The control center of the Cerberus Terminal glowed with the complex, multi-layered data feeds of the Sanguis network. Lyra and Rheon leaned over the holographic projection of Sector 18's Nanite Refinement Lab, their focus absolute, when the silent warning struck.
It was not a sound. It was an intrusion, a cold, analytical spike of pure, arrogant consciousness hitting the terminal's outer comm-bands.
"Morn," Lyra hissed, her crimson eyes blazing. "He's digitized. He's running on a drone."
Almost instantly, a faint thump reverberated through the massive silo structure. It was a small, focused kinetic burst designed to alert and distract.
"That's the Morn-Drone," Rheon snapped, his hand instantly going to his concealed pistol. "It's a feint. The main attack is a tactical infiltration."
Lyra did not look at the external defense schematics. She looked into the cold, strategic void in her mind where The Revenant's signature lay. The assassin was silent, cold, and already deep inside the maintenance conduits.
"North face, sub-level two, service conduit," Lyra commanded, her voice rapid and precise. "He knows your protocols, Ascendant. He knows the north face is the weak point. Go. Now. I will stabilize the main core."
Rheon did not hesitate. "Understood." He raced from the control room, his light combat boots echoing on the steel grating.
Lyra turned her focus to the console, but her internal sight remained fixed on Rheon's signature, a tight, powerful knot of discipline speeding toward the ambush.
Rheon reached the narrow, horizontal service conduit on sub-level two. The air was frigid, the silence absolute. He knew the Revenant was there, waiting. He activated his Synaptic Filters, preparing for the neural attack.
He saw the flicker of thermal camouflage too late.
The Revenant did not attack with a weapon. He attacked with a precise, crushing kinetic force, a specialized kick aimed directly at Rheon's solar plexus. The speed was inhuman, faster than any human augmentation Rheon had ever encountered.
The impact sent Rheon slamming backward into the steel wall. The air was violently expelled from his lungs, and for a split second, his body's disciplined response failed.
Before Rheon could recover, The Revenant was on him, a black, emotionless blur. The assassin used his forearm to pin Rheon's throat against the cold steel, choking off his air supply and neutralizing his weapon hand.
The Revenant leaned in, his synthesized voice flat and chilling. "Target Ascendant-Alpha-1. Retrieval or Elimination. Current status: Elimination highly probable."
Rheon thrashed, fighting the suffocating grip. He realized the fatal flaw: The Revenant was not relying on brute force. He was relying on absolute technique and enhanced sensory input. His implants allowed him to predict Rheon's muscle twitch before the signal reached his limb.
Rheon slammed his knee upward, connecting with The Revenant's side. The assassin barely registered the impact. His internal skeletal structure was reinforced with carbon-steel alloy.
The Revenant produced a small, silver object, a Synaptic Grenade, and pressed it against Rheon's temple.
Game over, Rheon thought, the cold logic accepting defeat. The grenade was designed to scramble neural tissue, killing his discipline and turning his brain to mush.
Lyra's psychic scream was a sudden, violent intrusion into the silent fight.
In the control center, Lyra watched Rheon's bio-signs plummeting. The Aether Fragment roared in anger and fear, not for the loss of a strategic piece, but for the loss of her Ascendant.
Lyra abandoned the console. She closed her eyes and extended the Bloodlink with a crushing force. She did not target The Revenant's mind, which was shielded by its digital implants. She targeted the implants themselves.
She unleashed a concentrated torrent of pure, chaotic Aether energy, filtered through her nanite body, directly into the assassin's cybernetic sensory systems. It was a frequency attack, a psychic scream on the digital level.
The Revenant froze.
His enhanced optical lenses flashed wildly, cycling through corrupted data streams. His audio implants registered an excruciating, white-noise shriek. The entire world dissolved into a blinding, agonizing lattice of corrupted code.
He involuntarily released Rheon, his hands flying to his head as his superior senses turned into weapons against him.
Rheon crashed to the floor, gasping for air. He saw his opportunity: the assassin was standing stock-still, spasming slightly as the Aether surge overloaded his implants.
Rheon scrambled up, grabbing the discarded Synaptic Grenade. He smashed it against The Revenant's throat, the one area not protected by the thick plating. The neurological output stunned the assassin's localized motor functions.
Lyra arrived, a crimson blur, having covered the distance in a terrifying rush of speed. She looked down at the convulsing assassin, her eyes burning with pure, protective fury.
"You do not touch what is mine," Lyra snarled, the voice a chilling resonance of both woman and ancient monster.
She raised her foot, ready to deliver a final, killing blow to the assassin's head.
But The Revenant was trained for failure. Even as his body was seized by paralyzing spasms, his contingency protocols activated. He simultaneously threw a kinetic burst from a hidden mechanism in his heel and triggered a small, almost undetectable device, a Micro-Tracker, which he silently adhered to the outer polymer of Rheon's combat boot.
The kinetic blast was enough to send Lyra staggering backward. The Revenant, seizing the moment of distraction, rolled into the service conduit and vanished, his augmented body dragging itself through the narrow pipe, escaping the furious Queen.
Rheon ran to the conduit, but it was empty. "He's gone! Lyra, his speed… it's unnatural."
Lyra stood panting, the crimson in her eyes slowly receding. She looked at Rheon, her breathing ragged, a raw intensity visible in her gaze.
"He is a machine. And he recognized the threat," Lyra stated, her voice tight with realization. "He went for your most vulnerable point, Ascendant, your loyalty. He knows I rely on you."
Rheon checked his gear, his mind already spinning on counter-measures. "He won't try again immediately. He was overloaded. But he will be back. And the Morn-Drone is still out there, orbiting the terminal."
Lyra walked back to the command center, the full weight of the danger pressing down on her. The fight had been too close. They had relied on a desperate psychic countermeasure, not flawless planning.
Lyra looked at Rheon, his chest heaving, his disciplined eyes fixed on the strategic failure.
"We have no more time for preparation, Ascendant," Lyra decided, her voice now resolute. "Morn has deployed his chess pieces. We must accelerate. The Revenant is targeting you to draw me out. If we hit Sector 18 now, we force them to break protocol and expose their hand."
She slammed her fist onto the console, the holographic map of the Nanite Lab flaring into intense focus.
"Integrate the Sanguis data. Prepare the ground transport. We leave the fortress. The hunter is now the hunted."
Rheon looked down at his boot, oblivious to the tiny, silent tracker now fixed to the heel. He focused entirely on the image of the Nanite Lab, ready to execute his Queen's immediate, necessary strike.
"Understood, Lyra. We hit them hard. Before The Revenant can regroup."
They were moving from defense to offense, unaware that the assassin had left them a subtle, fatal flaw, a hidden line of communication that would lead the true enemy right to their target.