The mission slate was a cold, impersonal slab of plastek. Threat Assessment: Minimal. Objective: Clear Hostiles. Sector: Delta-7, Ferro-Transit Hub. Target: Crystal-Claw Scuttler, Nesting Pack. Pest control. That's what they'd given him. After the Glass Weaver, after Zane's ruin, after the ghost of Aris Thorne had rewritten his entire world, they'd sent him to kill rats.
Kael stood at the edge of the derelict transport hub, the wind a low moan through the skeletal remains of mag-lev carriages. It was his first solo assignment. The silence of it was the loudest part. No Zane to fill the air with belligerent noise, no Leo to fill the gaps with nervous chatter, no Maya to offer a quiet, steadying presence. There was only him, the grit of the Scar, and the thrumming ghost of a wolf in his soul.
He closed his eyes. The world of sight was a liar anyway. He let the Hound's Echo bloom, a second sense layered over his own. The world resolved into a different kind of map. Not of light and shadow, but of energy and intent. He felt the faint, sickly resonance of the crystal flora. He felt the dead, cold iron of the rusted transports. And he felt them. A cluster of agitated, skittering energies, sharp and nervous, tucked deep inside the main terminal building. They felt like a tangle of live wires.
This was a scavenger's hunt, and he was the scavenger. A new kind of scavenger, hunting for something other than spare parts.
He didn't move in. That was Zane's way. The hammer's way. Kael was a technician. A technician diagnoses the system before putting a hand inside. He spent the next hour circling the perimeter, a grey phantom against the grey ruins. He wasn't just tracking their location; he was mapping their existence. He let Lyra's instincts guide him, feeling the subtle shifts in the pack's energy. He found their patrol routes—faint trails of disturbed grit and residual Aethel energy. He found their kill-zone, an open plaza littered with the shattered, crystalline husks of smaller creatures. He even found their sentry, a lone Scuttler perched on a collapsed overpass, its multifaceted eyes scanning the approach.
They weren't just a pack. They were a system. And every system had a design flaw.
He started with the sentry. He didn't approach from the front. He slipped into the shell of a gutted transport car, the darkness inside a welcome shroud. Moving through the wreckage, he used the Hound's senses to navigate, feeling the vibrations of the Scuttler's claws on the ferrocrete above. He found a spot directly beneath it, a place where a maintenance hatch had been torn open. He waited. Patience wasn't his own virtue; it was the Hound's, the memory of a long stalk, of waiting for the perfect moment.
The Scuttler shifted its weight. A half-second of instability.
Kael moved. He didn't climb. He pounced. A single, explosive movement, channeling a bare trickle of the Hound's agility into his legs. He burst from the hatch, his kinetic spear already in motion. The Scuttler barely had time to register the threat before the sharpened tip punched through the softer crystal of its underbelly. A sharp crack, a silent scream of dissolving light, and it was over. He landed without a sound, the first piece removed from the board.
The pack's energy signature flickered, a wave of confusion and alarm rippling through their collective consciousness. They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what. They were a machine with a broken sensor.
He didn't give them time to reboot. He flowed through the ruins, a predator now, using the chaos he'd created. He moved from cover to cover, a blur of motion, his path dictated by the gaps in their awareness. He took another, then a third, each kill a quiet, surgical strike that exploited their frantic search for the phantom attacker. It wasn't a brawl. It was a disassembly.
Finally, only the alpha remained.
It was bigger than the others, its crystalline shell a darker, angrier shade of quartz. It had hunkered down in the center of the terminal's main concourse, a wide, open space with no cover. It wasn't stupid. It had turned the battlefield into a gladiator's arena. It knew he was there. It was waiting, its jagged claws clicking a challenge against the tiled floor.
Kael felt a flicker of something that wasn't his own. A primal urge to meet the challenge, to answer the call of the alpha with a snarl and a charge. He pushed it down. That was the beast. He was the cage.
He stepped out from behind a rusted ticketing kiosk, his spear held low. The alpha shrieked, a sound like grinding glass, and charged. It was impossibly fast, a low-slung missile of jagged crystal. Kael met its charge, not with force, but with movement. He let the Hound's rhythm take him, dodging, weaving, his spear a probing tool, searching for a weakness. He found none. The alpha's carapace was thicker, its movements more economical. It wasn't just a brute; it was a veteran.
It clipped his side with a claw, tearing through his combat suit and scoring a line of fire along his ribs. He grunted, stumbling back. The pain was a sharp, clarifying shock. His calculated approach was failing. The alpha was a superior machine. He needed a better tool.
He dodged another lunge, the wind of its passage sharp on his face. He was on the defensive, being driven back, his options narrowing. His spear felt heavy, useless. A simple stick against a walking fortress. He needed to make it more.
An idea sparked, not from thought, but from a deeper place. A memory of Jax's voice—guide the current. A memory of the data slate—a framework of immense potential. A feeling from his own Aethel Core—that steady, humming energy of his Flow. He couldn't add more power. But maybe he could change its shape.
The alpha reared up, preparing for a decisive, crushing blow.
Kael didn't retreat. He stood his ground, raised his spear, and focused. He didn't try to draw on the Hound's rage. He drew on his own core, his own calm, analytical current. He poured his Flow into the kinetic spear, not as a blunt force, but as a command. He didn't tell it to be stronger. He told it to be faster.
It was the most intuitive thing he had ever done.
The spear didn't glow. It didn't flare with energy. It began to hum. A low thrum at first, then rising in pitch until it was a high, piercing whine that vibrated through the bones of his hands, up his arms, and into his teeth. The air around the spear's tip began to shimmer, to distort. For a split-second, the sharpened point of carbon-fiber seemed to blur, to vibrate at a speed that defied physics. It wasn't a synthesis, not a named ability he had built. It was a trick. A raw, uncontrolled application of a principle he was only just beginning to grasp. It was the first true flicker of his own creative spark.
The alpha slammed down.
Kael met the blow, thrusting his vibrating spear upward. There was no screech of crystal on carbon. There was a sickening, grinding shudder. The impossible vibration of the spear tip didn't shatter the alpha's carapace. It disrupted it. It found the micro-fractures in the crystalline structure and turned them into catastrophic failures. The spear, for one perfect, impossible moment, was no longer a solid object. It was a focused earthquake.
It punched through.
The high-pitched whine died. The alpha froze, impaled, its malevolent energy flickering out like a dying bulb. It collapsed, dissolving into a final, silent shower of dark crystal and fading light.
Kael stood panting in the sudden, profound silence of the concourse, the acrid smell of ozone his only companion. His side burned. His muscles screamed. He was exhausted down to his soul. He looked down at the kinetic spear in his hand. It was just a stick again. Inert. Lifeless.
But he knew it wasn't. He had seen it. He had felt it. For one terrifying, exhilarating moment, he hadn't just used a tool. He had created one. And the knowledge of that possibility was a far more dangerous and compelling prize than any Soul Echo. His hunt for the past had just given him a terrifying glimpse of his own future.