The portal spat Karl out into a burst of cold wind and falling ash.
He hit the ground on one knee, boots scraping against cracked concrete. The air was heavy — metallic, stale, almost suffocating — and the once-brilliant skyline of New York stood before him as a skeletal graveyard of steel and glass.
Twisted skyscrapers loomed like tombstones, their hollow windows whispering to the wind.
Cars lay half-melted into the asphalt, their surfaces dusted with white ash. Streetlights flickered without power, weak sparks clinging to rusted poles like dying stars.
Karl rose slowly, brushing dust off his coat. The Drive Regulator gleamed faintly at his waist, its trinity rings pulsing with a heartbeat rhythm — cobalt, cerulean, admiral — as if the world itself recognized a power that didn't belong here.
He turned in a slow circle, taking it all in.
Karl (softly): "So this… is what's left of home."
He walked down the street, his boots crunching over broken glass and shattered metal. The silence was almost sacred — no traffic, no voices, just the distant creak of collapsing towers.
Every few steps, he'd pause, scanning his surroundings. Signs of struggle marked the ruins — claw marks along walls, melted pavement, and strange black residue that pulsed faintly, like old demonic blood.
Karl knelt, touching the residue with his fingers. It was warm. Still alive, somehow.
Karl: "Looks like the demons didn't just come through the Cracks… they stayed."
He stood again, looking up at a faded billboard hanging half-torn above a building.
The image — a smiling family beside a silver car — was warped by time, burned and half-erased. His throat tightened; he remembered that model. His father helped design it.
He exhaled through his nose, eyes narrowing. "If Mom and Dad could see this…"
The city wind moaned through the alleys, carrying with it a faint echo — not mechanical, not natural. It sounded almost like footsteps.
Karl froze.
The Drive Regulator on his waist emitted a low, throbbing hum, as if reacting to an unseen presence. The air temperature dropped. Shadows elongated unnaturally across the pavement.
Then he saw it.
At the far end of the street, through the mist and drifting ash, a silhouette was standing.
Tall. Still. Watching him.
A shadowy figure — its outline flickering like a corrupted projection, head slightly tilted, hands loose at its sides. Karl couldn't make out a face, only two faint glows where its eyes should be — one blue, one red.
The silence pressed in.
Karl's lips curved into the faintest smirk as he exhaled, his right hand drifting toward the ignition dial on his Drive Regulator.
Karl (quietly): "Guess we're skipping introductions."
His fingers brushed the dial and gave it a slow rev.
Vvrrrmmm.
The sound cut through the air — sharp, metallic, alive. The trinity core answered with a pulse, light building in his veins as the nanites along his arm stirred restlessly like a pack of wolves waiting for release.
Dust and debris lifted from the ground as the wind coiled around him.
Karl: "Alright, Erevos… let's see what this new world's made of."
The shadow stepped forward once, its glow intensifying — and the Drive Regulator's hum rose in perfect sync.
The ruined street shivered under the weight of tension.
Dust hung in the air like suspended time. Karl's hand gripped the ignition dial tighter — his reflection flickering faintly across the cracked glass of a nearby window.
He twisted it again.
Vvrrrmm… vvrrrmm… VVVRRRMMM!
The sound wasn't just mechanical — it was alive, vibrating through the metal skeletons of the city, echoing across the empty avenues. The Drive Regulator's core began to glow, splitting into fractal circuits of deep cobalt and silver that wrapped across Karl's arm like veins awakening after centuries of sleep.
Then—
[SYSTEM BOOTING...]
[CONNECTING TO: DRIVE CORE UNIT_EREVOS]
[HOST DETECTED: KUROGANE KARL ]
A female voice whispered directly into his mind — smooth, elegant, but carrying that teasing lilt that felt too human to be synthetic.
???: "Are you ready~?"
Karl's eyes widened. "Wh–what the hell—who said that?"
???: "Start your engine~."
The dial spun on its own.
VVVVRRRRRMMMMMMM!
Blue fire exploded from the Drive Regulator, spiraling upward into the air as hexagonal nanite patterns flared from Karl's spine. His shadow warped, fracturing into geometric light as plates of cobalt armor began forming over his body.
Karl (gritting teeth): "Tch… so that USB had a voice?"
Voice: "Correction: I am the voice. You may call me… Agnes. Artificial Intelligence—Drive Companion Model A.G.N-ΣS. But since you're my Operator…"
The voice softened slightly — almost smug.
Agnes: "You can just call me 'partner.'"
Karl blinked, half in disbelief, half in awe as his armor finished materializing. Cobalt and black plates sealed over his limbs, steam venting from his back, and a sleek, wolf-like visor snapped into place over his face — glowing cerulean through the dust.
He exhaled slowly, letting the nanites settle into rhythm.
Karl: "Partner, huh? Guess that makes two of us, then."
Agnes (smiling tone): "Acknowledged. Combat mode synchronization… ninety-eight percent complete."
The ground beneath Karl cracked as the shadowy figure finally moved — stepping into the light, revealing jagged armor-corrupted by Ichor. Its voice was distorted, glitching like a fractured machine.
Corrupted Voice: "...Hephaestus' child… incomplete construct…"
Karl (lowering stance): "Heh. Still talk too much."
He twisted the dial once more, a final roar echoing from the Drive Regulator.
Agnes: "Ignition confirmed. Erevos Frame—FULL THROTTLE!"
The street erupted.
Karl shot forward like a meteor, his right arm morphing mid-charge into a blazing nanite blade. The corrupted figure barely had time to react before Karl slammed into it, sparks cascading across the asphalt like molten glass.
The impact launched the creature through two ruined cars and into the side of a half-collapsed skyscraper.
Karl slid to a stop, nanite steam hissing around his boots, visor glinting through the smoke.
Karl: "You picked the wrong century to mess with me."
Agnes (calmly): "Enemy vital signs — unstable. But be careful, Karl… I'm detecting a secondary heat signature. Something else is waking up."
Karl's grip tightened on his nanite blade as he raised his head — just as another pair of red eyes flickered in the shadows above the skyline.
The city groaned.
And Karl smiled beneath his helmet.
Karl: "Good. I was getting bored already."