Chapter 1 – What Survives the Ruin
The air stank of copper, ash, and blood.
Kael Sorrén dragged himself across blackened soil, one arm useless, ribs shattered, vision flickering in and out like static on broken glass. Every breath scraped his throat raw. His fingers dug into soft dirt layered with scorched moss and flecks of bone.
He didn't know how long it had been since the ambush. The silence was heavier than the gunfire that had come before. No more screams. No more roars. Just the hiss of wind across scorched grass.
The battlefield was quiet now.
Too quiet.
Xenovorax was gone.
Kael winced as he pulled himself up against a cracked obsidian tree, bark peeling like flesh. His body trembled. Not from fear. From rage. From shame. From the realization that he was still alive, but only just.
[ARKHIVE BOOT SEQUENCE: STANDBY...]
The text glitched across his HUD like a dying breath.
Then silence.
Not even the Codex wanted to speak to him anymore.
The valley had once been a Splicer testing ground. He could tell by the half-submerged towers leaning like broken teeth in the distance, and the vine-covered freight pods spilling rusted hybrid carcasses. He saw one—a twisted mess of feathers, scales, and metal—its eyes still glowing faintly even in death.
But now it was a graveyard. A memory.
Kael spat blood. He tried to call out, mentally, to Xenovorax. Nothing. Not even the echo of their bond. The silence in his mind was more terrifying than the scavengers.
Was he dead?
Had the bond finally broken?
He didn't know which answer he feared more.
Footsteps.
Light. Sloppy. Wrong rhythm. Human.
Kael reached instinctively for his blade—but it was gone. Buried beneath ash. Just like his men. Just like the plan.
He pushed against the tree, forcing himself upright. Every movement screamed.
Shapes emerged between twisted trunks: three figures. Human. Wearing scavenger skins and bone masks. One held a makeshift pike tipped with hybrid talon. Another cradled a Codex extractor. Portable. High-grade. Designed to rip data straight from the skull.
"That's him," one muttered. "Sorrén. The one with the beast."
"Doesn't look so tough now."
"Take his head. ARKHIVE signatures fetch high in the black markets."
Kael's back hit the tree as they approached. No weapon. No allies. ARKHIVE offline. And no damn Xenovorax.
But something deep inside him refused to die.
He gritted his teeth, snatched a jagged length of bone from the ground, and stood up.
"Come on, then," Kael rasped. "Try me."
The first one lunged—sloppy. Kael ducked, drove the bone into his thigh. A scream. Blood. He spun, kicked the second in the chest, dislocating his own shoulder in the process.
The third raised the extractor.
Whiiiiine.
Kael turned—too slow.
The weapon screamed, then shattered. A black blur ripped through the clearing. Something massive. Wet. Breathing rage.
Xenovorax.
Twisted. Leaner than before. Chitin armor splintered. Left eye milky. But still monstrous. Still terrifying. Still very much alive.
The beast stood between Kael and the scavengers, tail lashing.
The surviving two scrambled back.
"Is that thing with him or—"
"RUN!"
Xenovorax didn't chase.
Didn't kill.
He turned—and looked at Kael.
Not through him.
Not like prey.
At him.
Kael staggered forward.
"You let them come."
No response.
"You watched me bleed."
Still silence.
Then, a pulse. Faint. Cold.
[SYMBIOSIS BOND: UNSTABLE. OBSERVATION MODE: ACTIVE.]
Kael collapsed to his knees.
"What are you waiting for? An apology?"
The beast stared.
Then, finally—a low, guttural rumble.
Kael laughed. A broken, hollow sound.
"Next time you run... I don't follow. I burn."
Xenovorax tilted his head. Then, with a grunt, turned away and vanished into the trees.
Kael sat in the ruins of his failure. Alone again. But not defeated.
The Codex flickered back to life.
[RECALIBRATING BOND...]
[REBUILDING COMMAND INTERFACE...]
[THRONE PROTOCOL: INITIATING.]
Kael looked to the sky, lit by the crimson shimmer of a dying satellite grid.
There was no one left to save him.
So he would save no one.
Only build.
Only conquer.
Only survive.
Let the factions come.
He had buried the boy. The throne was his now.