Chapter 8: Protocol Echo
The world hadn't stopped spinning—but for Kai, time had started flowing differently.
Ever since the Fragment pulsed through his veins and rewrote his body from the inside, his senses were sharper. Not superhuman, but calibrated. Like tuning an old radio and finally hearing the static part away.
And beneath the surface of his skin… something lived. Something not him, and yet, somehow his.
What are you? he asked the whisper that lingered at the edge of his consciousness.
The answer never came in words—only pulses. Resonance. Emotion.
He stood now at the broken rim of a forgotten aqueduct, miles outside Tessera Null, watching ancient spirit-engine conduits spark faintly as if they too recognized him.
Lina sat under the shadow of a half-collapsed relay pylon, tracing the constellations with her finger. She was exhausted but kept a brave face.
"You're not gonna start glowing again, are you?" she asked.
Kai gave a crooked smile. "No promises."
She rolled her eyes. "I liked you better when you were just a brooding nobody who couldn't fry drones with a thought."
He laughed, but the levity was thin.
Something's coming. He didn't know how he knew, but he could feel the air thickening—pressure building like a warning coded into the stars themselves.
He was about to speak when it happened.
A flicker. Not of light, but of reality.
The space around them twisted. Like heat waves through glass—but vertical, deliberate, humming.
And then: a ripple.
A Gate opened.
Lina stood, immediately on edge. "What the hell is that?"
From the center of the ripple, a voice drifted—synthetic, ancient, and cold.
> "Protocol Test: Starborn Compatibility Trial Initiated. Subject Kai Ardent. Authentication... incomplete. Proceeding with Forced Synchronization."
The air cracked like ice.
And then they weren't on Earth anymore.
___
Kai blinked.
The world had shifted.
He stood in the center of a vast black chamber, lined with floating metallic monoliths, each etched with a thousand shifting glyphs. The sky above wasn't sky—it was code, cascading in an alien language only the Fragment seemed to understand.
Lina was gone.
"No—Lina!" he shouted. His voice echoed and was swallowed by silence.
From all directions, light flared. Figures rose from the void—humanoid shapes of obsidian glass, with jagged arms and hollow cores. Their eyes burned violet, like his veins had.
There were five.
> "Trial One: Kinetic Displacement and Sentient Host Endurance. Combat parameters: lethal."
A weapon materialized in Kai's hand.
He didn't choose it.
The Vein Blade—a slender arc of pulsing violet energy fused with collapsed metal—hummed like a tuning fork, syncing to his heartbeat.
Move!
The whisper this time wasn't from outside—it was from within.
He dove to the side as the first construct lunged. It moved with jagged grace, a mockery of martial discipline, and struck the ground where he'd stood with enough force to crater it.
Kai rolled, slashed upward. The blade met resistance—it cut, but the energy rippled backward, slamming him across the chamber.
Pain exploded in his ribs.
Focus. You're still alive. Think, Kai. You didn't survive a Fragment to die in a test cube.
He forced himself up. Blood trickled from his lip. Two more constructs charged.
This time, he breathed.
He didn't fight them—he felt them. Every motion had an echo. The energy in their core sparked milliseconds before impact.
He wasn't fast enough to beat them.
But he could outthink them.
When the nearest construct lunged, he let it swing, then twisted sideways, planting his foot against its joint. He kicked off into a spin and drove the Vein Blade through its throat.
It cracked—then exploded in static.
One down.
The others didn't hesitate.
He lost track of time. It became rhythm. Strike. Evade. Predict. Channel.
Each hit he landed synced him deeper with the Fragment. It pulsed stronger, pushing its own power through his muscles, reinforcing the blade. His vision sharpened. Motion blurred around him but not within him.
By the end, he stood panting in the middle of the chamber, four shattered constructs around him, and one final opponent remaining.
But this one was different.
It had a face.
His face.
> "Final Trial: Psychological Sync Mirror."
The doppelgänger stepped forward. Its eyes were voids. Its arm crackled with unstable violet energy—more intense than his own.
Kai swallowed. "Great. A stronger, more pissed-off version of me."
> "Do you think strength alone will protect her?" the Mirror Kai said coldly. "Do you think being chosen makes you special?"
Kai's fist clenched around the blade. "I don't know what I am yet. But I know what I'm not. I'm not leaving her alone again."
They clashed.
Blade against blade. Will against will.
Every blow the Mirror landed was a memory Kai hated. Every counter he threw was a promise he'd made.
When the Mirror shattered, it didn't scream—it laughed.
> "You passed. For now."
---
The chamber dissolved.
He fell—through code, through stars, through memory.
He landed hard in the grass outside the aqueduct. Lina gasped and ran to him.
"Kai!"
He groaned. "That... was new."
"You just vanished! For like a whole minute, you were frozen with your eyes glowing and... weird symbols were floating around you."
Kai sat up. "A test. Someone—or something—ran a combat simulation on me."
Lina stared. "From where?"
He looked at the sky.
"I think from the Fragment itself. Or the people who built it."
His hand trembled. The blade had vanished, but the sensation of it—its weight, its heat—still pulsed in his arm.
Something had been left behind.
At the edge of his vision, a HUD interface blinked open.
> [Protocol Echo — 2% Integration Complete]
[New Skill Unlocked: Vein Strike Lv. 1]
Far above, beyond Earth's atmosphere, Director Xian folded her arms, watching the telemetry feed.
"He survived the Mirror Test?" a voice asked beside her.
She nodded. "And he did it faster than I expected."
Another figure emerged from the shadows—a youth with silver eyes and a cold smile. His presence bent light.
"I want to fight him," he said.
Director Xian tilted her head. "You'll get your chance. But not yet."
"Why?"
She turned back to the feed. "Because the boy still thinks he's alone."