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Chapter 4 - [ CHAPTER 4 ]

Kael's body convulsed violently on the cracked asphalt, his limbs twitching. Each breath he dragged in felt like razors tearing down his throat. It was as if his insides had been laced with molten steel—lava-hot agony pulsing through every nerve-ending. His heart thundered wildly in his chest, a desperate drumbeat fighting to keep time with a body determined to self-destruct.

A silent scream peeled from his lips as his spine snapped with a sickening crunch, folding under invisible pressure. Muscles tore, swelled, and knit together in new shapes. His legs twisted at grotesque angles before shattering and reforming, bone grinding against bone in a symphony of horror. Evolution, that merciless bastard, wasn't asking permission. It was grabbing him by the throat and sculpting him into something new. Something not quite human.

Through the ocean of pain, Kael cursed his life, specifically, the cosmic prankster responsible for it. Of course, his powers would finally kick in now, of all times. Not during training. Not in a safe house. No, the grand unlock had to happen at the heart of some long-dead city ruin, crawling with rift spawn just itching for fresh meat. He could practically hear the punchline.

As he lay sprawled and twitching beside a rusted-out hover mobile, its once sleek frame now a monument to decay, Kael muttered a half-assed prayer to the Moonfather. Not out of faith. Hell no. He was just hedging his bets in case any divine being was bored enough to care. But with his usual streak of crap luck, he knew better. It was only a matter of time before something grotesque sniffed him out and came lurching through the shadows to tear him apart.

The surrounding air was thick with the metallic tang of blood. He could taste it, coppery and stale, clinging to the back of his tongue through the failing re-breather strapped to his face.

[Attention: Air contamination at 22%.]

[Nano-fiber filter efficiency at 34%. Filter change required.]

[Attention: Fusion completion at 64%.]

Oh, good. Just over halfway to becoming a freak and already halfway to suffocating. Progress.

Kael grit his teeth and fumbled for the inner pocket of his weather-worn jacket. His fingers, trembling and mostly useless, brushed the spare filter. It took every ounce of focus not to scream as he held his breath and yanked the dying one free from the mask with a hiss of escaping pressure. With a clumsy snap, the new filter clicked into place, and he inhaled sharply, just in time to avoid passing out from oxygen deprivation. Adulting in the apocalypse. What a joy.

The HUD flickered before clearing, leaving only the Fusion percentage blinking stubbornly in front of his eyes like an annoying pop-up ad from hell. He wanted to punch it, but that would require moving, and right now, even blinking too hard, risked triggering another full-body charley horse from the seventh circle of pain.

The sun had dipped behind the skeletons of skyscrapers, casting long, jagged shadows that crawled like fingers across the cracked pavement. And with those shadows came the real fun.

He spotted them slithering in the corner of his vision—blood stalker roots. Thin, dark tendrils inching closer, twitching hungrily toward the warmth of his body like predators drawn to a wounded animal. They always came with the darkness. Always patient. Always starving.

If nightfall hit before he could move, he'd end up like the mutated berserker bear he'd barely escaped from earlier, just more meat to be chewed on and spat out by this godforsaken city.

The Moonfather must have heard his prayer, because just as the tip of a shadow was about to touch his beat-up boots. A ding rang out in his ears, accompanied by a notification.

[Fusion completion at 100%]

[Commence teleportation...]

"Huh? Teleportation? What the fuck!"

Kael didn't even get a second to brace himself.

One moment he was bleeding out in some ruined street, and the next—bam!—his body jerked backward, yanked by some invisible force. A blinding light scorched his vision, searing through his eyelids, and the warmth of the sun vanished in an instant. In its place came a cold so sharp it sliced right through his bones.

His stomach flipped. His lungs forgot how to breathe. Then—thud. Cold, hard stone slammed against his spine.

Kael groaned.

He blinked rapidly, trying to coax his vision back into working order. When the blurry shadows finally resolved, he found himself sprawled on the floor of a pitch-black chamber, the stone beneath him colder than a tax collector's heart.

Silence wrapped around him like a shroud, so complete, so unnervingly dead, it made his skin crawl. He strained his ears, half-expecting something slithery and teeth-filled to emerge from the gloom and end his miserable existence once and for all. But nothing moved. No growls. No claws. Just his own ragged breathing and the dull thump of his pulse pounding against his skull.

Great. Maybe he died, and this was hell. Wouldn't even be surprised.

It took a few minutes for him to get his shit together. With a generous amount of grunting, hissing, and muttered curses that would make a sailor blush, he pushed himself upright. His muscles screamed. Kael's back felt like it had been used as a chew toy. His legs wobbled, making it hard to keep standing.

The world tilted sideways, and Kael had to clench his jaw to keep the taste of half-digested nutrient paste from coming up. As if he needed a reminder of how foul that crap tasted the first time.

He squeezed his eyes shut, breathing through his nose. Focus. Don't barf. Don't faint. Don't die. That was the vibe.

When he finally stumbled forward, it was like dragging himself through molasses. Every step was a new episode of "How Much Pain Can You Feel Before You Black Out?" He limped into the heart of the massive chamber, guided by the vaguest outlines of shapes too large to make sense of. His enhanced eyesight helped, but even then, everything was shadow and suggestion.

He prayed, again, to something that those shadows didn't belong to something hungry.

Just as he crossed into the room's center, the surrounding air pulsed. A low hum, like a sleeping god exhaling.

Lights exploded to life above him, and Kael hissed, throwing an arm over his eyes. A sudden roar followed—like fire coming to life, ancient and furious. The temperature dropped again, but not like before. This cold was wrong. This was the chill of deep space. Of forgotten tombs.

Kael lowered his arm—and immediately wished he hadn't.

In front of him loomed a colossus of machinery, something straight out of an ancient fever dream. A massive, domed structure arched into the darkness overhead, its ceiling lost to the shadows of time. And there, stretched across the chamber like the fossilized heart of some titanic, long-dead god, was the Primordial Forge.

It was alive—somehow. Gears the size of hovercraft spun without touch. Pipes hissed, steam laced with the sharp tang of iron and ash. The walls shimmered with glowing runes etched in languages no human had spoken in a thousand years.

Kael took a shaky step closer.

At the center of it all was the anvil. Not a normal one, no—this bastard was floating, easily the size of a military truck, suspended above a pale blue fire that burned without sound. Ghostly flames danced upward in lazy spirals, casting an eerie glow over a nest of rotating glyph plates, crystal matrices, and mechanical arms that moved in synchronized precision—like they were waiting for something. Or someone.

His HUD blinked to life, flooding his vision with updates:

[📍 Location Update: [Pocket Dimension: Echo Chamber of the Architects]]

[🔒 Sanctum Access: GRANTED]

[🛠️ Primordial Forge Interface Detected... Initializing Sync...]

Kael's yellow eyes widened, disbelief cracking through the pains.

What in the actual fuck...?

He stepped forward, boots echoing across the polished obsidian floor. The air shimmered with ancient magic, thick and suffocating. It smelled of charred ozone and something else, older, bitter, metallic, like rusted blood and forgotten prayers.

The chamber thrummed beneath his feet, a heartbeat of stone and power. The walls groaned like they were waking from a long, cursed slumber.

Kael stopped. For once, the sarcasm died in his throat.

For the first time in years—maybe ever—he didn't feel like a mistake, or a failure. Or some cosmic leftover scraping by on the edge of extinction. No. For the first time... he felt like he was meant to be here. And that scared the shit out of him.

Looking around, Kael took in the room with cautious steps and a deepening scowl. It was like someone had dumped a wizard's fever dream and a mad scientist's storage closet into one space, then left it to rot for a couple thousand years.

Workbenches stretched along the walls, cluttered with tools he'd never seen before—jagged contraptions of bronze and crystal, sharp edges humming with dormant energy. Glass bottles lined the stone shelves above, filled with strange, twitching plants, vibrant liquids that pulsed like they were alive, and what looked like black sand... if sand had ever come from nightmares.

On one bench, an armory of chaos had been dumped: helmets, swords, shields—all stacked haphazardly, like someone gave up halfway through organizing the apocalypse. A thick layer of dust smothered them.

Kael trudged over and picked up a short blade, curiosity outweighing his good judgment. The second his fingers closed around the hilt, the rusted piece of junk gave up on life entirely. The blade snapped clean off and clattered to the floor with a deafening clang that echoed through the chamber like a bad omen.

"Figures," he muttered, watching the shattered relic with a blank stare. "Even the ancient dead can't make decent weapons."

Then—a voice cut through the silence.

"Who are you, stranger?"

Kael nearly shrieked. Nearly. What came out instead was a strangled grunt that sounded like a dying cat being strangled by regret. He spun around, every muscle in his body firing off pain. His dagger was in his hand before his brain caught up.

The chamber shifted.

A massive crystal hanging from the ceiling blazed to life, casting brilliant blue light into the gloom. A beam shot downward and struck the floor with pinpoint precision. From the pillar of radiant light, a figure materialized—human-shaped, but flickering like a glitch in a dream.

A woman.

She had long, flowing hair the color of fresh sunlight, eyes so vividly blue they looked fake, and skin pale enough to make moonlight jealous. Her robes shimmered with gold threads woven through sapphire silk, regal and surreal at the same time.

Kael didn't lower his dagger. Not because he thought he could hurt her, she looked half-hologram, half-holy ghost, but because lowering his guard hadn't exactly worked out for him before. Trust issues? Oh, he collected them like some people hoarded bottle caps.

"Huh? My name's Kael," he said flatly, eyes narrowing. "You gonna tell me where I am or start chanting in Latin?"

The woman smiled. She raised her hands in a slow, peaceful motion.

"Welcome, Kael," she said, her voice melodic and unnervingly calm. "Welcome to the Chamber of Echoes. The last legacy of the fallen Architects."

Kael's mouth went dry.

The Architects.

He'd read about them in some dusty old pre-collapse database, long before the world fell apart like a drunk on stilts. They were legendary—mages who supposedly ruled vast empires over five thousand years ago, before vanishing into myth. No one knew why they disappeared, only that what they left behind was powerful, priceless, and dangerous as hell.

And he had just stumbled into one of their forgotten vaults. Of course he had. He didn't say anything right away. Mostly because his brain was too busy screaming.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter. Less sarcastic. "What exactly is the Chamber of Echoes?"

Not that he expected a straight answer. Or any answer, really. His luck usually involved explosions or near-death experiences. Not magical AI ghosts.

The woman's expression softened, eyes glowing faintly.

"The Chamber of Echoes is the culmination of over two thousand years of research—an eternal vault of knowledge drawn from the stars, the rifts between worlds, and the threads of reality itself. Here lies our greatest achievement..." She gestured toward the heart of the chamber, where the cold flames of the forge still burned blue.

"... The Primordial Forge."

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