The corridor lights buzzed overhead, flickering between amber and sterile white.Jerome limped down the reinforced hallway of Haven Node Six, one of Andrew’s deepest bunkers, buried beneath the old hydropower grid beneath Sector West. Blood soaked his side where Lukas’s shadow whip had grazed too close.He passed armed guards who gave him silent nods.No one dared ask what had happened.They saw the cracks in his armor.The faint burn scars that shimmered beneath the plasma-patched wound.And worse—his expression.Inside the vault chamber, Dr. Myles stood over a stasis tank. Jerome’s arrival made him flinch.“You’re—God, Jerome. What the hell happened?”Jerome dropped the broken Shardlight Gauntlet onto the console table with a sharp clunk. Half the runes were scorched off. The main conduit crystal was shattered.“He’s worse than we thought,” Jerome said. “It’s not just a user of corrupted relics. The dagger—it’s alive.”Myles paled. “You’re sure?”Jerome nodded grimly. “It speaks thr

The train screeched through the lower transit ring, its interior flickering under dim yellow lights. Jerome sat alone in the third car, hood drawn, blade hidden beneath his coat. His body still ached from the fight with Lukas—but pain wasn’t what kept him tense.It was Davin.He hadn’t seen the man in six years.Not since Arcadia burned.And not since Andrew ordered him to disappear.The meeting point was tucked beneath a collapsed tunnel junction—Sector Redline, deep in the undercity where no law tread and no surveillance dared peek.Jerome stepped out into the dark. The air here was warm, metallic. Tasted like ash and forgotten blood.He moved past rusted barricades and graffiti-tagged pylons until he saw the man.Leaning against a broken generator.Cigarette glowing faintly.A coat too expensive for this neighborhood, and a silver cybernetic eye that tracked Jerome’s approach like a predator with old familiarity.“Still walk like a soldier,” Davin said, not looking up.“And you sti

The silence in the chamber felt heavy, unnatural. Not peace—but expectation.Calista sat at the edge of the stasis pod, her hands folded in her lap, eyes scanning the room with unsettling calm.Jerome could hardly look away.She looked… human. But not.The way her eyes blinked—too slow. The way her skin reflected light—too smooth. She moved like someone remembering how movement worked.“Can you hear me?” he asked.She turned to him slowly.“You’re not him,” she said.Jerome swallowed. “No. I’m Jerome. Andrew’s—”He hesitated.“—friend.”She tilted her head. “You’re the one who carries guilt.”Jerome blinked. “Excuse me?”Her eyes seemed to see through him. “You’re the one who let Arcadia fall.”Jerome flinched like she’d struck him.“I didn’t let it—”But he stopped.Because part of him knew… she wasn’t wrong.Mira stepped forward carefully. “Calista. Do you know what year it is?”Calista stood. “The Mirror has awoken. That’s all I need to know.”Mira frowned. “Do you remember what yo

The terminal’s glow bathed the room in pale light.Onscreen, the image of young Andrew, bloodied and bound, remained frozen.No one moved. No one breathed.Calista spoke first.“This was the first loop.”Jerome blinked. “Loop?”She nodded. “Andrew died. But something brought him back. Not the Sapphire. Not the Phoenix. Something… else.”She touched the edge of the screen. “The Chain.”The display shifted again—this time showing a memory sequence:Andrew kneeling on a stone floor, coughing blood.A figure stood before him: faceless, cloaked in shadows.Seven silver chains dangled from the entity’s hands.“You seek to rewrite your death.”Andrew whispered, “I seek to escape it.”“Then offer memory. Offer truth. Offer names.”Andrew’s breath rattled. “Take what you must.”One by one, the chains latched around him.Each time, his voice stuttered. His eyes dimmed.With every chain, something left him.His mother’s name.His first betrayal.The smell of winter.Until he collapsed.And rose

Reya pressed deeper into the subterranean server hive, Mira close behind her with a relic pulse tracker ticking softly in her hand. The cryptolab was barely functional—an ancient ruin laced with half-dead conduits and silent memory coils, all pulsing faintly with relic interference."This system…" Reya whispered, brushing dust from a broken uplink panel, "it was never meant to just store data. It’s alive. Reactive."Mira glanced at the network of glowing memory threads stretching above them, spiderwebbed across the ceiling. "You think this is Andrew’s design?""No," Reya said slowly. "I think this is what Andrew tried to contain."She turned to a locked interface labeled GRID LUCENT // MNT-CORE. Its central node pulsed with deep sapphire blue."Help me decrypt this. It’s hiding something."Above ground, in an abandoned rail terminal wrapped in ivy and ghosted with silence, Lukas waited in the dark, his breathing steady.He could feel the Mirror of Mouths against his chest—warm. Buzzin