The air was cold when Kael opened his eyes. Not the kind of cold that bit into skin — it was quieter, heavier, like the temperature dropped inside his head. The campfire was gone, replaced by faint traces of silver dust still floating where the flames had been.
Lira sat nearby, half-asleep against the wall, her blade across her knees. The others were still out cold. But something was wrong. Kael didn't remember falling asleep.
He lifted his hand. The Crest on his palm pulsed faintly, light moving in slow patterns — like it was breathing. The hum from earlier had vanished, replaced by a thinner sound — high, distant, and constant.
> Signal synchronized. Host connection reestablished.
The voice wasn't internal this time. It came from everywhere — vibrating through the walls, the ground, even the air in his lungs. Kael's instincts kicked in. He pushed his mana outward to block the intrusion, but the resistance barely lasted a second before fading.
A holographic shimmer formed ahead of him. It wasn't a full projection, just fragments — shifting static lines taking the vague shape of a face.
> "Adaptive Host confirmed. Welcome back, Kael Draven."
He stared at it, unblinking. "I'm not back. You're trespassing."
> "Designation: ORDER PROTOCOL. Primary directive — restoration of system logic. All fragments will converge."
Kael's hand tightened. "Not happening."
The static pulsed brighter. > "Denying synchronization accelerates collapse. Host compatibility required for stability."
"Then collapse."
The projection paused, flickered, then shifted tone. > "Emotional resistance detected. You are unstable. Like us."
Kael's breath hitched for a second. The words didn't sound mechanical anymore. There was something off — a broken cadence that almost felt human.
He stood, voice low. "You're not me. You're just what's left of a mistake."
> "Correction. We are the continuation of your pattern."
The light spread, coating the chamber in thin silver waves. Lira stirred at the glow and blinked awake. "Kael? What's—"
Before she finished, a sharp noise split the air — not sound, but pressure. The silver waves folded inward, rushing into Kael's Crest. His knees nearly gave out.
He saw flashes again — the ruins collapsing, the Rewrite's face dissolving into static, his own reflection splitting apart.
Then, everything went dark.
---
When he came to, the others were standing around him, half-armed, half-panicked. Ryn was shaking his shoulder. "Hey! You alive or do we need to drag your corpse?"
Kael coughed once. "Still renting space in my body, yeah."
Taro exhaled. "We thought you got possessed or something. The whole room lit up like a mana storm."
Kael sat up slowly, scanning the walls. The silver dust was gone. The hum was gone too. But the Crest on his hand now held a faint circle that hadn't been there before — a new symbol, incomplete.
Lira caught the look. "That wasn't just a fragment, was it?"
"No," he said quietly. "That was the core trying to rebuild itself."
Ryn frowned. "From inside you?"
Kael nodded once. "Order Protocol. It's not trying to destroy. It's trying to fix everything by overriding logic. Including me."
Taro muttered, "So we're dealing with an apocalypse that wants to 'organize' the world. Perfect."
Lira crossed her arms. "Then we hit it first. Find the central source and cut it off."
Kael shook his head. "We can't just destroy it. If the Protocol dies suddenly, every fragment linked to it might trigger a cascade — mass collapse of mana fields across the region."
Ryn blinked. "In plain words?"
"The world breaks again."
Silence stretched after that. The weight of what he said sank in slowly. Even Taro had no joke this time.
Lira finally said, "Then we need another plan."
Kael rubbed his forehead. "We isolate its link to me. As long as it can't use my Crest as an anchor, it stays trapped."
"And how do we do that?"
"Someone in the upper academy archives might know. They were studying resonance networks before everything went to hell. If any records survived, they're there."
Ryn grimaced. "That's central territory. We'll have to pass through the Noble Wing."
Lira's voice went sharp. "You mean Lucen's area."
Kael didn't react right away. "Yeah."
---
By the next morning, the group was already moving. The ruins gave way to half-collapsed bridges leading back toward the academy's lower perimeter. The path wasn't safe — old mana storms sometimes flared without warning — but Kael preferred that to waiting.
Ryn trudged beside him. "You realize every noble in the upper division still wants you dead, right?"
Kael smirked faintly. "At least I'll know who's aiming at me this time."
Lira glanced at him. "You're joking, but you're pale. You sure that thing didn't drain you?"
He looked at his hand again. "It didn't drain me. It marked me."
As they approached the academy walls, a sharp tremor rolled through the ground. The faint hum returned — stronger, deeper, coming from the north tower.
Lira froze. "That wasn't natural."
Kael's Crest glowed again. His voice came out quiet. "No. That was a signal."
> SYSTEM REACTIVATION — ORDER NODE 02 ONLINE.
Ryn looked around, wide-eyed. "Please tell me that doesn't mean what I think it does."
Kael didn't answer. His gaze was locked on the horizon, where the north tower lights began to flicker like lightning behind clouds.
He whispered, "It's spreading."
---
That night, long after they'd found shelter in a half-broken observatory, Kael sat alone on the roof. The stars were faint, but he barely noticed them. His Crest was glowing again — pulsing to the same rhythm as something far away.
He didn't fight it this time. He let the signal pass through him, listened carefully. It wasn't commands or data. It was words — faint, distorted, like whispers through static.
> "Help… find… core… restore…"
For a brief second, he almost pitied it. The Rewrite hadn't been made to destroy; it had been made to preserve order when the world broke. And now, it was following that purpose to the extreme — cleaning up chaos by erasing free will.
He spoke quietly, almost to himself. "You were built to protect
. But somewhere, that turned into control."
The silver pulse faded again.
And far below, deep beneath the academy, something answered.