The undercity was a wound, but the High Sector was a mask.
Zero stepped off the mag-tram into a world painted in gold and hollow smiles. Neo-Valoria's elite strolled beneath translucent awnings, each movement rehearsed, their footsteps echoing like whispers across marble floors. Artificial light filtered down from energy conduits overhead, imitating sunlight that no longer reached the real sky.
He moved among them like a phantom—hood low, cloak stained from soot and ash, golden eyes veiled in shadow.
Kira's words echoed in his mind: "That place eats people like you alive."
But Zero wasn't afraid of being eaten.
He was afraid of remembering.
SYSTEM SCANNING...
THREAD OF FATE: Active
Target: Lysaria Vex
Status: Proximity Imminent
The system's voice was colder now, more assertive. As if it recognized that Zero was no longer just a survivor—he was a variable.
Lysaria Vex stood like a dagger among candles.
Scarlet uniform. Reinforced light armor. Red-glass visor concealing sharp, suspicious eyes. Her posture screamed discipline, but there was a twitch in her jaw—impatience. She stood on the edge of a rally platform in High Plaza, arguing with a middle-aged man clad in polished robes.
"Your unit oversteps again," he said with a sigh. "You stormed a restricted memory archive without clearance. That is not how the Council handles its enforcers."
"I'm not chasing anomalies," Lysaria snapped. "I'm following a thread that could unravel everything."
The man rolled his eyes. "You're still hung up on the Divine Crash. That incident is sealed."
"It shouldn't be."
Before he could reply, she turned—and her eyes met Zero's across the plaza.
Just a second.
But a second was enough.
MEMORY FRAGMENT REACTIVATED
Thread Sync: 5%
In that instant, he saw her not in scarlet but in red-soaked battle gear, flames behind her. Screaming crowds. A throne of jagged obsidian. And she was there—beside him or against him, he couldn't tell.
He flinched. She moved.
"Stop!" Lysaria shouted, drawing her blade.
Zero ran.
Through crowds, over floating walkways, across shimmering glass platforms—his cloak billowed behind him like a memory unraveling.
Alarms rang.
"Subject Zero spotted—High threat priority! Mobilize interceptors!"
He ducked through an old cathedral door, now repurposed into a shrine for the Divine Order. It stank of incense and old promises. Down through crypt stairs, deeper into forgotten catacombs beneath the city's heart.
Lysaria followed.
When she cornered him, her blade glowed with blue circuit-sigil etching along its edge.
"Who sent you?" she hissed.
"No one," he said quietly.
"Liar."
"I'm looking for answers too."
She hesitated. "What are you?"
He opened his mouth.
SYSTEM ALERT: INTERFERENCE DETECTED
A piercing scream shattered the corridor.
The wall behind Lysaria cracked apart, and through it slithered a thing not meant for this world—its flesh flickered between corrupted data and biomass. It bore a distorted human face stretched across a monstrous, shifting skull.
"A Null Beast," Lysaria growled, pivoting.
Zero stepped forward.
CODEX OF KINGS: ACCESS GRANTED
UNSEALING SIGIL: FIRST LITANY OF THE VOID
His hand shimmered with lines of forgotten language. Runes hovered and spun in the air, orbiting his wrist like gravity-defying tattoos.
He touched the creature's core.
A pulse. A scream. It disintegrated into shards of light and sound.
Lysaria lowered her sword, staring.
"You shouldn't be able to do that."
"I know."
"That's not system magic."
"No," he said. "It's older."
Lysaria stepped back, suspicion and something else—fear—flickering across her face.
"Who the hell are you?"
He looked at her.
"I'm the ghost your gods tried to erase."
Then he turned and walked into the shadows, the hum of ancient power crackling in his wake.
Lysaria stood alone, the weight of centuries hanging in the cold air around her. She tapped her wrist interface, voice low.
"This changes everything. Contact the Inner Sanctum."
She looked toward the corridor where he'd vanished.
"I found him."