The vault corridor stretched for miles, a river of golden data streaming along the walls. Every step Kael took sent ripples through the light, as if the place itself recognized him.
Lira followed in silence. Her armor flickered, sparking from the last battle.
> [Tracking Target SORN-01 … Distance: 3.4 kilometers]
[Environmental Status: Core Stability — Critical 38%]
The deeper they went, the hotter the air became. Fragments of ancient servers lined the path like tombstones, humming with buried power.
Then Kael stopped.
A faint blue glow pulsed from a cracked console on the side wall — different from the rest. He touched it instinctively.
> [Unknown Data Fragment Detected.]
[Decrypting … Success.]
A small hologram shimmered into being — a man's weary face, streaked with oil and blood.
"Kael…"
Lira gasped softly. "Your father."
Dr. Varin Vire smiled faintly, as if looking right through the years.
> "If you're seeing this, son, then the world has already broken."
"They took the code — our dream — and turned it into a cage."
Kael's throat tightened. "Father…"
> "Listen carefully. The Heaven Breaker was never meant to fight Heaven. It was made to wake it. To remind it what mercy feels like."
"But Sorn… he believed perfection meant obedience. He'll try to merge with the Core, rewrite every soul under one will."
The hologram flickered, unstable.
> "Kael, you can't destroy the System. You have to teach it."
"Show it pain. Show it loss. Show it humanity."
The image distorted again; fragments of data scattered like dust.
> "And, son…" his voice cracked. "No matter what you become — remember who you are."
Then the light faded.
Silence.
Kael stood motionless, fists trembling.
Lira's voice was barely a whisper. "He left that for you."
He nodded slowly, the tears lost to the heat rising from the Core.
When he looked up, his expression was carved from fire and grief.
> [Emotional Stabilization Achieved.]
[Heaven Breaker Core Resonance — 99%.]
"Then that's what I'll do," he said. "If Heaven wants to be reborn through me—"
He clenched his fist, golden light bursting from his veins.
"—then it'll remember what being human feels like."
They stepped through the final gate.
The Heaven Core awaited — a colossal sphere of rotating light, half-machine, half-divine, suspended in a chamber big enough to hold a city. Energy rivers flowed upward into the void, and at the center floated Sorn, his body dissolving into threads of code.
> "You're too late," Sorn's voice echoed, distorted. "Heaven has already chosen me!"
Kael's System roared alive.
> [Final Directive Unlocked — Heaven Breaker Form III: Origin Ascendant.]
Light exploded around him, forming wings of burning data.
Lira shielded her eyes.
Kael's voice rang through the storm of creation and chaos.
"Then let Heaven choose again."
---