Rain beat against the marble entrance as Kieran Blackwell’s convoy pulled away for the final time. He stood on the slick driveway, shoulders slumped, palms trembling as his hot breath met the cold air. Behind him, the Blackwell Estate—opulent, unbroken—loomed like a mocking titan. Tonight, Kieran was its downfall.“How could you betray your own blood?” Lady Bianca, his stepmother, had hissed. “You’re dead to this family.” He hadn’t protested—what words could match her indifference? He’d been the heir-in-training once, her prince. Now he was nothing but a scandal.A driver tossed him the house crest: a gold-and-emerald sigil engraved on a heavy ring. “Take it,” the man had said as if it were a consolation prize. But Kieran let it skate off his wet palm onto the cobblestones. It shattered beneath his heel.Lightning split the sky. He ignored it. He felt dead inside.***Kieran made it to his old apartment—a studio two rivers away from the estate. The rent was overdue. The landlord had

The sirens shrieked louder.They weren’t police sirens. These were deeper, with a strange mechanical reverb, like they were being played through rusted speakers wired straight into a nightmare.“MOVE!” Skye shouted.Kieran didn’t hesitate. He dropped through the floor grate she’d kicked open, landing hard on a cold steel ladder. She followed, slamming the hatch shut behind them. Darkness swallowed them both—thick, damp, alive.His system panel glitched back into view:EMERGENCY FLAG: Extraction Protocol InitiatedThreat Source: Unknown Faction (Redacted)Survival Priority Override: FLEE. DO NOT ENGAGE.Above them, boots crashed through the trapdoor.“We need to lose them now!” Skye hissed.The tunnel curved downward. Water dripped from somewhere above, and the walls trembled under the weight of pounding feet. Kieran ran harder than he’d ever run in his life.The tunnel emptied into a larger space—a forgotten sector of Glen’s old subway system. Vines curled around iron pillars. The air

The system’s interface hovered before Kieran, glowing with quiet menace.Choose Next Protocol:– Echo War: Raise a resistance, find other legacy wielders.– Bloodline Cleanse: Destroy every node tied to Blackwell tech.His chest ached. His ribs felt cracked, and his left hand trembled from the last strike, but the real weight lay in those two blinking options.One path was vengeance—simple, burning, final.The other… was rebellion.Skye knelt beside him. “If you pick Echo War, you’ll have to build something. You’ll make enemies… and allies. You’ll risk becoming a symbol.”Kieran stared at the flickering prompt.He could almost hear his father’s voice again:“We built the system to rule. If it falls into wrong hands, it becomes a cage.”The cage was already here. And someone had to break the lock from the inside.He tapped Echo War.The screen rippled.Path Selected: Echo War – Resistance Formation Protocol OnlineNew Objective: Locate and Activate ‘Echo Nodes’ (Hidden system users bo

Override Beacon: ActivatedWarhead Squad ETA: 01:59:56Objective: Defend Ash Vault until override signal expires.If successful: Territory claimed – Resistance Base: EmberpointIf failed: Total annihilationKieran stared at the countdown.Just under two hours.That was all the time they had to turn a scorched military dump into a defensible fortress against a system strike team designed to annihilate legacy traces.The echoes of WRAITH’s retreat still burned in his mind—her final words twisted with warning.“This isn’t an execution. It’s a warhead drop.”01:55:09 – Preparing for WarThe Ash Vault, once a Blackwell testing bunker, still had a skeleton of functionality: pressure doors, reinforced platforms, a few half-operational defense turrets that buzzed erratically when touched.Skye moved like a ghost, checking every blind spot.Lyra barked orders with an old soldier’s confidence, waking up dormant terminals and rerouting power to external gates.Kieran stood at the center, map pul

The first step beneath Emberpoint was like crossing into another world.Steel gave way to obsidian. Clean circuits morphed into jagged, fractured lines of corrupted data. Lights flickered unpredictably, casting distorted shadows along walls that hummed with old, unspoken grief.Kieran led the way, his blade drawn but low. Beside him, Skye moved like a ghost, every step measured. Behind them, Lyra checked every motion tracker while Mira—barefoot and humming again—walked as if she’d been here before.System Warning: Sub-layer anomaly detected.Signal: Fragmented Null Pulse — Proximity 2.2kmEnvironment: Suppressed Override Zone / Echo Contamination Level: Critical“This place isn’t just abandoned,” Lyra muttered. “It was sealed. Maybe even condemned.”Kieran’s panel buzzed faintly, skipping every few meters.“The system can’t read this level properly,” he said. “It doesn’t know if it exists—or ever did.”Skye whistled low. “Glitched reality. Beautiful.”“No,” Mira whispered. “It’s remem