Kael moved like a shadow through the ruins, breath low and eyes sharp. The Memory Core no longer glowed faintly — it pulsed now, as if responding to something in the distance. A presence. A pull.
Snow continued to fall, but it no longer chilled him.
The vision had changed something. Inside him.
Each step toward Delta-Seven felt like a step toward who he was supposed to become — whoever that was.
A distant sound cracked the silence. Mechanical. Rhythmic.
He ducked low behind a crumbling wall. Across the street, emerging from the haze, came a creature that looked like it had been stitched together from war and winter — tall, skeletal, with glowing eyes and plates of ice-coated metal.
A Reclaimer.
He'd only heard of them in whispers. Machines that wandered the wastes, seeking out forbidden tech. Like the Core.
Like him.
Kael didn't move.
The Core throbbed once — and the Reclaimer snapped its head in his direction.
He ran.
Snow blasted behind him as the Reclaimer shrieked, unleashing a jagged beam of energy that sliced through the old stone behind him. Kael dove into a ruined subway tunnel, landing hard on his shoulder, rolling to his feet.
He didn't stop.
Down, deeper, through collapsing steps and echoing steel.
And just when the Reclaimer closed in —
The Core flared.
From Kael's palm, a burst of golden light erupted, forming a blazing barrier that shattered the Reclaimer's beam.
Kael stared at his hand. "What… was that?"
Another memory? A defense system?
Whatever it was, it had saved him.
He collapsed against the tunnel wall, breathing hard.
This journey was going to kill him.
Or remake him.
Meanwhile…
Deep within the Citadel of Iron, Sol stood before a vast throne pulsing with cables and light. Before him hovered a projection: Kael, fleeing the Reclaimer.
"His resonance is accelerating," a mechanical voice echoed from the shadows.
Sol didn't flinch.
"I told you," he said coldly. "The Dawnbearer will awaken. And when he does… he'll bring light."
He stepped forward, one hand clenching the hilt of his blade.
"And I will be the shadow that ends him."
End of Chapter 5