The city's bones were made of steel and silence.
Kiro passed through forgotten channels beneath Gaeth-9's slave district—tunnels once used for waste, now clogged with the ghosts of progress. Rusted scaffolding, corpse-littered corridors, and broken data consoles flickered like dying stars, feeding the growing unease in his blood.
He had left the others behind. For this, he needed solitude.
The System had pulsed once, subtly, pulling his attention underground—toward something deeper than Empire logistics, deeper than rebellion. A memory buried in metal.
And he had listened.
System Directive: Anomalous Echo Detected. Source: Pre-Imperial Origin.
Warning: Residual Void Contamination Present.
Blood Venom pulsed faintly in his hand, uneasy.
The deeper Kiro descended, the less alive the world became. Plants gave way to dust. Insects vanished. The air turned dry, then brittle, then almost… absent. Even the echoes felt starved.
Then he found it.
A vault, long sealed. Half-buried in collapsed plating. Old Imperial sigils, now cracked and painted over with a symbol he didn't recognize—a spiral devouring itself.
He placed his hand on the door.
It opened without a sound.
Inside, cold light bled from crystalline tubes—twelve of them, each filled with a clear suspension fluid. And in each tube, a body. Not dead. Not alive. Somewhere in between.
Human.
Barely.
Elongated limbs. Scarred veins. Stretched skin. Eyes sealed shut by old ritual scarring. Each was marked by a carved brand on the chest—VX-PRA-VOID.
The last one was still twitching.
Kiro stepped forward. The System surged.
Void Signature Detected. Subject Origin: Failed Ascension Clone.
Experimentation Log: Kargal High Science Division | Project: Hollow Choir.
Purpose: Recreate Pre-Void Deity from Blood God Remnants.
His hand tightened.
They had tried to bring the Blood God back.
The Empire had torn open the remnants of that ancient corpse, twisted it, reshaped it—poured it into slave flesh to craft something they could control. Not to worship. To own.
But it had failed.
These weren't successors.
They were warnings.
A low chime echoed across the vault.
"Unauthorized presence," said a synthetic voice. "Engaging purge protocol."
The lights dimmed.
Kiro spun as mechanical limbs folded from the walls—turrets armed with plasma lances, rotating toward him. But before they fired, he reached into the core of himself and called.
Not words. Not power.
Just rage.
Crimson Pulse: Overload Mode Activated.
Blood Venom glowed red-hot. The air tore open as he unleashed the wave. Energy surged across the chamber—melted metal, shattered sensors. The vault trembled.
Then… silence.
Only the tubes remained—cracked. The clones within had died. Again. Or maybe they had never been alive.
Kiro stood in the wreckage, blood dripping from his nose, his vision swimming.
But within the destruction, something stirred.
A voice. Not the Blood God.
Something colder. Quieter. Not dead. Not entirely sane.
"You are late… little shadow."
He turned.
A figure hung in the corner. Not a clone. Not a construct. It had no body.
Only shape. Memory. Echo.
The forgotten god.
Not the Blood God—but another.
Older.
"You would burn them, wouldn't you?" the voice whispered. "The masters. The worlds. You would devour them all."
Kiro stared, unsure if he was hallucinating.
"I will give you nothing," it said. "No power. No blessing. Just this."
A single sigil etched itself onto his arm—scarlet, inverted, alive.
Voidbrand Acquired: Enables detection of Imperial Ascension Nodes.
"Kill them," the voice said. "End what they began. And when you reach the Throne Star… burn it until the scream reaches me."
The vision collapsed.
Kiro stumbled out into the dying tunnels, body humming with new energy, soul scarred by a second god.
He looked up—past the surface. Toward the higher levels.
Toward the core of Gaeth-9, where the Masters still believed themselves safe.
"I'm coming," he muttered.
And this time, there would be no rebellion.
Only ruin.