Boots scuffed metal plates. Neon signs buzzed overhead. Holo-ads whispered half-truths into his periphery.
And underneath it all… the ring on his hand pulsed.
A soft glow, subtle but alive.
Kael didn't trust it.
He clenched his fist, jaw tightening. The memory shard he absorbed was still lodged inside his mind like a blade without a hilt—glimpses of someone else's life bleeding into his own.
And not just anyone's.
Mine.
A battlefield. Screams. Ash. The clash of metal and magic. A name screamed into the void. A woman turning toward him—eyes like frozen moons.
White.
Lifeless.
But looking straight through him.
He didn't know her name. Didn't even know if she was real.
Yet somehow…
She knew him.
And now, she haunted every step he took.
Kael exhaled sharply and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. It was getting harder to tell which thoughts were his. The city was a maze, and his mind had become one too. Every corner he turned felt tighter. Every screen he passed flickered like it recognized him.
Even the air buzzed differently.
Like it was listening.
Beneath the streets of Sector 9, far below the grids of sanctioned surveillance, another conversation unfolded.
A silhouette crouched in the dark, only visible through the flicker of static from a broken terminal. Black armor laced with neural mesh. Helmet sealed. No eyes. No voice.
Only a code name.
"Shade-5 reporting."
A soft ping. The masked figure projected Kael's path across a subterranean screen. Every turn. Every hesitation. Every place the ring had pulsed.
The observer behind the feed said nothing at first. Then leaned forward. A white mask with three vertical slits tilted in interest.
"He's resonating with the shard. Faster than predicted."
Shade-5 tilted their head. "He's unstable. Fragment's distorting memory boundaries. Should we engage?"
"No."
The masked figure's voice was ice beneath silk.
"Not yet. Let him remember… just enough."
The screen flickered—and the feed cut.
Kael didn't hear that conversation.
But he felt it.
The kind of tension that sinks into your bones before it even has a name. Like you're not just being followed—you're being studied.
He stopped walking.
The city lights glared against puddles of rain. A flicker of movement to his right—a camera that swiveled too late. A drone above, pretending not to track him.
And then…
Pain.
White-hot. Splintering.
Kael staggered back, grabbing his head.
Memory crash.
Another flash.
A blade he recognized. A man's face—sharp cheekbones, black eyes, a sneer carved by betrayal.
The name echoed inside him like thunder on steel.
Vaelen Stryn.
Kael didn't know who he was.
But his fists curled on instinct. His vision blurred red.
That name… mattered.
It burned.
He found shelter beneath a decommissioned tram bridge. Rain tapped down from rusted pipes. The ring on his hand had begun to shimmer faintly. Not like before. It wasn't reacting randomly.
It was resonating.
With something nearby.
He reached out to a panel embedded in the wall—an old tech relic, long forgotten. The moment his fingers touched the surface, the ring pulsed. The panel blinked back to life, glyphs crawling across its glass like insects waking from sleep.
The memory crystal inside the ring wasn't passive.
It was searching.
For what… Kael didn't know.
But something about that frightened him more than it thrilled him.
Is this thing guiding me… or binding me?
His breath fogged the air. His hand slowly dropped.
Everything he was doing—it wasn't just survival anymore.
It was… fate. Or something that pretended to be.
He hated that word.
He could've chased the next Node. Could've followed the resonance like a moth to fire. But the name in his head wouldn't let go.
Vaelen Stryn.
Kael didn't remember why he hated the man. Just that it was bone-deep.
Like the betrayal had torn through something sacred.
He closed his eyes.
Am I chasing the Nodes… or ghosts?
The line was blurring.
And that terrified him.
Later, he stood atop a moving freight train—bare steel beneath his boots, the city a blur of fading neon and choking smog.
He didn't know where it was headed. The map in his pocket had only shown a symbol.
A triangle. An eye. Fractals curling out like a virus.
The same one etched into the ring.
The wind lashed his coat. The tunnel loomed ahead—yawning black. The kind of dark that didn't just swallow light.
It devoured it.
Kael didn't flinch.
The train thundered into the tunnel.
Silence.
Then—
Whirrr.
A soft sound. Mechanical. Above.
His eyes snapped up.
A drone. Seamless. Unmarked.
It detached from the wall like a spider from silk, scanning silently.
A single red dot blinked once.
Then twice.
The ring on Kael's finger flared with light.
Bright.
Violent.
Too late.
The tunnel behind him exploded.