The world had changed since Kael left the Wastes.
The shadows seemed deeper. The silence, heavier. And now, Kael could feel the weight of something vast pressing against his thoughts—like a presence watching from beyond the veil of reality.
The Origin Ascension sequence had begun.
The message from the system was clear:
> "Obelisk 1 of 7 located. Commence sequence."
But it gave no map, no clear guidance—only fragments, encrypted echoes, and a burning instinct etched into Kael's very being.
Back at the factory, the command center was on lockdown. Selene, Erynn, and Kael stood over a map spread out across a glowing table. Lines connected old ruins, ancient zones, quarantined city sectors—places left to rot in silence.
Only one glimmered with faint crimson light.
A forgotten volcanic ridge known as the Scorched Hollow, where tectonic anomalies and plasma storms had driven explorers mad. It was there, buried beneath charred rock and firestorms, that Kael sensed the next step.
"This is suicide," Erynn muttered. "No one comes back from the Hollow."
Kael's gaze was steel. "We're not just searching for power anymore. We're unraveling the truth of everything we've been fighting."
Selene nodded. "We'll need heat-armor suits, adaptive shielding, and a cloaked transport. I'll prep the Vanta-Shadow module."
As they prepared, Kael moved through the base in silence, checking gear, reviewing systems, but his mind was elsewhere.
Ever since he activated the ruin in the Wastes, he'd felt her. Isara—the half-human guardian—was now tethered to his system. A consciousness fused into the interface.
> "The Obelisks are not keys," her voice whispered into his mind. "They are tests. And each one will bring you closer… or burn you from within."
---
The Scorched Hollow
The sky above the Hollow churned like a living inferno. Molten rivers carved the land like veins of blood and light. Above them, scorched monoliths of black obsidian jutted into the stormy air.
The Obelisk was buried beneath the central crater.
They descended.
As Kael stepped onto the platform deep inside the ridge, the temperature spiked beyond measurable limits. But his armor adjusted—his system had prepared for this.
Erynn and Selene waited near the entrance while Kael moved alone into the heart of the crater.
At the center, he saw it.
The Obelisk. Ten meters tall, glowing with flickering runes. It pulsed with a heatless fire. Then—without warning—his system activated.
> "Trial Initiated: Obelisk of the Forgotten Flame."
The world around him melted into darkness. He stood in a void of flickering embers. A voice echoed.
> "To ascend, burn away your false self."
Then they appeared.
Shadows of himself. A hundred Kaels, each bearing different expressions: fear, rage, ambition, doubt. They charged at him like a tide.
Kael fought them all—each shadow revealing a different version of his past, his choices, his regrets.
He was forced to watch himself abandon the orphanage in fear. Let allies die in the past timeline. Accept power instead of saving someone. Every mistake—every shadow—he had to face them blade to blade, mind to mind.
But he won.
As the final shadow fell, the Obelisk flared with golden flame.
> "You have burned away the false Kaels. Ascension progress: 1/7."
The flame didn't just mark victory.
It burned itself into his system—unlocking a new node of power:
"Flamewrit Rebirth – Passive: Regenerates from fatal damage once per day by burning time itself."
Kael collapsed to his knees, breath heavy, mind blazing.
When he stood, he was stronger. But also... more awake.
The system had started as a tool. Now it was something else.
Something alive.
Back at the facility, chaos had begun.
A warning flared through Selene's console. Unauthorized movement. But not near them.
Inside Serix's borderlands.
"Someone's hacking into Origin systems," she whispered. "But they're not like us."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "A rival?"
"No. A predator."
She showed him a live feed—someone had breached another ruin. A man in black, surrounded by red-eyed drones, walking casually through system-defended chambers.
Kael froze.
He recognized him. The man from his fractured dreams.
A name surfaced: Valen Dray.
Not a mercenary. Not a pawn.
A System Wielder like Kael. But unbound by rules. Unafraid of corruption.
Kael muttered, "He's after the Obelisks too."
---
Elsewhere, inside a towering cathedral of Serix's central citadel, the masked figure knelt before a sealed vault.
"The Obelisks are awakening," the figure whispered. "The Origin Tree stirs."
A cold voice responded through the vault walls. Ancient. Unnatural.
> "Then the game begins again."
The masked one asked, "Do we unseal the Core?"
> "No. Let them gather power. Let the ascendants rise."
> "Then we will break them."
---
In the skies above the Hollow, as Kael's craft ascended, a presence followed—unseen by radar, cloaked beyond tech.
A girl with silver eyes and pale wings watched from a nearby ledge, her body half-ethereal, as if not fully there.
She murmured Kael's name, as though recalling it from a past life.
Then vanished.