was no sky.
Only a void — vast, unending — stretching above them like a ceiling stitched from shadows and fractured stars.
Rael stepped cautiously across the threshold. The gate closed behind them with a soft shhlick, its glyphs sealing into dormancy. Ahead, the vault opened like a wound in the mountain's heart — a spherical chamber of obsidian and black stone, layers upon layers spiraling inward.
Floating across the center of the space were dozens of luminous spheres — some cracked, others pulsing faintly with light. Glyphs crawled over their surfaces like living veins.
"Welcome to the Hollow Vault," Elara whispered. "Last recorded entry was four centuries ago. Nobody who came in made it back."
"Why does it feel like I just stepped into someone else's memory?" Rael muttered.
"You probably did."
Rael's glyphs began to glow subtly again, reacting to the atmosphere.
The air here wasn't dead. It was coded.
Elara tapped her HUD again. "My display's jittering. Dominion energy density is through the roof."
Rael closed his eyes. He could feel it too — Dominion energy, thick and almost sentient. It wasn't just a power source. It was like static thought: raw reality, waiting to be shaped.
"Careful," he said. "It's alive."
"Energy?"
"No," he murmured. "The Code."
They descended toward the vault's center. The walls were lined with conduits—ancient, metallic vines that glimmered with ghost-light. Here and there, Beacons floated in containment fields. Not Root Beacons—those were rare, sacred, too dangerous to be moved.
These were lesser constructs—shard-beacons, split from the core language but still active.
Each one pulsed in rhythm.
Elara pointed. "These Beacons store fragments of Syntax. Not memories, like the Root ones—these are Command Nodes. Short-code structures. Orders that never completed."
Rael nodded slowly. "Why are they still running?"
Elara's voice dropped. "Because something's still listening."
They reached the lowest tier — a platform surrounded by six shattered glyph rings. A sarcophagus-like structure lay at its center, encased in a cocoon of crystal. It was fractured. Energy bled from it in pulses.
And next to it — a figure knelt.
Wrapped in rusted armor. Hunched. Motionless.
Rael stopped. "Is that…"
"It's not moving," Elara said.
Rael edged closer.
The armor was ancient — pre-Empire, maybe even Nexaran. Its surface was covered in layered glyphs, almost like bark grown over centuries. Not corrupted like the Choirless—this was clean, elegant. Royal, even.
And on its breastplate glowed a symbol.
Rael froze.
"Elara… that glyph…"
She stepped beside him — and inhaled sharply.
"It's the Lexemark," she said. "Nexaran high-royal class."
The Lexemark was the emblem of dominion architects — those who once wrote reality, not just bent it. It was forbidden now. Heresy to even replicate it.
And here it was — glowing softly on the chest of a forgotten sentinel.
"I thought the Lexemark was a myth," Rael whispered.
"It was. Until now."
Suddenly, the air shifted.
The vault groaned.
All the Beacons blinked at once.
The sentinel's head turned.
Rael jumped back, hand flaring with glyphs. Elara unsheathed her blade. The sentinel rose slowly, joints creaking, energy hissing from its back. Its eyes — two dim pools of amber — blinked.
It spoke.
The voice was ancient, gravel-pulled, half-glitched.
"Root Syntax… detected. Signature… unstable. Codex identity: fractured."
Rael's glyphs flared.
The sentinel looked straight at him.
"You carry the Dominion faultline."
Rael's breath caught. "What does that mean?"
The sentinel took a step forward. "You are the question the Code failed to solve."
Elara stood between them. "Back off."
The sentinel didn't attack. Instead, it extended one hand — palm up. From it floated a spinning glyph: layered, recursive, fractal in design.
Rael recognized it instantly.
"That's… Syntax. But not like what we use today."
"It's from the Root layer," Elara murmured. "It's deeper than any known structure."
"Deeper than Dominion Cores?"
"Deeper than Velgrath itself."
Rael's glyphs mirrored the one in the air. One-to-one.
He felt the energy pulse up his spine, into his brain.
The Code spoke.
—
Flash —
He saw Nexara before it fell. Its towers alive with light. Beacons singing in harmony. Children learning syntax before speech.
Then: the Sundering.
Something outside the Code. A breach. A whisper from beyond syntax. The Dominion energy turned unstable. Glyphs rebelled. Architects died by the code they'd written.
And amid it — a single name.
Kaizen.
—
Rael collapsed.
Elara caught him again.
"You keep doing that," she muttered.
He blinked through the pain. "Sorry. Visions keep punching me."
She turned to the sentinel. "What is he?"
The figure looked down at her. "He is the root-breaker. A signature unshaped. A glyph without boundary."
"Yeah," Elara muttered. "That clears nothing up."
The sentinel turned away, limping toward the center of the platform. It stopped at the sarcophagus — its gloved hand resting on the crystal shell.
"This Vault was once a forge. A cradle for Codecrafters. The Lexemark throne."
Rael forced himself upright. "Why's it still active?"
The sentinel turned back. "Because Velgrath still dreams. And Nexara is not dead. Only sleeping."
Elara frowned. "That sounds like prophecy."
"No," the sentinel replied. "It is instruction."
The vault shook again. This time, it wasn't subtle.
The Dominion energy flared—red, unstable, like a cut artery. Glyphs along the walls began to shudder.
"Something's waking up," Rael said.
Elara nodded grimly. "And it's not happy."
From the upper tiers, motion.
Dozens of forms emerged — like shadows woven from syntax. Their bodies flickered in and out of the visible spectrum, but their eyes—rows of glowing glyphs—burned with clarity.
Not Hollow Legion. Not Choirless.
These were Syntax Wraiths — failed code constructs. Programs given thought without form, abandoned by Nexaran architects when the Dominion fractured.
They'd been trapped here for millennia.
Now, they were waking.
"Elara," Rael said, slowly drawing a glyph across his palm. "How do you feel about rewriting physics?"
"I'm feeling generous."
"Good."
They split — Elara moving to intercept the nearest Wraith, blade spinning in a fractal arc. Rael dropped to one knee, tracing new glyphs into the stone with a bleeding finger.
"Come on," he muttered. "Just like the Beacon showed me…"
His Dominion Signature responded. Glyphs spiraled out, reacting with the Syntax sphere the sentinel gave him. Code snapped into place.
"Break Syntax Anchor. Localized Reset. Fractur Protocol — Initiate."
A ring of raw Dominion energy exploded outward.
The Wraiths staggered, flickered—disrupted.
Elara moved like lightning—glyphs flashing across her blade. Each strike severed more than shadow. It cut commands. Each one that fell released a line of broken code into the air like smoke.
Rael's Signature burned along his spine. His body was reaching limits—too much Dominion energy channeling through unstable glyphs.
The sentinel remained still, hand still on the sarcophagus.
Then it spoke again.
"Vault breach: irreversible. Protocol Three: Transfer root memory to carrier."
"What does that mean?" Rael shouted.
The sarcophagus cracked open.
A surge of blinding light—white-hot glyphs erupting skyward. Code screamed into Rael's mind. Not pain. Knowledge.
The last memory of the Architect who designed the Hollow Vault.
A man with Rael's eyes.
"You are my echo. My recursion. Find the Nexus Heart before the Choirless do. Or Velgrath ends. Again."
The light vanished.
The Wraiths fell still.
The Vault dimmed.
Rael stood alone in the center — Elara at his side. The sentinel was gone. Only its broken armor remained.
Rael looked down at his arms. His glyphs were different now — longer, more intricate.
"I know things I didn't know before," he whispered. "Code that shouldn't exist anymore."
Elara touched his shoulder. "So what now?"
Rael looked up — eyes glowing faintly.
"We find the Nexus Heart. And we wake Nexara."