It had been three days since I claimed the First Sigil.
The Rootborn celebrated. I tried to sleep.
Neither lasted long.
The Seer summoned me before dawn. The chamber glowed dimly, the six crystal pillars dimmer now—drained, like something ancient had stirred and taken more than it should.
She studied me with those pale, ageless eyes.
"The CODEFLAME is awake within you. Tell me—what have you seen?"
"I saw a city burning," I replied. "Floating spires. A throne. And something else… watching."
She nodded. "Each Sigil is a fragment of memory, a locked path. The first unlocks heat, yes—but also forgotten truths. The more you claim, the more the world will remember."
I didn't like how she said that.
"Why do I feel like remembering is the worst part of this?"
"Because some things were sealed for good reason."
[System Update: CODEFLAME Functions Online]
Passive Ability: Heat Conversion — External fire damage reduced by 60%, redirected into energy regen.
Skill Unlock: Flame Trace — Leave a residual heat signature that can blind or disorient enemies.
Memory Fragments Unlocked: 3% Synced — SIGIL 1]
Kael and I spent the next few days training with the new power. CODEFLAME wasn't flashy—it was quiet, like a fire that knew it had nothing left to prove.
I could now shape heat into movement. Temporarily phase through flame. Even light a trail of chaos-flame that only I could walk across.
Kael raised a brow as I leapt across the lava pool on thin air.
"You're getting terrifying," he said.
"Still get winded running up stairs, though."
But we weren't the only ones moving.
Lux brought news from the outer colonies: something stirred in the east, past the Fractured Vale.
An Order stronghold had been burned to the ground—not by rebels, but something unregistered.
No survivors.
No witnesses… except one.
A single word had been left behind—scorched into the stone in a language only System-linked users could read:
"CHAOS."
That night, I stood on the observation deck, staring at the strange stars. The system chimed softly in my mind.
[Global Threat Status: CHAOS-Class Anomaly Detected — Location: Unknown]
Potential match: Core Signature — Variant]
My stomach twisted.
"Another one?" I whispered.
Lux appeared behind me. "Not just another. A mirror."
Across the world, in a land where the ground never cooled and the sun never set, a figure stood atop a spire of glass.
Cloaked in obsidian, arms folded. Her hair shimmered like oil, and her eyes glowed with red CHAOS code. She watched as embers danced across the battlefield she had just created.
In her hand, she held a fragment—a broken glyph. A burned Sigil.
And when she smiled, the flames around her bent.
"So… the other one has awakened," she murmured.
"Let's see who burns brighter."
The war table buzzed with voices.
Projected maps hovered over its surface—fractured landscapes, code-ruined cities, and a growing cluster of red markers across the eastern territories. Each one marked a breach. Not a military strike. Not a rebellion.
But anomaly zones—places where reality had collapsed and rewritten itself.
"What do we actually know about this other CHAOS bearer?" I asked, arms crossed.
Lux leaned forward, eyes sharp. "We don't even know her name. Just that she's triggered at least one Sigil. Burned it. Left the glyph unstable. That's never happened before."
"Why would someone burn a Sigil?" Kael asked. "Aren't they vital to stabilizing the Core?"
"They are," the Seer said quietly from the shadows. "But chaos… isn't always about balance. It's about change. Not all who bear the Core seek harmony."
She looked at me.
"You accepted the gift to rewrite. She accepted it to erase."
I felt it then—that slow pressure building inside the CHAOS Core in my chest. A hum. A pulse that wasn't just mine anymore.
She was out there.
And the system had linked us.
That night, I trained alone.
My control over Flame Trace was improving. I could now direct the heat left behind into illusions—brief, flickering afterimages that confused tracking systems. Useful against automated defenses. Useless against someone like her.
System simulations ran non-stop in my mind.
Flame traps. Mobility trials. Mental echo loops. I pushed harder. Farther.
Until finally—I triggered something unexpected.
[Core Connection: Echo Detected — Variant CHAOS Signature Resolved]
Initiate: Dream-Link Simulation? Y/N]
I didn't think.
I said yes.
Suddenly, I wasn't in the training hall.
I was floating in a gray space between stars, surrounded by flickering strands of system code—each thread a whisper. A breath. A heartbeat.
And standing in front of me—her.
Black coat. Crimson code eyes. Pale skin like she hadn't seen sunlight in years. She looked exactly my age.
She tilted her head, studying me like a puzzle piece she hadn't expected to exist.
"So," she said. "The Archivist gave it to you too."
I tensed. "Who are you?"
"Name's Nyra," she replied casually. "But don't worry about remembering it. You won't get the chance to say it twice."
The CHAOS Core in me flared in warning.
"Why are you burning the Sigils?" I asked.
She smirked. "Because they're lies. Anchors. Shackles. The system pretends it's giving us power, but it's just rewriting us into tools. I'm breaking the loop."
"You're killing people."
"I'm saving them," she said coldly. "From becoming what the Seer wants you to become. A programmable god."
The space around us trembled. The simulation was destabilizing.
Nyra's eyes narrowed.
"You feel it too, don't you? The Core wants more. It's hungry. You'll see soon enough."
I opened my mouth to respond—
But she vanished.
I woke up gasping on the stone floor, the system flashing in panic.
[Dream-Link Terminated: CHAOS Instability Spiking]
[WARNING: Core Conflict Level Rising — Expect Interference]
I stood up slowly.
Everything had changed.
Nyra wasn't just a threat.
She was a mirror.
A version of what I could become if I stopped caring why the rules existed… and just tore them down.
The Seer waited for me in the archive wing when I found her.
"You saw her," she said. Not a question.
"Yeah. And she's not stopping."
She nodded. "She won't. That's the nature of wild CHAOS. It spreads. It devours. Unless you anchor it."
I met her gaze. "Then tell me where the next Sigil is."
She didn't blink.
"The Cradle of Glass. A ruined archive beneath the Fractured Vale. Once a sanctuary of truth. Now a prison of echoes."
Kael entered behind me, already geared up. "Guess we're going ghost-hunting again."
Lux activated the map.
A pulse of blue lit up over the far northeast sector.
The system spoke:
[Primary Quest Updated: Locate Sigil Two – "Echoframe"]
Warning: Reality collapse imminent in target zone. CHAOS spike detected. Potential Nyra presence: HIGH.]
"Let's move," I said, tightening my cloak.
Because if she got to that Sigil first…
There might be nothing left to rewrite.