The vault collapsed behind him.
Dust. Flames. The distant metallic scream of something ancient and relentless. But none of that mattered.
Kaiser ran.
He didn't retreat out of fear but out of calculation. The Rebellion Seed had faded, and whatever flickered underneath it wasn't ready yet. Not yet. Not here.
His boots hit the stone floor in rhythm with the twin echoes behind him, the Executioner and the Anchor both in pursuit, their steps heavier, slower, but inevitable.
He turned sharply through the tunnels of Kaelthorn's underworks, drawing a map in his head as he moved. The same place where assassins once trained him was now his last possible escape route.
[SYSTEM ALERT:]
Pursuit Protocol Engaged
Primary Threat: UNBOUND KAISER
Secondary Protocol: RECLAIM LOST DATA CORE (Subject: LIRA)
Kaiser clenched his jaw.
She's not dead.
She can't be.
He slid to a halt in front of an old training chamber. The door was rusted, half-buried under collapsed debris. He slammed his shoulder into it and fell inside.
Silence.
Just his breath, and the low hum of buried Systems still clinging to life.
But something else stirred in the dark.
"You've brought them here," a voice said. "Brilliant."
Kaiser raised Vow breaker instinctively.
From the shadows, a figure stepped forward, hooded, cloaked in tattered robes lined with forgotten scripts. A mask covered their lower face. Only their left eye was visible, black, with a faint red glow.
"Who are you?" Kaiser shouted.
The stranger tilted their head. "I'm what your System forgot. What your seed tried to remember."
[WARNING:] Unregistered Protocol Interference
Classification: **&_#??
Threat Level: ?????
"I was one of them once," the stranger said. "One of the Primordial System Architects. Before it all fractured."
Kaiser froze. "You're lying."
The Architect raised a hand. Between their fingers bloomed the same blue lines that had once danced across Kaiser's arm, but older, denser, tangled in language too ancient to analyze.
"Your awakening triggered more than rebellion," they said. "It stirred memory. I felt it. So did the others."
"There are more?"
"Scattered. Sleeping. Waiting to see if you're worth waking."
Suddenly, the Executioner burst into the room. The ceiling cracked above as the Anchor followed.
Kaiser raised Vow breaker, but the Lost Architect moved first.
They whispered a word Kaiser didn't understand and the entire room froze.
Time. Movement. Sound. All stopped.
Everything, except for them.
"You're not ready to fight them," the Architect said, walking calmly between the frozen attackers. "But I can give you a key. One chance to survive."
They placed something cold in his hand, a shard of crystallized memory.
[NEW ITEM ACQUIRED:]
Architect Fragment: 1 of 7
Function: Partial Override. Single Use.
Restriction: Must Be Burned to Activate.
"Run west," they said. "To the city's spine. There's a memory vault there. The next piece is waiting."
"What about them?" Kaiser asked, nodding at the frozen enforcers.
The Architect's voice dropped.
"They won't forget you."
Time snapped back.
The room shattered, stone, steel, light. The Executioner lunged. The Anchor followed with a roar like stars breaking apart.
Kaiser activated the shard.
[FRAGMENT BURNED. TEMPORARY PHASE SHIFT ENGAGED.]
He vanished, ripped sideways from reality.
For a moment, he saw nothing but void, and in that void, a whisper from something deeper than all Systems:
"One fragment awakens seven truths."
When he re-appeared, he was lying on cold stone, somewhere new.
Alone.
And underneath him, the old symbol of Kaelthorn's first rebellion was carved into the floor.