Smoke drifted from the cracked edges of the Vein as the obsidian pillars lining the path pulsed with an ancient rhythm—one that hadn’t stirred since before the Dominion’s birth. Ethan knelt at the threshold, fingertips barely grazing the silver-lit seam that divided the realm of mortals from the buried heart of the Citadel.Behind him, Ayla stood still, eyes wide and glassy. She had not spoken since the Vein opened. It was as though the energy had reached into her spine and wound itself around her soul.“This is it,” Ethan muttered. “The core. The place it all began… and where it will end.”A voice—neither wholly male nor female—echoed faintly within the stone around them.“Your blood has called it. Your will has shaped it. Step forward and the truth will burn your illusions away.”Ayla exhaled shakily. “That voice—”“—is the Dominion itsel

Ayla stood at the precipice of the now-collapsing dominion gates, ash and echo swirling around her like mourning veils. Behind her, the last remnants of the Dominion Guard lay fallen, not all of them dead—but changed, twisted by the resonance backlash. Ahead, the shattered spires of the Celestis Bridge shimmered in ghostlight, the dying core humming its last defiant breath.“What did you see?” Ethan asked quietly, brushing soot from her shoulder as they stepped across the scorched threshold of the Final Vault.Ayla’s eyes, once honey-brown, now shimmered silver. Not entirely like the Keepers. But not entirely human either. “I saw everything,” she whispered, her voice threaded with ancient resonance. “The beginning. The betrayal. And the bargain.”They descended into the sub-core chamber where the crystalline construct still pulsed weakly. Elyon stood at the center, palms open, tendrils of energy leaking from the re

The ground rumbled beneath their boots as the vault’s final lock disengaged with a thunderous clang. Ethan raised his torch, its beam cutting a narrow arc through the pitch-dark chamber that sprawled beyond. A deep, musty chill greeted them, the kind that suggested centuries of undisturbed air. Every step into that tomb-like sanctum felt like trespassing on history itself.“Careful,” Nia muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. “This is no ordinary archive. This is the Core.”The walls were lined with metallic columns, each humming faintly with stored energy. Crystal conduits pulsed in slow, rhythmic heartbeats, reacting to their presence. The Vault’s Core wasn’t just an archive—it was alive. A neural repository of the Dominion’s deepest secrets, governed by a quantum AI that hadn’t spoken since the collapse of the First Era.Kai tapped on one of the conduits. “Encrypted biological feedback sen