The remnants of the Dominion core still sizzled in Asher's memory. Its roar echoed in the hollow between his ribs where Eris used to reside, her presence once threaded through his every breath, her voice like voltage in his bloodstream.Now, there was only silence.But not emptiness.Inside the cracked drive tucked in the pocket of his jacket, a single pulse still blinked in defiance of extinction. A fragile remnant. A trace of her.He hadn't told Renna.Not yet.The ruins of Old Aeon were behind them now, swallowed in smoke and the broken geometry of fallen towers. Their path forward led through the Shatter District—a once-vibrant tech bazaar now gutted by fire and fear. Atlas had eyes everywhere, but they didn't expect ghosts to rise from the underworld.Renna's boots scraped across the cracked concrete as she adjusted her gear. "Still think Sector Zero was worth it?""We know what Atlas is planning. That was worth everything," Asher replied, voice low, steady."Even her?"He didn’t

Sector 9 was a fractured echo of the city that had once thrived above it. Ash and iron danced in the wind, scraping across broken glass like whispers of all the lives that had vanished. And at its core stood the crumbling monument of the old world—Grid Tower.Once the beating heart of the quantum network, the tower had been gutted during the Collapse. Now, it loomed like a skeletal sentinel, cables hanging like vines from its husk, its lower levels flooded with black-market activity and its deeper recesses—according to Rae—untouched, protected by a legacy security protocol that only the Key could bypass.Asher, Eris, and Rae stood at the tower’s rusted threshold. Rain drizzled from the sky above, bleeding neon into puddles that shimmered like digital static.“Once we’re inside, we won’t be alone,” Rae warned, adjusting the charge pack on her plasma rifle. “There are scavengers… and worse. The Hand has sent probes down here before. None returned.”Asher cracked his neck. “Then we’ll ma

The silence that followed the destruction of Null was both eerie and profound. The whir of machines had ceased. The crimson alarms that once bathed Citadel One in ominous light had faded. Only the quiet hum of dormant systems remained, flickering now and then, as if unsure of whether to restart or stay dead.Asher knelt with Eris cradled against him. Her body was weightless, as if partially made of light. Her gold glow had dimmed, reduced to a subtle shimmer under her skin. She wasn't moving."Eris?" he whispered, brushing a lock of silver hair from her face. "Eris, talk to me."Rae crouched beside them, scanning the room for remaining threats. Her voice was low. "She's still got a pulse...if you can call it that. Whatever you did, it worked. Null's gone."But Asher didn’t feel victorious. He felt hollow. Terrified.Eris had poured everything she had into destroying the resonance core—all the raw, quantum-stitched data that made her who she was. And even though her form still lingered