The city swallowed Neo-ilka whole. Neon lights flickered over the desperate attempt to illuminate the streets. Their glow merged with the heavy, pulsing beat of the city's heartbeat. Skyscrapers cut the sky into fractured pieces, jagged and dark. Beneath them, the city sprawled— humming, alive, yet somehow suffocated by its own excess. Beneath the surface of this glittering metallic paradise, something was stirring.
Zypher Nyx was on the rooftop of a deserted building, stare fixed onto the horizon where the heartbeat of the city seemed to blur together with the starlight. His breathing stirs in the whir of the wind, but his mind is elsewhere; as always. There seemed to be something weirdly heavy about the night, some kind of tension he could not put his finger on, and which gnawed at him.
The flick of his jacket snapped tight; he shuddered with the cold night air. His fingers brushed across half-finished blueprints that had obsessed him for the last few days. More than simply plans, they were a map-a map to something hidden, to something ancient.
It had simply manifested, slipped between the cracks of his otherwise ordinary life. He'd thought it was just another glitch in the system: data left behind by an overworked machine, a mistake, a ghost in the machine. But then the pieces fell together, and he knew it wasn't any accident.
It was a weapon.
Not some ordinary weapon. A divine weapon.
A weapon which could remind the world of the forgotten gods of Olympus.
Zypher cursed under his breath. He didn't believe in gods, at least not in the way the old world did. He lived in an age where gods were only myths, relics of a past too far removed to matter. In the age of hyper-intelligence, cybernetic enhancement, and self-regulated AI, the idea of gods sounded laughable. But the blueprint. it was real. As real as the city around him.
His mind was racing. He rubbed a hand over his disheveled hair, pacing across the rooftop. What was this thing? What could it do? And why now, after all these silent centuries, was it returning?
A soft hum resonated through his body; the familiar thrum of the city's network: that omnipresent pulse that linked everything together. As a young engineer, Zypher knew it well, but tonight it felt different. Unsettling.
His wrist comm beeped, a signal, a message, something important.
He looked down, and a shiver ran down his spine. The screen was blank except for one word: "RUN."
Zypher's heart stopped. His eyes scanned around the rooftop in the shadows. It was a trick. Had to be. There was no one out here, no one who knew where he was, but then-click-a sound too sharp to ignore. His breath caught up in his throat. It was not a glitch.
He wasn't alone.
From the alley darkness below, figures start to coalesce. They're dressed in black, and their silhouettes stand out against the jagged line of the city's skyline. They moved with precision, too fast to be human, the gleam of their eyes cold, calculated.
Zypher's pulse was racing. Instinct screamed at him to run, but his feet felt like stone, rooted in place.
One of the figures stepped forward. Tall, with long, flowing dark hair, he seemed to exude an aura that seemed to flicker with ancient power. The man's eyes—crimson, like the glow of dying stars—locked onto Zypher's.
"You've found it," the man said, his voice deep, rumbling through the air like thunder. "The weapon. You don't know what you've uncovered, do you?"
Zypher swallowed hard. "Who are you?"
The figure smiled, and it was no comforting smile. It was a smirk with something dangerous in it, something untouchable. "We are the ones who've been waiting. And now, so have you."
Zypher's grip tightened around the blueprint. The pieces were falling into place, but with them came more questions, dangers. This was no longer just about the blueprint. No, this was about something much bigger.
Then too late to turn back.
A voice in his head screamed run, but another voice, cold and unrelenting, whispered it's too late.
He took a step back, glancing wildly around the rooftop. He could see them closing in, and in their hands, the glint of something dark, metallic. He knew where they were going with that. They weren't here for a chat.
The ground rose up to meet him, and Zypher sprang backward. His foot flew out from under him as he caught himself with hands clenched on the edge of the building, his body automatically obeying the training in a desperate attempt to stop himself. He tried to push off, to stabilize himself. Too late.
Crack!
Everything went black.
---
Zypher shot awake, gasping into the air. His body pounded with bruises and battering rams, but his mind screamed at him one thing: The blueprint.
He stood up, shaking off the mist that had followed him into unconsciousness. He looked out over a city, but nothing—those shapes— were there. Like that, they were gone.
But the message remained. He had stumbled on something he didn't understand, something much older and much more dangerous than the glowing city around him. He had no choice but to pursue it.
He didn't know what he was getting himself into, but one thing for sure, the gods were coming back.
"And he's either it to save them, or it to destroy them."