System Rebirth: The Rise of Jace Ronan

Chapter 7: The Lieutenants of Fire and Flesh.

They said the inner sanctum of the Gilded Fang was a myth, a place that moved, a phantom fortress that slipped through cracks in the city's bones. Some claimed it was digital, housed in data and dream, only reachable by those willing to give up something real. Others swore it had been swallowed by war and rubble.

They were all wrong.

It was real.

It didn't move.

It hid.

It waited.

And I was going in.

Sector 4 had another name, passed down by those who never left it. Ashlock. The last breath of light before the city went dark. No sunlight reached here. Not anymore.

The buildings leaned like old men, windows bricked or blacked out, corners still scorched from wars no one remembered. Sigils seared into the walls, pulsed faintly, like coals that refused to die.

Even the air carried history like a disease. Smoke, ash, and the smell of something ancient trying to crawl out. Yui walked beside me in silence. We wore the clothes of the forgotten. Ragged coats over armor-thin weave, nothing that caught attention unless you looked too long.

Her presence felt quieter now, smaller, like she was trying to fold herself out of existence. She hadn't left after the truth unraveled.

That didn't mean I trusted her.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

The old depot was nothing from the outside. Gutted, rusted, webbed in cabling and rot. But inside, hidden beneath collapsed flooring and false walls, sat the truth. An elevator shaft that didn't exist on any map, buried beneath three layers of forged architecture.

We dropped in through a shattered grate, boots thudding against metal ductwork, slick with heat. The deeper we went, the stranger it became.

Not darker.

Hotter.

Like we were descending into a furnace that hadn't burned out in decades. By the time we reached sub-level three, the walls were shaking.

Not from machinery.

From memory.

Sigils lined the corridor ahead. Not etched. Painted. In blood that shimmered in the light. Symbols that twisted when you stared too long. Marks older than anything I remembered reading in the Fang archives.

They weren't warnings.

They were bindings.

Yui stopped, breath catching in her throat.

“These aren't from this cycle,” she whispered. They're pre-convergence.”

I looked at her. “You recognize them?”

Her eyes were glassy.

“My brother used to draw these when he had episodes. I thought he was hallucinating. He wasn't. None of us were.”

We passed through the containment arch. That's when the guards found us. Not standard patrols. Sentinels. Covered in plated armor that breathed heat. No faces, just mirrored masks that rippled with data.

They didn't speak.

Didn't posture.

They just moved.

I stepped in first. The Soul Blade Grell hummed under my coat, already alive. Steel tore into the first Sentinel's midsection, carving through armor like parchment. He dropped without a sound.

The second moved faster, parrying my slash with a hooked blade that hissed with enchantment. But I wasn't fighting like a man anymore. The ghost circuit pulsed in my limbs, whispering movement like second nature.

Pivot.

Kneel.

Upward thrust.

The blade found his throat. Blood hit the ceiling like a geyser.

Yui barely looked away. “They weren't guards,” she said. “They were warnings.”

At the end of the corridor stood a vault. No buttons. No scanner. No code. Just a single palm imprint, etched into polished obsidian. It pulsed faintly as I approached.

I didn't think. I just placed my hand against it. The hiss of depressurization cut the silence like a scream. The vault opened.

Yui stared, eyes wide. “You don't have clearance.”

“No,” I said quietly. “But something in there knows me.”

And that was worse.

Inside was not a sanctum. It was a chamber of resurrection and ruin. Circular, lined in obsidian veins of gold and heat. The air shimmered, thick with data and something less tangible. Memory, maybe. Grief.

The walls held pods, sealed in humming.

Some housed bodies. Others were empty. But they weren't corpses. They were hosts.

Each wired into the center structure, a column of light pulsing like a heartbeat. When I stepped into the circle, it reacted, flared, and then the voice came.

[Welcome home, Subject 7.]

It didn't come from the room. It came from inside me. My knees buckled. Yui said something. I couldn't hear her.

[Integration confirmed. Neural pattern: stable. Host identity: verified. Ghost circuit core sync in progress.]

I gasped.

Not air.

Memory.

And it hit all at once.

Flashes. A war of ash and steel. A boy strapped down, screaming beneath surgical lights. Needles sinking into his spine, feeding code into his nerves. A woman weeping as she held his hand.

“You're going to help the world.”

My mother.

Always my mother.

When it ended, I was on the floor, sweating, trembling, breathing fire and ash.

Yui crouched beside me, hands hovering over my shoulders like she wasn't sure if I'd break or burn.

“You saw something.”

I nodded. “I saw her. I saw before everything.

She looked haunted. “You remember?”

“Just enough,” I rasped.

Enough to know this place made me.

And maybe broke me.

A sound tore through the silence. Not mechanical.

Footsteps.

Heavy.

Certain.

Each one louder than the last. I stood, blade drawn, vision shaking. A figure emerged from the far corridor. Tall, armored, robed in crimson. Golden runes traced his arms like veins. His face was hidden behind a polished mask, but his presence sucked the air out of the room.

The voice came like boiling oil behind glass.

“You've come far, Subject 7.” He raised his hands. “But this isn't your chamber anymore.”

He stepped forward. “I am Verne Zay, Lieutenant of Fire and Flesh. And your blood ends here.” He struck first, faster than anything I'd fought.

His fists were wrapped in flame. Not heat, but spirit fire, burning on a plane deeper than the skin. Every punch detonated like a spell. My coat ignited at the hem. My ribs fractured. The floor cracked. But I didn't fall. I let the ghost circuit move me.

Dodge.

Strike.

Slide left.

Memories surged through my muscles like electricity.

I caught his arm. Drove my blade through his ribs. He staggered, coughing heat. But then he slammed his hand into the ground.

And the world burned.

The walls lit up with ancient signals. Every pod ruptured, howling with steam and screams. Heat scalded the air. Consoles exploded. Shrapnel sang.

Yui dove for cover. I didn't move. The fire licked at my skin, but I stood tall. The circuit howled inside me.

[Now you understand—You were never meant to run. You were meant to return.]

I gripped the blade. Charged. Verne roared, his body a beacon of flame and fury.

But I wasn't afraid.

Not anymore.

I moved with memory.

Fought with rage.

Struck with the weight of every forgotten life that bled in this chamber. The blade pierced his chest.

He gasped.

I stepped closer. “Tell the Fang…” I whispered. “The ghost is awake. And I tore the blade free.”

He died in fire.

Smoke thickened.

Lights flickered and died.

Yui crawled from behind the console, coughing blood.

“You alive?” I asked.

“Barely.” Her eyes scanned the ruin.

The broken pods. The shattered core.

“Was this it?” She asked. “The truth?”

I looked down at my hands. They weren't shaking.

They felt steady.

Real.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then what now?”

I looked at the burning sigils on the wall. The ruined chamber of my birth.

“Now…” I tightened my grip on the Soul Blade.

“Now we burn what's left of the lie.”