The signal was old-school.
Not digital. Not arcane.
A location burned into a dormant satellite frequency, timed to the rotation of an outdated orbital relay station. It required manual decryption—a method only people who didn't trust systems would use.
Elior liked them already.
> Destination: District 0 – The Forgotten Core
Coordinates: ████.███.████
Warning: Surveillance blackout zone. No signal support. Unknown hostiles.
Risk Level: Extreme
The System gave its warning.
He ignored it.
District 0 wasn't on the maps anymore.
Officially, it had been "decommissioned" after the Second Uprising—a polite euphemism for being firebombed, quarantined, and erased from memory. No light touched its broken towers. The streets were layered with ash, dust, and the bones of people who had believed in something once.
He stepped into it without fear.
His cloak curled against the wind, footsteps silent as he moved through the ruins. It smelled of rust and memory. Time had frozen here—old wanted posters for heroes who were now dead or missing flapped against the walls, their faces faded and irrelevant.
Then he saw it: a symbol spray-painted in blood-red over a shattered monument.
> 🜂
The mark of fire denied.
The emblem of the Rogue Heirs.
Beneath it was a stairwell descending into the underground.
He didn't knock.
Didn't announce himself.
He simply walked down, into the dimly lit catacombs where broken data cores lined the walls like forgotten coffins. He passed silent sentinels—not machines, but humans masked and cloaked in tattered hero uniforms, their old insignias blackened.
The deeper he went, the heavier the air became.
Until at last, he stepped into a wide chamber that had once been a subway terminal—now repurposed into a war room. Maps. Screens. Ritual circles. Runes and relics and tech wired into a mad fusion of science and sorcery.
And at the center, a woman sat atop a throne of scrap and swords.
Her eyes gleamed with cold fire.
Kaelira Venn.
A name he remembered from the old days. An A-Rank summoner, former squad commander in the Republic's elite, presumed dead after a failed coup in the Northern Reaches.
She was very much alive.
"You're taller than I imagined," she said.
Elior raised an eyebrow. "And you're uglier."
Laughter echoed around the chamber—not just hers, but from the masked figures lining the edges. Tension diffused slightly.
"You've made quite a mess, Shadow Sovereign," she said, standing. Her voice had the ring of command, but not arrogance. "Three confirmed kills. One A-Class Hunter spared. Two districts locked down in martial response. The whole capital's praying and panicking."
"They should," Elior replied.
Kaelira smiled thinly. "We've been watching. We admire your style."
"I'm not here to be admired."
"Good," she said. "Then let's talk about why you're here."
They sat across from each other at a metal table littered with dossiers.
Each file was a corpse.
Names he recognized. Crimes he hadn't yet uncovered. Some were already on his hit list—others were new. A pattern emerged as Kaelira walked him through it: everything pointed to a central node, a keystone project hidden even from the inner circles of the Republic.
Project Edenfall.
A myth.
A code word whispered in early raids, mentioned once in Liana's file but redacted before Elior could access its details.
Kaelira leaned forward. "We think it's the source. The origin point of every experiment, every forbidden trial, every cover-up. Revenant was just a child of Edenfall."
"What is it?" Elior asked.
She shook her head. "We don't know. But we know where the data is kept."
A pause.
Then she tapped a file.
> Location: Sanctuary Citadel
Classification: Myth-Class Facility
Status: Inaccessible. Protected by Heroic Pantheon Tier Security.
Commander: Archon Altheon – Supreme Leader of the Hero Authority.
Even Elior stiffened.
Altheon wasn't just a hero.
He was the hero.
The symbol of the Republic. The man who personally led the suppression of three rebellions, sealed three rift-gates, and held a Myth-Class power: [Divine Aegis]—an invulnerability sigil woven from celestial law.
"You want me to storm his home?" Elior asked.
Kaelira smirked. "No. We want you to help us break it from the inside."
The plan was insanity.
Impossible, even.
But Elior listened.
Because buried beneath her strategy was something he hadn't felt in a long time.
Hope.
Not naive, shining hope. Not the kind that made speeches or wore medals.
But sharp, dirty, flame-wrapped hope—the kind that bled for something better.
He could work with that.
Later that night, Elior stood alone in the chamber's outer hall, staring at a memorial wall filled with broken badges. Each one belonged to a former hero who had turned on the Republic… and died for it.
Asher's badge wasn't there yet.
But it would be. One way or another.
"Do you still believe in redemption?" came a voice from behind him.
It was Kaelira.
Elior didn't turn. "No. Only retribution."
"Good," she said. "Because we're going to need a monster."
> [System Update: Faction Alliance – Rogue Heirs Formed]
New Passive Unlocked: Ash Pact – Allies within your faction gain 15% resistance to divine abilities when fighting beside you.
Faction Store Unlocked – Special abilities and relics available via mission contribution.
Next Objective: Infiltrate the Sanctuary's Outer Network Hub
Target: Data Warden Cyros Talek – A-Class Information Sentinel
Time Limit: 72 Hours Until Next AI Purge Cycle
As he read the mission prompt, Elior felt something in his chest shift.
Not warmth.
But momentum.
He wasn't just killing anymore.
He was building something. Not a kingdom. Not a revolution.
A reckoning.