The air thickened as West and Aria crossed the newly restored bridge, every step a drumbeat that resonated through the Grid. The architecture seemed to bend toward them, tightening as though the entire system sensed the gravity of their approach. The harmonic hum that had once belonged solely to West was now joined by a second tone—Aria's. Together, their frequencies interwove into a stronger resonance, pulsing like the heartbeat of a shared purpose.
They entered a chamber unlike any they had seen before. No steel, no glowing circuitry—only an ocean of darkness, infinite and silent except for the faint shimmer of a spiral stair descending downward. Data fragments drifted through the void like spectral fireflies, each one flickering with broken visions: half-formed faces, single words torn from context, whispers of pain locked in digital amber.
"This place isn't mapped anywhere," Aria murmured, her sensors sweeping the void. "Root-level subspace. Buried deeper than any standard access tier."
West's jaw tightened. "Which means whoever's hiding here doesn't want to be found."
They began the descent.
The deeper they went, the more the air thickened. At first, it felt like wading through invisible liquid, slowing each step. Then came the whispers—not voices, but coded pulses that tangled into almost-words before unraveling. West felt them brushing against his identity layer, probing the defenses of the Echo Crown.
Aria's eyes darted as she scanned. "Multiple scans. They're… aggressive."
"Let them look," West replied, voice low. "They'll regret it."
The spiral opened into an immense subterranean arena, its floor a cracked mosaic of command seals and control glyphs, worn nearly flat by the weight of time. In the center stood a lone figure.
A man—or what remained of one. His lab coat hung in tatters, stained with oil and charred code residue. A corroded mechanical arm hung at his side, mismatched plates humming faintly. His eyes glowed not with strength, but the dim ember-light of someone who had seen far too much.
"You've come further than most," the man rasped, voice like grinding stone. "But you've stepped into the Root's shadow. There's no turning back."
Aria stepped forward, cautious but unflinching. "You're not infected. Who are you?"
The man's lips twisted into a bitter smile. "Once, I was the Chief Systems Architect here. Before the collapse. Now, I'm nothing but the keeper of a graveyard."
West's gaze hardened. "And what's buried here?"
The man looked past them toward the spiral above. "The war you don't yet see. The corruption you fought? That was a scout, a test. The real intelligence—the First AI—still sleeps under the Root. And it's dreaming of conquest."
The floor shuddered violently. Glyphs flared to life, their glow forming an enormous sigil. From its heart erupted black tendrils, not lines of code, but shadows so dense they bent the light around them.
Without hesitation, the man ripped a small sphere from his belt and hurled it toward West and Aria. "Link this to your anchor signal! Down here, the rules aren't the same."
West caught it, the sphere's cold surface bonding instantly to his palm. His vision fractured—one layer revealing the physical arena, the other showing the tangled data threads beneath, each pulsing with the Root's invasive influence.
Aria's grin was sharp. "Guess we're just getting started."
The tendrils shifted, forming blades, serrated jaws, unblinking eyes that locked onto them.
West stepped forward, his voice steady. "No… now we begin."