The wind howled like a dying beast.
Marcus stepped onto the glacial shelf with a crunch of brittle ice beneath his boots. Beacon Two loomed in the distance—partially sunken into a sea of white, its spires piercing the sky like frozen spears. The entire valley was locked in permafrost, caught in the endless storm triggered by the Beacon's cold-phase terraforming protocol.
[Environmental Status: Temperature –78°C][Warning: Core Heat Drain Active – Evolutionary Adaptation Required]
[Initiate Mutation: "Thermo-reactive Dermal Layer" – Y/N?]
"Yes," Marcus said aloud, breath already crystallizing.
Fire surged beneath his skin. It was less painful now. Evolution was becoming muscle memory. As his pores adjusted, heat radiated outward, turning frost on his jacket to steam.
Lucien's voice crackled over comms. "Picking up a lot of static, Marcus. There's something moving down there—big. You've got less than six hours before the Beacon triggers its next atmospheric phase."
"I won't need six," Marcus muttered.
He trudged through the valley, the sky above flashing with blue lightning. Strange shapes stirred beneath the ice—long limbs, hunched backs, eyes that glowed briefly before vanishing beneath the snow. The failed ones. Victims of incomplete evolution.
Halfway to the Beacon, he saw it: a trail of massive footprints. Not mutant. Not machine.
Warden.
He followed them into a shattered research dome half-buried in ice. Inside, the walls were covered in scribbles—half-code, half-prayers. The remains of a long-abandoned expedition.
And then he saw him.
Slumped against a broken control pillar, encased in a cocoon of frost and organic metal, was a corpse in a Warden's uniform. Not just a Warden.
The first Warden.
A relic from Project Legacy. Face weathered, hands curled into claws, his chest still faintly glowing with system activity.
[Host Signature Detected – Warden Protocol ID: Elijah 01][Status: Corrupted | Cognition Fragment Stable][Engage Mental Link?]
Marcus hesitated, then nodded. "Do it."
His vision went white.
And then—
He stood inside a dream of fire and snow. Elijah stood before him, towering, radiant, eyes like fractured glass.
"You're the new one," the old Warden rasped. "Did they finally fix the flaw?"
Marcus raised his chin. "No. I just stopped letting it define me."
Elijah's form trembled. "I burned everything I loved for this role. I lost my soul to win a war that never ended. Don't make the same mistake."
The dream twisted. Elijah howled—and his body erupted in jagged ice, reshaping into a monstrous hybrid of Warden and Beacon-born abomination.
[CORRUPTED WARDEN ENGAGED – CODE: ELIJAH 01]
Marcus drew his breath and leapt.
They collided like titans—ice clashing against heat, memories versus purpose. Elijah moved with fury but not control. He had lost his anchor. No empathy. No humanity. Just instinct and programming.
Marcus fought smarter. He used Empathic Echo, channeling the determination of Lucien, the clarity of Astra, the fury of Ember. Every punch he landed cracked away more of Elijah's frozen soul.
And in the final moment, Marcus caught his enemy's arm, drove a spike of heated crystal into the reactor core behind Elijah's chest—and whispered, "Sleep."
The old Warden fell to his knees.
[Corrupted Core Purged – Warden ID: Elijah 01, Terminated with Honor][Beacon Control Acquired]
Marcus stood alone as the cold receded. The skies began to clear above Beacon Two.
But in the snow behind him, one of the ice-buried shapes stirred—and opened a third eye.