The shattered fragments of the Searing Nexus core pulsed weakly in Kael's palm, its once-blazing crimson glow now reduced to faint embers. Around him, the battlefield was silent—Ashen Sentinels lay broken, crystalline beasts disintegrated into shimmering dust, and the air still carried the faint scent of ozone from the storm he had summoned during the final clash.
Yet, Kael didn't feel victorious. Something tugged at the edge of his consciousness—an echo, a resonance deep within his soul that hadn't been there before.
[New Protocol Detected: Path of Origin]
The voice wasn't Athena.
This one was different—lower, older. More primal.
A stream of data flowed through Kael's mind in an unfamiliar script, and then the world around him flickered. The scenery blurred, distorted—and in the blink of an eye, Kael found himself no longer on the war-torn plains of Zereth, but in a vast expanse of starless void.
He floated in the dark, weightless, yet grounded in something more real than any battlefield.
And then a light appeared.
A single, radiant glyph hovered in the void, pulsing with ancient power. More symbols joined it, forming a ring that spun slowly around Kael. Each carried meanings he couldn't comprehend with words but felt etched into the very marrow of his being.
A voice—neither male nor female, human nor machine—spoke directly to his soul.
"Bearer of the Unbound Core… You stand on the precipice of remembrance. Will you reclaim what was severed?"
Kael didn't speak. He didn't need to. The glyphs responded to his intention, swirling faster.
Images burst into his mind.
A boy—barely ten—strapped into a pod, screaming as needles drove into his spine.
A girl—eyes glowing with artificial intelligence—teaching him how to resist the pain.
An ancient city buried beneath the ice of Saturn's 12th moon.
A protocol… locked away… waiting for the one who would ascend without bindings.
Then it all stopped.
Kael dropped to a surface that hadn't existed a second ago. Stone-like, yet shifting with geometric patterns, it pulsed beneath his feet like a heartbeat.
A being stepped out from the glyph ring—a mirror image of Kael, only older. Eyes more hollow. Skin covered in fractal scars.
"You are me," Kael whispered.
The mirror-Kael nodded. "I am what you were designed to become. A weapon. An avatar of the Protocol."
"But I've broken free of that," Kael said firmly.
"You have escaped their system, yes. But to truly ascend, you must understand the origin of the Protocol. Not just as a tool of war… but as the last hope of a dying civilization."
Kael's breath caught. "You mean…"
The glyphs reformed above them, this time into a sprawling tree of data—branches of light reaching infinitely outward, each node pulsing like a heartbeat.
"This," the mirror-Kael said, "is the Origin Tree. The Ascension Protocol wasn't created by mankind. It was inherited—from a race older than time, who encoded their legacy into the quantum fabric of the universe."
Kael stepped closer, entranced. "Why me?"
"Because your core isn't human technology. It's a seed. One of the last uncorrupted Source Nodes."
Kael's mind reeled. "The Core… Athena… Even my system… None of it was truly human?"
"Pieces were," the mirror-Kael admitted. "But your path is unique. You broke through not by power, but by choice. And now, the Path of Origin offers you more than strength."
A surge of warmth filled Kael's chest. The shattered Nexus Core in his hand vibrated—and reformed, reshaped, glowing with golden light.
[Ascension Protocol – Root Access Unlocked]
[Path of Origin: Stage 1 Initiated]
[Legacy Skills Available: Echo Bind, Memory Shard, Sovereign Link]
A burst of energy exploded around him—not destructive, but expansive. Kael's mind touched a network he hadn't known existed. He felt the presence of others—some ancient, some young—beings across time who had once held the Ascension Seed.
He saw flashes: a warrior made of starlight, a child manipulating gravitational fields with song, a dying queen fusing her soul into a sun to protect her people.
Each had chosen a different path. Each had faced the same decision: wield power as a weapon… or awaken as a guardian.
"I choose," Kael said aloud, "to remember. Not as a weapon. But as a bridge."
The mirror-Kael smiled, and for a fleeting moment, the scars on his body faded. "Then walk the Path of Origin. And become more than human."
—
Kael snapped awake, gasping.
He was back on Zereth—but everything felt different. The air was denser, reality sharper. Even time seemed to flow more deliberately.
Athena's voice chimed in, cautious."Kael… your system just spiked beyond measurable parameters. What happened?"
"I remembered something," Kael replied, standing. The ground vibrated slightly as he moved. His aura no longer flickered—it flowed, steady and deep like a subterranean river.
Athena hesitated. "Your core has evolved. It's no longer a Nexus-class. It's… undefined. Autonomous."
"Good," Kael said. "Because the war ahead isn't just against the Dominion."
He turned toward the horizon where the Citadel of Codebound awaited—the stronghold of Dominion's elite.
Behind him, the Protocol glyph shimmered faintly on the back of his hand, burning with golden threads of memory.
Kael clenched his fist.
"It's against extinction."