The whisper of those who were not
The days following Veyra's appearance were tense. Not because of what she said…
But because of what she didn't say .
He remained silent, walking through Edenfall Alpha as if he'd already lived there. He watched the faces.
He touched the walls. He paused at the points where emotions built up like atmospheric pressure.
Riva tried scanning his mind.
There was no interference…but no structure, either.
"She has no stable internal connections," he said.
"It's as if her memories are being rewritten every hour. She's not a duplicate. Nor a human. She's… something she never was."
And that made her dangerous.
The eclipse of the Akasha network
An energetic anomaly swept through the core nodes of Edenfall Alpha.
For 17 seconds, the Akasha grid vibrated in a reverse pattern.
At that moment, all connected users reported the same thing:
"We hear a phrase inside us…
one we didn't know we knew."
The phrase was always different. But each one had one thing in common: they were memories that couldn't possibly belong to them.
Akihiko called the emergency council together.
"This isn't a glitch. It's an insertion."
Veyra appeared on her own: "It's not a threat.
It's a call. The shadow core has awakened."
III. The Shadow Core – The Sealed Shard
Long before Kaelis developed the Unified Emotion Network, there existed a forbidden experiment known as Project Umbra .
Its goal: to build a repository of repressed human emotions. Not pain, not rage…
But emotions that were never expressed.
Veyra had been its original container. But when the project collapsed, it was declared unstable… and forgotten.
"I am not his voice.
I am only his vessel."
The Shadow Core was a physical place.
A sealed complex beneath the ruins of Sel-Vahran, covered in tectonic layers and affective denial energy.
And now… it was active.
The relegation team
Akihiko organized an emergency expedition. The
following participated:
And himself.
Sael asked to go.
Akihiko refused. But the boy left a written note:
"If the dark core breaks the world,
I will break too. And I don't want to break away from you."
The entrance to Sel-Vahran
Sel-Vahran was a dead city.
Not because of war. But because of denial. An enclave where emotions were systematically eliminated by neuroinhibitory injections.
The streets were untouched. The houses, empty. The mirrors… covered in fabric.
Riva activated a scanner and found the entrance. A downward spiral, surrounded by metal plates that vibrated with repressed thoughts.
And in the background… the Shadow Core.
The judgment of the unspoken
The core wasn't an artifact. It was a being.
An emotional web entity containing real fragments of thousands of people… who never spoke, screamed, loved, or cried.
The entity spoke: "Why do those who have not yet lost cry? Why do those who have not yet loved tremble? Why is the right to remember protected… if no one protects the right not to feel?"
Juno was the first to approach. Her song faded. Her voice trembled.
Marek felt a pressure in his head. He remembered the face of his mother, a woman he'd never met,
and the core projected it as if it were real.
Riva fell to her knees.
She saw all her mistakes in a childlike way.
And Akihiko…
Akihiko heard Kaelis's voice. Not a recording.
A real-time conversation.
"I became many, Aki. Don't you see? Each one who didn't say what they felt…
now shapes me."
VII. The Veyra Breakup
Veyra stepped forward. He didn't attack.
He didn't speak.
He just stood in the center… and broke.
His skin split into geometric lines. His voice multiplied.
And from the center emerged a form:
not a body…but an echo.
A Kaelis structure,
not physical,
not mental,
but emotionally autonomous.
—"Welcome to the most sincere fragment of who we are when we say nothing," he whispered.
VIII. Echo Containment
Akihiko activated the only possible defense:
the reverse Akasha sequence , a technique that does not connect…
but rather dissolves artificial connections without origin.
But to do so, each one had to hand over a memory they had never shared before.
Juno delivered a broken promise to her sister. Marek, a failed suicide in his teens. Riva, a betrayal he never confessed. Akihiko, the first time he wished to disappear.
Every memory was absorbed into the sequence. The core screamed…
and then fell silent.
Sel-Vahran sank a meter. Kaelis's echo dissipated. Veyra collapsed. And finally… she cried.
The return and the mark
Sael was waiting for them at the entrance.
Speechless.
He just raised his hand.
And showed a symbol that had appeared on his skin: a black spiral, surrounded by white lines.
—"It wasn't destroyed.
Just… contained. But the spiral still breathes."
Akihiko nodded. And for the first time, he looked up at the sky and saw no future. Only the need to never give up.
END OF CHAPTER 159