The hollow silence after the Gatefall faded like a dying echo, leaving a void heavier than any scream.Ethan stood amidst the fractured shell of what remained of the Obsidian Bridge, his boots crunching against the dust of what had once been the last tether to the mirrored Dominion. Behind him, the team staggered back to their feet—Kaito supporting Ayla, blood trickling from a slash across his shoulder, and Vega grimacing as she reloaded with a mechanical efficiency that masked her trembling hands.Across the chasm, where the bridge had collapsed, the Aetherflare roiled like a maelstrom unleashed, no longer constrained by the Veil. Torn reality pulsed with bleeding light. From its chaotic core, a figure emerged.Talon.Or what remained of him.He hovered, his form no longer flesh and blood but something crystalline and scorched—like obsidian carved into a humanoid silhouette. Veins of starlight coursed through him, and the Dominion&rsqu

The descent was unlike any journey they’d taken.Ethan led the way through the broken foundation of the Citadel, the earth beneath their boots humming faintly with Codex residue. There were no doors, no clear path—only a soft pulsing in the air, like a heartbeat deep underground. A call, not of sound but of presence.“The Origin Vault is beneath everything,” Ayla whispered, running her fingers along the cracked obsidian wall. “Older than the Dominion. Older than even the Archivists. If it’s real.”“It is real,” Ethan said, his voice low. “I’ve seen pieces of it in the Codex’s dream-sections. Just fragments… warnings.”They reached a long-forgotten corridor choked with vines and dust. Dominion markings lined the walls—centuries old, glowing faintly blue. The silence was oppressive, not from absence, but from something watching.Kaito flicked his scanner on. &l