The Shattered Plains lay open and still, like a broken bowl under a bruised purple sky. The land was flat and wide, covered in smooth glass that reflected nothing clearly. Even sound seemed afraid to travel there. Draven stood at the center with his people forming a wide circle around him. No one spoke loudly. No one relaxed. Something was coming. They were not hiding. They were guarding. The Frost Dawn Matriarch stood with her shoulders straight despite the bindings that dulled her power. Her white hair moved slightly in the hot wind. She closed her eyes, listening to memories rather than sound. Then she lifted her hand and pointed east. “He will come from there,” she said. Her voice trembled, not from fear but from certainty. “The thermal vents. The heat will hide him. It will also strengthen his relics.” The Veil Walker Patriarch leaned heavily on his staff. His eyes were half closed, as if he was watching a different world layered over this one. “He will not reveal himself

The grey corridors seemed to stretch forever, a maze of silent, identical stone. Yet Draven walked with unerring purpose, a ghost in a tomb.“Left here, no, straight,” he whispered to himself. The mental map in his mind was his only guide.After what felt like an hour of silent walking, they reached a vast circular chamber. It was not a grand hall, but a nexus. Seven archways led out, each blocked by a shimmering, translucent field of a different color.In the center of the room floated a single black crystal plinth. On it rested not a weapon or a book, but a simple polished stone disc."This is it," Draven said, his voice barely breaking the deep silence. "The control hub."Selene rushed forward, her awe overcoming her caution. "The energy matrices, they are not just shields. They are filters. Each archway goes to a different specialized archive. Look!" She pointed to a blue field. "That one pulses with water data. The green one is for plants and life sciences." Her eyes landed on a

Draven didn’t answer. His eyes stayed on the ceiling above. The hole he had fallen through was thirty feet up, glowing with fading golden light from the chamber where his friends still were. It was shrinking. The edges rippled with a liquid, silver-like metal that moved on its own, sealing the stone closed with quiet, frightening intent.No.He wouldn't be sealed in a tomb. Not now.He crouched, ignoring the sharp pain tearing through his unstable body, and shot up with force. He didn’t aim for the hole. He aimed for the moving metal at its edge. His body, now strengthened, tightened. All the chaotic energy that had just destroyed the Sentinel focused into his fist. He swung a punch strong enough to crush a mountain.It connected with the silvery surface.THWUMP.The punch made no real sound, only a deep, empty thud that seemed to swallow the force of the hit. The shock slammed back through his arm, shaking his bones and sending new pain through his already damaged core.The metal did

The conduit was not built for comfort. It was a tight, hexagonal tunnel, the walls a seamless, dark grey composite that hummed with a low, sub-audible frequency. It was just wide enough for a man to crawl through, if he hunched his shoulders. The air was thin and tasted of static.Draven followed the prisoner, the man moving with an unsettling, boneless grace through the cramped space. Behind them, the panel hissed shut, sealing them in complete darkness except for the faint silver glow from the prisoner's eyes and the chaotic storm-light still flickering in Draven's own."We must be quick, but we must be silent," the prisoner's voice was a whisper that seemed to ride the hum of the walls. "These are the interstitial passages. The vault's immune system patrols them.""Immune system?" Draven whispered back, his voice echoing slightly before being absorbed by the strange material."Smaller constructs. Cleaners. They purge dust, recalibrate energy flows... and remove unauthorized biologi

The world was blue-green silence. The stasis fluid held Draven in a state of absolute pause. His heart did not beat. His blood did not flow. The terrifying countdown to his foundation’s collapse was frozen at 52 hours.But his mind, within the crystal pod, was a universe of pain and light.He felt every crack inside his Primordial Chaotic Foundation. Each one felt like a deep cut of pain. The cold healing energy from the pod slowly entered those cracks. It was not fixing them. It was trying to understand the shape of the damage.Deep within that fractured landscape, something else stirred.It was the Ember of Extinguished Glory, the Sovereign Relic Shard he had gained from killing the Flame-Soul Patriarch. He had stored it, a crystallized fragment of a dynasty’s ambition. Now, inside the still and silent stasis chamber, protected from the chaos of his own power, the shard started to react.It did not burn with fire. It broke apart and turned into a stream of pure golden white energy