2025-02-16 20:00:40Sarah tightened her grip on his arm. “You need to sit. That poison—”
“I’m fine.” Samuel’s voice was rough, but the glare he shot her left no room for argument.
Ethan sheathed his sword with a sharp sigh. “You’re not fine, Samuel. That blade wasn’t just poisoned—it was infused with abyss magic.”
Samuel already knew. He could feel it. A slow, creeping energy coiling around his veins, trying to pull him under.
And the worst part?
The abyss inside him was answering.
It whispered in hi
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298
The room was drenched in red light. Holographic maps flickered over the walls of Vanguard’s temporary war chamber, each pulsing dot a sign of energy discharge. The most recent pulse came from the West Line, a dead zone that had been abandoned after the Fourth Collapse.Until now.Samuel stood in silence at the edge of the console table, his eyes narrowed as data scrolled before him. The coordinates weren’t just a dead zone. They matched the frequency of an IMA encryption signal—one that hadn’t been used since their genetic warflesh experiments were shut down.Joey stared at the screen. “So we’re saying they restarted the Chimera Project?”Cassari cursed under her breath. “Those monsters nearly cracked the dimensional barriers with that. The last one couldn’t even be killed by normal means.”Sarah stepped forward, voice low. “And if this intel is right… someone inside our circle leaked it.”A heavy silence fell.Samuel slowly turned, his voice quiet but sharp as steel. “Whoever it is,
297
The descent into the Vault of Thresholds wasn’t marked by staircases or winding tunnels, but by memory. Each step forward felt like passing through veils of time, peeling away assumptions and stripping the team of anything but their intent.The entrance itself was a ripple—no stone or gate—just a tear in reality suspended above an ancient pool of still light. When they crossed it, the world inverted.They emerged in a cathedral of motionless paradoxes. Walls shimmered between stone and thought. The ceiling was a sky they could not recognize. A thousand keys floated in midair, each pointing to doors that didn’t exist.Sarah turned slowly, stunned by the impossibility around them. “This place isn’t built. It’s felt.”Cassari grunted. “No maps. No sense of direction. Classic Vault tech.”Samuel didn’t respond. His eyes were fixed forward, past the illusion and shimmer, toward a great obelisk of spiraling glyphs at the heart of the chamber. At its peak: a single artifact glowing blue-whit
296
They had arrived at the Fracture Expanse—a stretch of broken lands where time didn’t flow forward, but pulsed in chaotic fragments.Samuel stood in the center, surrounded by the ruins of a once-great monastic enclave that had been swallowed by entropy centuries ago. The sky above was not blue or black, but a roiling canvas of shifting realities. The rocks whispered. The wind chattered like a dead choir.He could feel it—malice had passed through here.“I need silence,” he said.Joey, Sarah, and Cassari backed away, watching.Samuel raised his left hand, fingers splayed, then pressed his right hand flat to the ground. The air trembled.He spoke one word: “Echo.”Instantly, the ground beneath them shivered, and a wave of silver light spread outward in all directions. It wasn’t visible like fire, nor heavy like gravity—it was emotional resonance, saturated into the landscape.Joey instinctively flinched. “What… What is this?”“Ghost Echo,” Sarah whispered, wide-eyed. “He’s reading the la
295
They didn’t have time to breathe.The walls exploded inward—not from force, but from nullspace folding—an ancient tactic the IMA’s elite units used to bypass magical thresholds.Reality hissed. Air shuddered.And then came the voices.“Targets located. Initiate Code Rend.”Joey dove without thinking, grabbing Sarah as a net of black light fell from above. The entire ceiling fractured like a pane of mirrored glass, and through it descended six operatives, all cloaked in augmented Archive-tech exosuits—each wielding weapons shaped like fractured halos.“IMA Elite,” Joey growled. “Of course they show up now.”Samuel didn’t speak. He moved.One blink—and he was behind the first attacker. His hand ignited—not with fire or shadow, but time inversion—an advanced technique only those who’d been rewritten by the Archive’s core could attempt.He slammed his palm into the operative’s back.The suit froze. Then shattered outward, like a sculpture reversing its own carving.Joey whistled. “Okay. S
294
In the heart of the Tower of Reconciliation, beneath layers of crystal bone and alloyed starlight, the Vanguard assembled for the first time.Twelve chairs encircled the chamber, each carved from a different memory: one made of obsidian etched with Archive runes, another of living bark from the Veil’s heartwood, others sculpted from forgotten metals, cracked prophecy tablets, or feathered stone that pulsed softly when watched.At the center stood Samuel, arms folded behind his back, cloak faintly stirring even without wind.His eyes scanned the room.Each person here had once been an enemy. Or worse—a believer in a broken truth.And now, they were all he had.Joey leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, scowling openly.“I’m just saying,” he muttered to Sarah, “this is a terrible idea.”Sarah glanced at him. “You say that every time we meet someone new.”“And I’m always right.”From the opposite end, Elienne sat unmoving, veiled eyes flicking toward Joey. Her voice slid through the air
293
The air over the French Highlands shimmered—not from heat, but from distortion.Leylines once frayed by Archive experiments had reknit themselves, but where they converged, the world pulsed with ancient tension. There, within the ruins of an inverted cathedral buried in limestone cliffs, lay Saint Noëlle’s Gate—the last known home of the Shard Caller.Joey adjusted his coat, scanning the landscape from a broken arch. “This place reeks of unburied ghosts.”Sarah crouched beside a moss-covered glyph, her fingers glowing faintly blue. “That’s because it’s not empty. This cathedral remembers every scream it ever heard. It sings in trauma.”“Cheerful.”“Focus, Joey. We’re not here for therapy. We’re here for Elienne.”Joey grunted. “Elienne tried to collapse the Eastern Axis three years ago.”“And Samuel still said she was vital.”“That’s his new hobby,” Joey muttered, “hiring old villains.”They entered the hollow nave.What was once an altar was now a circular pool, not of water, but of
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