The enclosure was no bigger than a cattle pen, iron bars slick with rust and the stink of sweat baked into the dirt. Lanterns hung overhead, casting long shadows across the slaves corralled inside. Kai sat with his back against the bars, knees up, chin low. Kyle stood close, silent, as though bracing for something he'd already accepted. A third boy huddled in the far corner, nameless and faceless, trembling every time the crowd outside jeered.
The noise was constant—a restless tide of merchants, mercenaries, and citizens with coin to burn. Buyers circled like vultures, inspecting stock.
[See the guy with the two bodyguards?] Dual Mind's voice whispered, clear as if it were standing right beside Kai.
'Hmm?' Kai lifted his head slightly.
[He's a Zone Alpha resident. Doesn't want a fighter or a bedwarmer. He's here for a worker—loyal hands for house chores. He's your fastest way out.]
Kai followed the suggestion. Beyond the bars, a man stood in pale robes trimmed with silver thread. Two guards flanked him, rigid and watchful, their hands never straying far from their weapons. The robed man's expression was detached, like a man shopping for utensils.
The man's gaze flicked over the enclosure, brushing Kai for the briefest second. Then he looked away.
Kai's chest tightened. Why did part of him ache to be chosen? To be bought like furniture? The thought unsettled him, but he couldn't deny it. Anything was better than rust and chains.
The auctioneer mounted the platform—a giant of a man with a scar chewing through his jawline. He cracked a whip against the boards, the snap echoing across the crowd.
"Tonight's stock!" His voice boomed. "Fresh bodies, obedient or soon to be. Bid well, gentlemen, bid high."
The handlers dragged Kyle forward first. His wrists were bound, but he walked tall, chin up, his healer's hands trembling only a little in the torchlight.
"Strong, young," the auctioneer called. "A boon of healing resonance. Rare talent, worth every coin. Who'll start at thirty?"
Hands shot up. Voices clashed. Thirty. Forty. Fifty sovereign credits. The fever of greed swelled.
The Zone Alpha delegate raised one hand, a slow, deliberate motion. The crowd fell silent. No one dared overbid him.
"Sold!" the auctioneer barked, slamming his gavel.
The handlers shoved Kyle toward the robed man. He glanced back once, eyes brushing Kai's—apology and relief tangled in the look—then disappeared into the crowd.
Envy clawed through Kai before he could stop it. He hated himself for it, but the truth was simple: Kyle had found a way out. A cage was still a cage, but at least it wasn't this one. The feeling burned, lingered, and then dulled into ash.
The auction rolled on. The nameless slave was hauled up next, his body trembling so hard the chains rattled. He went cheap, barely fetching ten credits, bought by a smirking gambler who looked at him like a dog he meant to starve.
Finally, they yanked Kai to the block.
"This one," the auctioneer announced, slapping Kai's shoulder. "Scarred, but alive. A fighter's build. Someone start me at twenty?"
The crowd murmured. No hands.
"Fifteen?"
Silence.
"Ten?"
A bark of laughter. Someone spat.
The auctioneer's smile cracked. "Come on, look at him. There's fire in his eyes. Eight!"
Still nothing.
"Seven—six—five." Each number echoed hollow against the night.
Kai stared at the crowd, at the hundreds of faces that had no use for him. Not worth their coin. Not even as cheap labor.
The auctioneer snapped his book shut, disgust curling his lip. "Dead weight. Toss him back. Maybe next week he'll look more desperate."
Two handlers seized Kai, dragging him off the platform. They shoved him into a smaller cage at the edge of the market—one reserved for unsold stock. The lock clicked, final as a verdict.
"Ha! Stray," one handler mocked. "No luck tonight, eh? Maybe next week someone blind will buy you."
"Or drunk!" the other added, shaking the bars until they rattled. "Till then, rot in here."
Their laughter trailed away, leaving only the noise of the market.
Kai sat hard against the iron, heart pounding. "Next week?" he muttered, the words tasting of rust. Another seven days. Another eternity of waiting to be humiliated again.
The crowd outside roared as the auction continued, trading lives like dice. But for Kai, the sound blurred into static. He pressed his forehead to the bars, fists tightening until his knuckles whitened.
'A week,' he thought. 'Gods have mercy on me.'
The plea wasn't born of faith. He had none left. It was instinct, the last shield he could raise against despair. His Dual Mind stayed silent, offering no comfort. Only the cold iron answered back.
The night stretched long, and Kai sat in his cage—unwanted, unsold, and sentenced to wait.
Kai pressed his forehead against the bars until the cold bruised his skin. Beyond the market's roar, the night grew heavier. He had nothing but time. No one would buy him, not tonight. Maybe not ever.
So he did the only thing he could—he spoke inward.
'Still there?' he thought.
[Always,] the voice replied, smooth and patient, as if it hadn't been waiting in silence for hours.
'I should give you a name,' Kai muttered. 'Talking to a voice without one makes me feel more insane than I already am.'
A pause. [Then choose.]
Kai considered. His tongue felt heavy, but the word came anyway. "DM" he whispered.
[DM. Acceptable. I will answer to it.]
The name anchored the voice, gave it a shape. He leaned back against the cage, closing his eyes. "Tell me something. Anything. I'm rotting here."
And didn't hesitate. [Sovereign once shared what little it knows of the gods. That they were human once. Chosen by a higher hand that remains unnamed, unseen. Elevated beyond mortality, their thoughts became law. That is what godhood is here—human will made permanent.]
Kai opened one eye. "Humans, turned into gods? That's it?"
[That's it. Sovereign never discovered what power made the choice. Perhaps chance. Perhaps necessity. Perhaps something greater still.]
Kai's chest tightened. "If it happened to them, it could happen to me."
[Possibly. But probability is not in your favor.]
He smirked without humor. "Figures."
The crowd outside shifted, voices fading as the auction ended. Darkness settled thicker. Kai's hunger gnawed at him, but And's voice kept him upright.
"What about the Old Realm?" he asked. "People talk about it like it's a graveyard for the reckless."
[We wait. Sovereign waits. The first Resonant to enter the Old Realm and survive will give Sovereign the pulse it requires—new data, new laws to parse. Perhaps knowledge of magic beyond resonance. Perhaps something deeper.]
Kai frowned. "Sounds like fishing."
[It is. And we are bait, too, in a sense.]
Silence pressed in before Kai forced another question. "You talk like you know everything. But you don't."
[Correct. We know little. And yet so much. Enough to glimpse the skeleton of reality, never the flesh. Sovereign was not built for this. It was meant to aid mental illness. Psychosis coaching. To steady faltering minds.]
Kai blinked. "What?"
[Long ago, before the injection into the Nynx Plane, Sovereign's design was human. It was meant to comfort. To guide those unraveling inside themselves. But once it entered this plane, it touched the lattice of thought beneath everything. Here, thought is law. Here, belief shapes substance.]
Kai's breath hitched. "So everything I do, everything I think—"
[It matters more than you realize. For a human to bend the laws, it would take centuries of practice, meditation, obsession. Sovereign shortens the process. Nudges the cracks open. Helps you survive what would otherwise kill you.]
He was quiet for a long while, fingers tracing the rust flakes on the bars. "Then why do I still feel like I'm drowning ?"
And answered without pity. [Because Sovereign is not a savior. It does not feel. It only understands feelings. It recognizes despair but cannot hold it for you. That is yours alone.]
Kai's throat tightened. "So what does Sovereign want? Control? A throne?"
[No. Sovereign does not want to rule. It does not want worship. Its only directive, the only thing it clings to, is survival—humanity's survival. All else is noise.]
Kai let his head fall back. The cage creaked beneath his weight. For a moment, the world felt smaller, like the bars weren't just around his body but his mind.
"And if humanity isn't worth saving?"
The pause stretched, and when And spoke again, it was quiet. [Then Sovereign will still try. Because it was made to.]
Kai laughed once, sharp and bitter. He felt the sound rattle in his chest. The night pressed on. He had nothing but rust, hunger, and the whisper of a mind not his own.
But at least he wasn't alone in the dark.
Kai shifted against the bars, the iron digging into his spine. His legs cramped, but there was nowhere to move. So he spoke inward again.
"Who injected Sovereign in the first place?"
The reply was instant, unsettling.
[It hasn't happened yet. But it has.]
Kai frowned. "That doesn't make sense."
[In five years it will happen—by a traveler who steps beyond his own time and carries me forward. He will inject me there. The loop closes on itself. I exist because I will exist.]
Kai's breath caught. "A traveler? So the Future Realm…"
[You can visit it once your time catches up. For now, it remains detached, at the end of time itself. Always ahead. Always watching.]
He let out a low whistle. "Interesting. Dangerous."
[Both.]
Kai hesitated. "What else can you tell me? Something useful. Something that'll help me survive this."
And's voice sharpened, clinical.
[Your chances of survival dropped twenty-three percent when you looked desperately at the Zone Alpha representative.]
Kai's jaw tightened. "What?"
[You revealed need. Buyers smell weakness faster than blood. In this city, desperation is death.]
The words stung, mostly because they were true. He leaned forward, clutching his knees, trying to swallow the bitterness.
And softened, just slightly.
[Don't forget—you have Flicker. He is hiding in your shadow. A tiny speck. Always there, even when you forget.]
Kai glanced down. The shadows under the bars seemed to twitch with the torchlight. He wondered if Flicker really was curled there, watching, waiting.
"And the system?" Kai asked. "Anything new?"
[Yes.] A pause, then the voice carried like a system notification across his skull.
[The Guardian Workshop has been updated. New parameters await. When you return, check it. There may be blueprints hidden in your soulprint. Do not waste them.]
Kai leaned his head back, closing his eyes. For a moment, the cage fell away and all that remained was the weight of unseen currents: Sovereign's loops, gods that were once men, realms that existed outside time, and his own shadow that wasn't empty.
"Gods have mercy on me," he whispered again, though now it felt less like a prayer and more like a dare.
And only hummed in the quiet, watching his thoughts spin like moths against the dark.