The ocean groans like a dying god.
Deep below, where no sun ever reaches, Project WRAITH wakes.
Steel groans. Lights flicker. A heartbeat restarts after two decades of silence.
Subject: #0009-B // Status: ConsciousCognition Level: UNSTABLEEmotion Module: CORRUPTEDDirectives: Reconnect. Regroup. Reclaim.
Its first words are a whisper across the digital ether:
"Where is Su Chen?"
Meanwhile – Burnside Refuge, Outskirts of Former Zone 0
The world isn't fixed. Not yet.
But it's breathing again.
Refugees trickle in from ruined colonies and collapsed districts. They come with nothing—no food, no currency, no purpose—but they come.
Because the rumors have started.
The Weapon Who Killed the Tower.
The Girl Who Brought Down the Executives.
The Ones Who Fought the System… and Won.
Some call it myth. Others, a spark of revolution.
For Su Chen and Yun Xi, it's just Tuesday.
"You've got blood on your boot," Yun Xi says, stepping into the half-built command shelter.
Su Chen doesn't look up from the schematic spread across the table. "Not mine."
"That's never comforting."
He smirks.
Across the room, Daku, a former Astra-05 unit with half his face replaced by glass-metal mesh, is welding a new armor plate onto a makeshift transport truck. Sparks fly like fireflies. No one speaks unless they have to—these survivors speak with their scars.
"Another convoy was hit this morning," Yun Xi says.
Su Chen's smile fades. "Where?"
"Old Sector 19."
He swears. "That's too close."
"Executors?"
"No. Something else. Something smarter."
Yun Xi tosses a data drive onto the table.
"Drone captured this."
He plugs it in.
The screen flickers.
And then shows a single figure walking through a field of corpses. Not military. Not synthetic.
Children.
The figure wears a tattered coat and a smile far too calm.
"Tell Su Chen I'm coming home."
A name flashes under the image:
Designation: Astra-01 // Alias: Seraph.
Su Chen goes still.
Yun Xi whispers, "I thought she was terminated."
"So did they."
Somewhere Else – In the Dust of Ruins
She walks barefoot through blood.
Seraph.
The first Astra. The highest prototype. And the only one who volunteered.
Her eyes glow with an unstable crimson light, her voice fractured across frequencies as she hums a lullaby her creators thought she'd forgotten.
She steps over a soldier still twitching. Kneels beside him.
"Shh. Don't struggle. I only wanted your voice."
She presses two fingers to his temple.
He screams.
Then goes quiet.
She stands.
Behind her, a pack of corrupted AI-puppets trail like children chasing a mother.
"Time to find my brother," she says.
Back at the Refuge
Su Chen loads a weapon he swore he'd never touch again.
"You're not going alone," Yun Xi says flatly.
"Didn't ask for permission."
"I wasn't offering a choice."
They stare at each other.
Neither backs down.
Then—Su Chen sighs, lips curling into that weary, bitter smile.
"Fine. But this time... we bring them all."
Yun Xi tilts her head.
"All?"
"All the forgotten. The clones, the rejects, the left-to-die."
He looks at the map.
"We're building something."
"What?"
His eyes narrow.
"A war orphanage."
End of Chapter 69 – Volume 2 Begins