It began with thunder.
Not the natural kind, but a pulse—deep, mechanical, deliberate. Bastion Theta's alarm systems didn't even detect it. Not at first. It echoed beneath the electromagnetic spectrum, like something older than sound itself, calling to the broken bones of the Earth.
Kael felt it in his spine.
He was in the training chamber, alone, his bare arms laced with obsidian veins that shimmered faintly under the harsh lights. Since the Echo's attack, his body had changed even more. Stronger. Quicker. But stranger, too.
Sometimes he heard voices in his dreams.
Sometimes they weren't dreams at all.
The door hissed open.
Elira stepped inside, dressed in tactical black, jaw tight. "They've come."
Kael didn't need to ask who. The pressure in the air already told him. His blood throbbed like a tuning fork.
"The Ascendants," he muttered.
She nodded. "Dropped from orbit. Six of them. All marked."
Kael grabbed his bone-tech blade, the grip fusing with his palm like it belonged there. "Then the Parliament's moving faster than I expected."
"We've fortified the upper perimeter," Elira said. "But something's wrong. They're not attacking."
Kael's gaze darkened. "They're hunting."
---
Perimeter D-7 — Observation Tower
Private Soren barely had time to scream.
He'd been watching the landscape from Tower 4, rifle slung lazily across his lap, when the world blinked.
One moment: silence.
The next: a figure stood just beyond the tower—cloaked in silver light, limbs elongated, skin smooth like mercury. No eyes. No mouth. Just the smooth curve of a head like polished steel and three symbols burned into its chest: I | X | O.
It raised one hand.
Soren exploded in a silent burst of light.
Not blood.
Not fire.
Just… unbeing.
The tower disintegrated behind him.
Kael felt it from across the base—like a memory being erased.
"They've made contact," he growled.
Elira's comm crackled: "Tower 4 down. No survivors. It's like they erased the atoms—"
static
"—they're inside—"
static
"It's not one—it's SIX—"
The feed died.
Kael didn't wait.
---
Bastion Theta — Inner Gate
The first Ascendant stepped through the smoke like a living star. Its body was wrapped in ethereal armor, shimmering with ancient script. Wings of burning light trailed behind it, not feathers—but fractured blades.
Kael moved to intercept.
The clash was instant.
Steel met light.
The force shook the entire floor. Kael was fast—but the Ascendant was inhuman. It didn't move like a soldier. It moved like an algorithm—every step calculated, perfect, merciless.
"You're not Echo," Kael snarled mid-swing.
It tilted its head. Then, for the first time, it spoke—in a voice like music through shattered glass.
"You are the Echo's mistake."
Kael's blade struck its chest. Sparks exploded. The creature slid backward, unhurt.
Kael's heart pounded. He wasn't ready.
And the other five hadn't even joined the fight yet.
Elira appeared behind him, dual-pistols drawn, unloading rounds into the second Ascendant as it phased through the wall like a ghost.
None of the bullets landed.
"They're untouchable!" she shouted.
"Not to me."
Kael closed his eyes.
And let go.
For a moment, time fractured.
The world slowed.
And inside Kael's mind, the Echo awakened.
He saw through the walls. Felt the air. Touched the space between atoms. It wasn't power. It was clarity.
He was the mistake they couldn't predict.
And mistakes rewrite fate.
He moved.
Faster than sound.
The first Ascendant raised its hand—and Kael broke its arm before it finished.
Its head tilted, curious.
Then it smiled.
A mouth opened across its torso.
"We've waited centuries for a true failure."
Kael drove his blade into that mouth.
---
Elsewhere — The Parliament
"They've engaged the Fifth," one of the robed figures said.
Another, faceless, replied: "He's adapting."
"That is unacceptable."
"The Crown has chosen him."
"And now the Ascendants will test his worth. If he survives…"
The silence that followed was thick with tension.
"...he becomes a god."
---
Bastion Theta — Collapsing Gate
Two Ascendants were down—disintegrated by Kael's strikes, their code unraveling like digital ghosts. But he was wounded—his ribs fractured, blood dark as oil leaking from beneath his shirt.
Elira crouched beside him. "This isn't sustainable."
"No," Kael rasped. "But it's a message."
"To who?"
"To them. I'm not prey."
Another Ascendant approached—this one taller, cloaked in vines of glass and shadow, carrying a staff etched with stars.
It didn't speak.
Instead, it drove the staff into the ground.
The earth screamed.
A fissure opened—swallowing the entire front wall of Bastion Theta.
Kael barely leapt back in time, grabbing Elira midair as the floor gave way beneath them.
They crashed onto the lower level, dust and sparks raining down.
But it wasn't over.
From the shadows below, a seventh presence stirred.
Not an Ascendant.
Not Parliament.
Something older.
Kael's eyes widened.
The voice that filled his skull wasn't like the others. It was deeper. Colder. Hungrier.
"Hello, little God."
---
From the ruins beneath Bastion Theta, a shape emerged—towering, skeletal, robed in chains. It bore a crown of black flame and eyes that bled light.
Kael took one step back.
"Elira," he whispered. "Run."
Because what stood before them wasn't part of the Parliament.
It was what they feared.
"I am the First Devourer," it said. "And you are mine."