"Nelson left something. It’s not just a record... it’s a trigger," Damian said quietly but sharply. His gaze pierced through Samuel from behind his dark sunglasses.Samuel stood leaning against the balcony of the semi-military apartment in Teritora, his eyes staring into the dark sky slowly being graced by a light drizzle. "Trigger key? I never heard Nelson mention that."Damian leaned his shoulder against the wall. "Because it wasn’t meant for everyone. Nelson knew who needed to know. It’s the key to unlocking full access to Void power data... including the final limit of your abilities."Samuel rolled his shoulder and turned to him. "And you came all the way here just to say that? Or... is there another agenda, Ghost Zero?"Damian chuckled lightly. His old nickname still stuck, even though he’d vanished years ago after the Eastern Sector massacre mission. "I’m retired. But I can’t sit back and watch Nelson’s former pupil get devoured from the inside."Meanwhile, in the next room, Sa

The moon had barely risen when Samuel entered the restricted zone of Teritora’s underground archives. His steps echoed against the steel walls, damp with the weight of secrets too heavy to bear in daylight. Cradled in his hand was the worn, leather-bound tome he found within the hidden vault—Chrono Veil—its title etched in a dialect he could only decipher through fragments Nelson had left behind.Trigger key… Cache data… Falcon’s warning. Damian… a traitor?The thoughts spun in Samuel’s head like a razor-edged storm, sharp and constant.But for now, he needed to see what lay hidden in the digital vault Nelson had mentioned. The coordinates were embedded in a dead zone, a forgotten junction of the old surveillance network buried beneath the city.“Authorization, biometric scan,” the machine’s monotone voice demanded.Samuel held out his palm. A pulse of energy flickered from his skin. Since unlocking Void Phase Two, his body had undergone subtle changes—his blood ran cooler, and light

The towering skyline of Aretra City came into view beneath the clouds, its once-proud spires now shadowed by unrest and the quiet resurgence of old power. Samuel leaned against the cabin window of the aerial skimmer, eyes scanning the streets below. They looked the same, but they weren’t. Nothing was the same.He exhaled slowly.Too much had changed since the last time he stepped foot in the capital—since Nelson fell, since The Brook family had begun creeping back into their ancestral seat like ivy choking the ruins of their old empire.As the skimmer touched down at the south terminal, Samuel grabbed the worn book tucked beneath his coat—The Chrono Veil. He could feel the glyphs humming faintly inside it, as if reacting to the tension in the air.Sarah was already waiting on the platform, her coat fluttering in the wind, a comm clipped to her ear, eyes scanning data projected in the air before her.“You’re late,” she said without looking up.“I had to make a stop,” Samuel replied, st

Night had fallen over the outpost, but the air was restless. A subtle tension vibrated through the ground, like the land itself held its breath in anticipation of something catastrophic. The moon hung low and swollen, tinted red — a bad omen, The Falcon had once said.Samuel stood at the edge of the courtyard, staring at the horizon. He hadn't spoken a word since stepping out of the Mirror Glyph chamber.Sarah approached quietly behind him, holding out a flask of bitterroot tea, laced with stabilizers to help mitigate the side effects of temporal dissonance. She knew better than to ask what he saw — the haunted look in his eyes had told her everything."You haven't blinked in five minutes," she said softly.Samuel blinked."Guess I forgot," he replied, his voice rough. He took the flask without looking and drank deeply."You saw the fifth glyph, didn't you?""No," he muttered. "I saw what guards it. Or... who."Sarah stepped beside him. "The Bloodstone Guardian?"He finally turned tow

The signal spire now behind him, the rebellion had splintered into task teams, and his own unit was small: Falcon, Sarah, and two trusted runners—Lio and Merren. The air was thick with ancient dust and the faint tang of ozone.“No one’s been down here since the Collapse,” Falcon muttered as he adjusted his visor.“Except Helix,” Samuel said, staring into the dark abyss. “He’s already started something. We can’t let him finish it.”Sarah looked uneasy. “This path leads to the Zero Vault. That’s where the prototype void cores were buried. Including the one your father tried to destroy.”Samuel clenched his jaw at the mention.“I know.”Falcon flicked a switch. “Ready to drop.”The old lift screamed as it lurched downward.Darkness swallowed them.The descent was slow, the silence between them heavy. Each floor they passed seemed to hum with residual power — forgotten energy of a time when Aretra experimented with forces not meant to be controlled. Symbols flickered faintly along the wal