The light beyond the doorway was not white but woven, threads of silver, gold, and deep violet drifting like dust in still air. Aiden stepped through, and the sound of his own breathing vanished. It felt less like walking into a room and more like crossing a boundary of thought.
The ground beneath his boots softened from stone to something that glowed faintly under pressure. He looked down; the floor was made of runes, each symbol shifting as if alive. With every step they flared and whispered, remember.
Ahead stretched a hall of crystal pillars, each one containing moving shadows. When he brushed a hand across the nearest surface, a voice poured from it, not speech, but memory.
He saw the first Raiders.
Not warriors of steel and greed like those in Ares, but wanderers wrapped in light. They crossed plains of glass, carrying shards of Dominion that pulsed like hearts. Their eyes were tired but bright, their purpose certain. And above them, the sky burned with the same sigil that now marked Aiden's skin.
He staggered back, chest tight. The vision dissolved, leaving only silence.
The system chimed faintly:
> Fragment Unlocked - Origin of Raiders
Note: "They rose when the world had already ended."
He swallowed hard. So that's what we are… echoes.
The hall opened into a vast chamber shaped like an hourglass, its ceiling lost in darkness. Suspended in the air was a lattice of light, spinning, shifting, forming symbols that hovered before him like constellations. The pattern pulsed once, and he felt the Core's voice move through the air.
"You seek what you were. Then learn."
Aiden's vision blurred again.
He was standing on a cliff overlooking an ocean of crystal. Below, a city lay half-buried in glowing sand. The Raiders walked among its ruins, placing fragments of Dominion into towering pylons. Each pylon sang a single note; together they formed a harmony that filled the world. It was beautiful and wrong. The sky trembled, splitting into fractures of light.
Then came him: the Architect. Cloaked in radiance, calm and resolute. He placed his hand upon the nearest pylon and whispered something Aiden couldn't hear. The harmony twisted. The light turned red.
Aiden's pulse quickened. "You destroyed it," he said aloud, voice shaking. "You used them to build the Layers."
The memory faded. The lattice of light dimmed to a dull glow.
In Ares.
Lira stood on the balcony of the Guild Tower. The storm had quieted, but the air still shimmered with red veins of energy. She could feel it under her skin, the same pulse that once marked Aiden's awakening.
"He's still inside," said Darius, the guild's field commander. His armor was cracked, still coated in dust from the last raid. "Whatever he's doing, it's changing the barriers again. Rifts are shifting position."
Lira's eyes remained fixed on the horizon. "Keep the city sealed. If the Architect's signal breaks through, we'll have no second chance."
Darius hesitated. "And Aiden?"
She exhaled, almost a whisper. "He'll either save us… or finish what the Architect started."
Back in the Dominion, Aiden approached the heart of the chamber. The lattice above him bent downward, forming a single path of light. At its end rested a pedestal of stone. Upon it lay an ancient object, a mask carved from crystal, half shrouded in dark threads of energy.
The moment his gaze met it, the Core spoke again.
"Every Raider was once a vessel. Every vessel a promise broken. You are their last memory."
Aiden reached out, fingers trembling. The mask vibrated under his touch. For an instant he saw flashes, faces of those first Raiders, their souls burning out as they tried to contain the Dominion's will.
He drew his hand back, panting. "You want me to wear it."
"No," the Core answered, its voice fading. "You already are."
A cold shock ran through him. The sigil on his arm flared, spreading across his skin like living light. The chamber's runes blazed in response, cascading upward until the entire hall was aflame with gold.
Aiden fell to one knee, the visions overwhelming him. The first Raiders. The fall of their cities. The birth of the Architect. All of it spiraled inside his mind until he couldn't tell where their memories ended and his began.
Then, silence.
The light faded. The Core dimmed to a quiet pulse. On the floor where he knelt, a new symbol had formed, a circle enclosing an eye. Beneath it, words appeared in pale light:
> Title Unlocked: Heir of Memory
Effect: Past echoes answer your call.
Aiden rose slowly. His vision cleared, and for the first time, he felt the Dominion not as a cage but as a living memory wrapped around him.
He turned toward the far wall where a new door had appeared, simple, uncarved, waiting.
"Then let's see what you remember next," he whispered, and stepped forward.