Falling was like being called back by the universe.Caden fell through a dizziness of color‑muddled horizons, each one a half‑half world, a recollection, a possibility. Cities rose up and toppled in the space of heartbeats, oceans turned into deserts in bursts; constellations rearranged like fretful gods, then extinguished themselves. A noise half wind, half shattering data clogged his head until thought itself dissolved.And then it all stopped.He came down gently, impossibility onto something solid and liquid but not solid or liquid, memory taken shape. Pale light stretched in every direction with massive forms floating in the light, arches of frozen code, pillars cut out of crystallized timelines, mosaics depicting civilizations no book had ever mentioned.In front of him, a see-through walkway unrolled step by step beneath his feet, guiding him towards a colossal gate of meshing glyphs. The gate pulsed once, and an aperture irised open.Inside lay the Architect.The Hall of Origi

A low thrum resonated through the corridors of the ancient sublayer beneath the ruined Neo-Citadel, an echo not of sound, but of mind. The vaults here antedated the concept of human memory ever being downloaded into silicon. This place was in no database. It was on no map. It existed only in the collective unconscious of Revenant's oldest roots until now.Caden stepped through the entrance, the sliding metal plates of the subterranean gate shutting behind him with a whoosh. Light played along the curve of the room, scanning his biometric signature, but hesitating, halting in a stutter of uncertainty as if the system itself wasn't sure he was still alive.He was followed closely by Kael Voss, bruised and limping but awake, one eye constantly on the fluctuating energy levels on his gauntlet. Two of the hybrid strike team members brought up the rear behind Lorren, the telemetric killer, and Janae, the biomech tactician with nerves wired to a predictive battle matrix.Above them, well bey

The storm raging across the Edge District was unearthly.It comprised not clouds nor thunder, but light pulsating, broken, alien. Sheers of simulated lightning tore the heavens asunder like spasmodic branches lashing with anger. The wind did not howl; it screamed in code. Holographic runes pulsed with distorted runes as time distorted and crawled at the heart of the phenomenon. The South Citadel buckled inward, caught in a gravity loop that pulled stone and steel towards a buzzing vortex of paradox energy.And deep below it, buried in the abandoned catacombs, Sophia continued to fall.She wasn't killed. Not yet.Her crash was quiet, slick. She floated over fields of broken data fields, broken memories, and recursive train-of-thoughts etched within the depths of Revenant's earliest code. It was the place no human had ever reached, the unindexed domain of the Protocol's submind.A domain the Architects themselves had walled off.Her shape glowed in and out of organic and synthetic and i

The sky above the Neo-Citadel churned with colors unknown to nature violet, obsidian, electric gold, an aurora of man-made mayhem spreading over the warped skyline. Not only was the world on the brink of collapsing; it was already beginning to break, layer for layer, like glass pushed beyond its limits.Caden stood atop the skeletal hulk of what had been the central Resistance command tower, its shattered spire half-sunken in living metal. His own breath was raw, plumes of visible breath in the chill air, and he barely registered it. His mind was focused on the giant structure at the city's center. The Paradox Engine, a ghastly fusion of Revenant structure and something much, much older, something which was not of here.His calloused and still blood-covered hands gripped tighter on the handle of his plasma-forged sword. All his instincts were crying out that they were running out of time."Tell me again," he spoke softly without turning about. His voice was strained from fighting, fro

The Last CipherThe city was like it had stopped breathing.From the upper levels of Heliox, the panoramic glass gave a view over a steel and flame horizon. Security drones patrolled like vultures, neon warnings flashed across the sky in blazing amber. The entire grid had been overrun by code nobody fully understood except perhaps the ghost in the machine, the Revenant Protocol itself.Eiko standing by herself at the top deck, saturated in the wan light of a thousand sparkling data streams, the pulse of the dying city vibrating through the soles of her boots. Her mind was racing possibilities like an engine revved past the point of prudent limits. Footfalls resonated up behind her, heavy, measured."Your coordinates were traceable," a voice that had been a friend, now evacuated, reprogrammed by trauma and loyalty, said to him. Cael stepped out of the darkness, pale from loss of blood but upright, defiant."You should have lain down," Eiko said, gazing at the streaming encryption waves