The flames from Vault XIII still danced in the distance, licking the broken skyline with unholy orange. Syra stood at the edge of a scorched ridge, cloak torn, heart heavier than before. The winds whispered through the dust like ghosts telling stories too old to forget.
Riven crouched beside her, nursing a bruised arm. "That wasn't just another elite squad," he muttered. "They knew your moves. Every one."
Syra's eyes were still on the horizon. "Lucian's adapting. Or someone is feeding him intel." She glanced at her wrist—a thin crack had spread across the sigil glyph, the tracker Ares had embedded years ago.
She tapped the glyph. Nothing.
The silence told her more than any scream.
Just then, the wind shifted. A shadow appeared against the firelight—tall, wrapped in a long ash-grey coat. Not Hellspawn. Not human. He wore a cracked Hunter insignia across one shoulder, barely visible beneath years of grime.
His voice carried like a blade sheathed in velvet.
"You're late, Syra Kaelion."
She turned, stepping forward instinctively, hands tightening around her daggers. "You know my name?"
The man's coat fluttered as he walked closer. His boots didn't crunch the ground—they commanded it. "I knew your father."
Riven's stance turned defensive. "And you are?"
The stranger stopped ten feet away. His eyes glowed pale violet beneath silver-streaked black hair. A blade unlike any they had seen was strapped diagonally across his back—half obsidian, half hollowed crystal.
"Name's Kaien. Ex-Hunter. Ex-traitor. Still breathing."
Syra narrowed her eyes. "You were at the siege of Polaris. The betrayal."
Kaien smirked. "So they still tell that story. Cute."
The tension thickened like blood left too long in the cold. But then, Kaien reached into his coat—not for a weapon, but a scroll sealed with a Heaven-marked sigil. Syra's breath caught. Only Ares used that mark.
"He left this for you," Kaien said. "Told me to give it only when the Archive burned."
Syra grabbed the scroll, her heart slamming against her ribs. The seal shimmered with the dying energy of her father's aura.
She hesitated. Riven whispered, "It could be a trap."
But if it is… then it means I'm already too late, she thought.
She opened it.
Inside, scrawled in Ares's jagged hand, was one line:
"Trust the forgotten—but never the remembered."
The scroll turned to ash in her hands.
Kaien spoke again, this time more softly. "You think you're hunting keys. You're not. You're hunting the rewrite. And it's hunting you."
"Rewrite?" she echoed. "You mean Author?"
Kaien's face darkened. "He's not your enemy. He's not your friend, either. He's a mirror. One that only shows truth when it's already too late."
The words hit harder than any blade.
Before she could reply, a high-pitched screech erupted from the shadows. Out of the cracked valley below, emerged a beast—massive, molten-skinned, eyes like tunnels to death. Riven was already drawing his blade.
Syra stepped forward. "It followed you?"
Kaien smirked again, drawing his blade. "No. It was following you."
And the battle began.
Blades clashed against bone. Fire screamed into the sky. Syra ducked low, slicing at the beast's tendons while Kaien danced like wind itself, carving precise wounds that glowed with dark energy. Riven flanked, hurling shock bursts at its skull.
But the beast regenerated—twice, thrice, adapting each time.
"We're not going to kill it like this!" Riven shouted, his shirt singed.
Kaien looked at Syra. "You're the key, not your blood."
"What?!"
"Think. Focus. Where does it hurt most when you remember him?"
Syra flinched—but something ignited inside her. Her pulse flickered with memory. Her father's words echoed.
"Find the Seven. Trust no blood—only your fire."
She screamed—not in pain, but in truth. Her eyes glowed, and from her palms erupted a burning arc of celestial light. The beast staggered back, finally howling.
Kaien shouted, "Now!"
Together, they struck. Riven from above, Kaien from the side, and Syra with the full force of her new light—the fragment of Heaven's will inside her.
The beast crumbled into ash.
But Kaien didn't celebrate. He looked at Syra, grim. "They'll come in numbers now. You just signaled to both sides you've awakened."
Syra, breathing hard, stared at the black sky. "Then let them come."
Behind her, unseen, Author stood on a shattered pillar, mask gleaming.
Author (to himself): "The mirror cracks. The ink flows. The rewrite… bleeds forward."