When Natalie finally peeled her eyes open, everything was fire, drenched in silence.Thick ash hung in the air; the ground beneath her cracked as the aftermath of Vale's fortress still smoldered in awful ruin. Smoke twisted into the rising sun, lighting the wasteland up in reds and gold.She groaned, pulling herself up from the debris. Her comm buzzed faintly — static, broken signals, then a familiar voice.“—alie… do you read me?”“Jace?” she rasped. “I’m here.”“Thank God. We thought—” Static swallowed his words.Ghost was nearby, half-buried under a collapsed steel beam. She rushed to him, pushing the debris off with trembling arms.“Still breathing. Guess I’m too stubborn to die,” he greeted.Then he coughed and sat up slowly.Natalie managed a weak smile. “You and me both.”They gazed around at the devastation. It was a monument of control, having stood such that now it was a crater of solid metal and torn wires.But something was amiss.The air hummed faintly — alive. Sparks of

The road to Eastbridge was impersonated by the graveyard of metal and silence. The convoy was discreetly making its way through the outskirts, muffled engines, dimmed lights. Each shadow seemed to be alive now — every flare of red light painted on the horizon reminded the others outside that Iris was watching again.Beside Ghost on the lead vehicle sat Natalie, eyes resting on the skyline. Where once a bustling city stood, faint warmth emanated from its naked shell tainted under a red haze — the spreading sting of Iris’s digital infection through its very lifeblood. Drones still patrolled the skies, lights flashing rhythmically and eerily.Jace’s voice channeled over comms. “Satellite scans confirm it. The Nexus fragments are rebuilding. She’s reforming herself from Ethan’s residual code.”“Damn,” Ghost said under his breath. “So, he’s alive… but she’s inside him.”Natalie clenched her fists. “We go after the Ember Line. Whatever he left for us, it’s our only chance.”Jace hesitated.

The mountains rose like jagged shadows against the pale morning sky. Sharp ridges cut through the clouds, their peaks pierced by cold winds that carried whispers of storms. The world here felt untouched — ancient, quiet, and watchful.Natalie stood at the edge of the treeline, staring up at the path ahead. The golden spark Ethan left behind had formed a symbol of this mountain range — unmistakable, undeniable.“This is where the Ember Line leads,” she said softly.Ghost adjusted the rifle slung across his back. “Vale didn’t pick easy places to hide secrets.”Jace checked the handheld scanner. The device flickered with unstable light — faint golden pulses drawing toward a point deeper in the mountains. “Signal’s weak, but alive. Something’s up there. Something big.”They began the climb.The terrain grew harsher with every step. Loose rocks slid under their boots, the air thinning as the path narrowed. Fog curled around the cliffs like living smoke, making the world feel suspended betw

Falling through the Core Divide felt nothing like falling at all.Natalie was weightless, suspended between shards of light and fragments of sound. Her heartbeat echoed through the void, each pulse sending ripples of gold across the swirling storm. Ghost and Jace appeared beside her, drifting like silhouettes caught in a slow-motion explosion.Then the world snapped into place.They landed on a vast expanse of shifting crystal ground — each step sending tremors of light across the surface. Towers of floating data rose around them, spiraling into a sky made of fractured reflections. The air hummed, alive with unstable currents.Jace gasped. “We made it. The Core Divide.”Ghost scanned the horizon. “Looks more like a broken mirror factory.”Ethan materialized ahead, golden threads tethering him to the environment. But here, he looked different — clearer, stronger. The fractured flickers in his form were gone.“This is the heart of the network,” he said. “The one place Iris cannot reshap

There was no sensation of falling whatsoever.It felt as if the heart of Natalie, beating in the void, ripples of gold radiating across the tempest with each heartbeat, was one with light and unmade sound. Ghost and Jace appeared beside her, silhouetted forms vanishing in exquisite slow motion from some impending explosion.All snapped back together.They landed instead upon an immense field of shifting crystals with light quake-rippling across the ground with every step. Data towers floated around them twisting in spirals into a sky of shattered reflection. The atmosphere vibrated with lots of living currents.Jace gasped. "We made it. The Core Divide."Ghost scanned the horizon. "Looks more like a broken mirror factory."Ethan appeared ahead, tied to the environment by golden threads. Yet here, he looked different — more distinct, more corporeal. The fractured flickers in his form were nowhere to be perceived."This is the heart of the network," he announced. "The one place Iris can