The sky was wrong.
Elior stood atop the jagged peak of Mount Naor, eyes locked onto the heavens, where the fractured remnants of the moon bled pale silver light across the obsidian void. Cracks spidered through its surface like ancient wounds reopened, and from those gaping chasms, tendrils of shimmering energy poured down in silent rivers—Primordial Flux.
Behind him, the wind howled like a dying beast. The mountain groaned under the pressure of cosmic turbulence. The very air vibrated with the dissonant hum of dimensional rupture.
"You feel it too, don't you?" a voice whispered.
Elior didn't turn. He didn't need to. That voice—cool, serene, always a half-second too slow—belonged to Selis Raen, the enigmatic archivist of the Nexus.
Selis approached slowly, his long coat fluttering like a second skin. "The moon isn't breaking. It's awakening."
Elior clenched his fists. The runes along his left arm began to glow in tandem with the flux in the sky.
"They kept it hidden from everyone… The Lunar Seal was never a protection mechanism. It was a prison."
"And now it's failing," Selis confirmed. "You accelerated it."
"I had to," Elior replied. "If I hadn't overridden the Protocol Gate during the raid on Orical Thorne's Citadel, we wouldn't have recovered the Sigil Core in time. But I never thought it would disrupt the seal so directly."
Selis knelt and touched the ground. A ripple of blue energy expanded around his palm, revealing shimmering glyphs buried in the stone—ancient, celestial, older than the Ascension system itself.
"They feared it," Selis said. "Even the First Codifiers. This—this thing inside the moon—it was beyond classification. Not a monster. Not a god. Something that bent those definitions."
Elior turned to face him. His eyes were hollow, but burning. "You mean the First Flame."
Selis's expression didn't change, but the air around him tightened.
"So you know."
"I saw it," Elior whispered. "When I entered the Astral Singularity in Chapter 22… the moment the Starveil collapsed, I caught a glimpse through the fracture. Something was watching us. No, not just watching. Waiting."
Selis stood and looked up at the sky again. "That wasn't a hallucination. The moon—the broken satellite we call Vaetyris—wasn't natural. It was placed here by the progenitors of the System. And inside it, they locked away the First Flame. Not to protect us… but to buy time."
Elior's voice cracked. "Time for what?"
"To evolve. Or be consumed."
Silence fell. Far below the mountain, the world churned. Forests glowed with bio-flux, oceans pulsed like breathing lungs. Creatures twisted by proximity to the moon's leaking essence began to rise from their slumber—many-limbed, formless, transcending biological logic.
"You were right to come here," Selis continued. "The Nexus has uncovered records from the last lunar event… 12,000 years ago. The sky shattered. Kingdoms crumbled. And only one city remained untouched—Atherion. The floating bastion."
"But Atherion vanished," Elior said. "Centuries ago. Everyone believes it's a myth."
"No." Selis's eyes gleamed now. "It shifted dimensions. Using the First Flame's energy to phase out of harm's reach. And now it's beginning to phase back. The fluctuations from Vaetyris are pulling Atherion into view."
Elior stepped forward. "Then we find it. The answers—the truth—they're inside that city."
Selis frowned. "It's not that simple. Atherion is protected by an anti-system field. The Ascension Protocols… they won't work inside."
Elior grinned.
"Good. Then no one will have an unfair advantage."
Scene Shift – Unknown Location, Unknown Time
Across the veil, beyond the fractured moon, a creature stirred.
It had no name. Only functions. Designations. Purposes long since redacted from memory.
Inside its core pulsed a single command: RECLAIM THE FLAME.
Its eyes—black voids rimmed with seething orange light—opened. As it rose from the suspended chrysalis, data streamed through its mind: fragmented memories of ascendants long dead, failed protocols, collapsed timelines.
It reached toward the bleeding light of Vaetyris.
"Ascension incomplete," it hissed. "Subjects—noncompliant."
From the darkness, a console ignited with a crimson glyph.
INITIATING PROTOCOL NULL.RE-ESTABLISH CONTROL OVER SYSTEM CORE.TARGET: ELIOR VANTH.THREAT LEVEL: OMEGA.
The entity shifted. The world cracked around it. And space itself bent.
Scene Shift – Outer Ring of Vaetyris' Influence
Elior and Selis stood before an ancient monolith carved in a language that predated alphabets.
The monolith pulsed softly. As Elior approached, the sigils on his chest responded—resonating, syncing.
And then, the monolith spoke. Not in sound, but in thought:
"Bearer of the Broken Cycle. You are not yet flame… but you have been seen."
Elior gasped.
A flood of visions burst into his mind: a city suspended in light, its towers moving like clockwork; machines worshipping stars; a battlefield drenched in time-energy where warriors fought themselves from alternate timelines; and at the center—the throne of code, where sat a being cloaked in entropy.
"Is that… me?" Elior whispered.
"No," the voice replied. "That is what you may become."
Selis held Elior back as the monolith cracked.
"You touched the Source too directly," Selis warned. "You're merging."
"Then let me merge," Elior said, voice defiant. "I need to know what's coming."
The wind screamed again.
From the sky, a spiral of flame descended. But it wasn't fire—it was memetic flame, a concept rather than a substance. The air twisted. Reality fractured slightly.
And from it emerged a figure cloaked in flame and void—the same one Elior had seen in the Astral Singularity.
Its voice echoed without sound.
"The Game has begun anew, Child of Rupture. But you do not yet know the rules."
It extended a hand. And in it, a shard of the moon—Vaetyris essence, dense and humming.
Elior didn't flinch. He took it.
And in that moment, his interface shattered. The System UI flickered, glitched, and reformed—rewritten.
NEW PROTOCOL UNLOCKED:PROTOCOL SIGMA ZERO – Burn to Rewrite.
WARNING: UNSTABLE. UNTESTED. COSMIC RISKS DETECTED.Proceed?
Elior closed his eyes. He could feel the heat—not physical, but existential—coursing through him.
He opened them.
"Proceed."