The Singed Network was not made for people.
It was made to survive.
Long-forgotten before the eco-cities rose, it ran beneath the old grids, pulsing with residual energy and dormant circuits. Its halls were wide enough for freight, its walls scarred by past fires and collapses.
It was supposed to be dead.
But Lanz felt it.
A heartbeat. Slow. Deep beneath the metal.
And it was waking up.
They moved in silence, shadows trailing them like ghosts. The deeper they went, the more the lights flickered, not broken, but hesitant. As if deciding whether to recognize them.
"This place wasn't just a tunnel," Sylva murmured, brushing a hand along a wall etched with layered circuitry.
"It was a nervous system."
"For what?" Lira asked, sword always half unsheathed.
"A continent," Lanz answered.
He didn't know how he knew.
But he knew.
They passed through a section where the floor had split open into a gorge of tangled wires and scorched stone.
Below, green light pulsed through living tech.
The wires shifted as if breathing.
And then…
A voice.
Not spoken. Not heard.
Felt.
"Do you bleed, vessel?"
Lanz froze.
So did the light.
Then everything rushed toward him, the light, the wires, the heat of the Network's core. In one blink, he was no longer in the tunnel.
He stood in a hollow sphere of mirrored panels.
Every reflection showed a different version of himself.
Some were younger. Others, inhuman.
One had eyes like stars. One had no face at all.
But they were all… him.
Or something that remembered being him.
"You opened the fracture. We remember your pain."
"We do not serve. We root. We rot. We rise."
"Will you feed us?"
Lanz clenched his fists.
"What do you want from me?"
"What you already gave. Long ago. In a life erased."
"A promise. A seed."
The mirrored sphere began cracking, each fracture bleeding light.
One of the reflections stepped forward.
A boy.
No older than 10.
His eyes were hollow.
"You buried me here."
"No… I didn't—"
"You let me rot."
The reflection lunged.
Lanz's chest burned.
"W–What's happening...!"
He screamed.
Screamed again.
Until all that can be heard are his screams.
Silence.
"I–Is this how it ends...?"
"LANZ!"
He gasped, falling to his knees as Lira caught him.
Smoke poured from his skin. His right hand glowed with roots carved into the flesh, each pulsing with bio-light.
"You were gone for two seconds," Sylva whispered.
"But your vitals flatlined."
"They spoke to me," Lanz said hoarsely.
"The Root. Or something older. It remembers me."
They didn't get time to process it.
The next hallway was filled with light.
But not from tech. Not from any sun.
From a being.
It floated above the shattered marble, six wings unfurling, jagged spines of wire, bone, and glass, stitched with circuits that pulsed like veins. Its core glowed blood-red, and fragments of metal spun slowly around its body like broken planets in orbit. From its single eye streamed code that fell like ash.
It spoke like a cathedral collapsing in reverse.
"SEEDBREAKER. YOU ARE NOT SANCTIONED."
Lira blinked once.
"…Now what the f*ck is that?"
Sylva's face lost all color. Her voice dropped an octave, reverent and horrified.
"A Warden. An old one." "From before the Spots even opened."
Lanz stepped forward, quiet.
"Is it… friendly?"
"No," Sylva breathed. "Not anymore."
The Warden raised one arm, its joints hissing, steam leaking from rusted valves, and snapped its fingers.
The floor shattered.
Underneath, the veins of the city opened, ancient circuitry peeled away, revealing a hidden biomechanical nest. From it, hundreds of metallic limbs erupted like mechanical roots, all snaking toward Lanz at once.
Lira cursed, already moving.
She became a blur, her mirror blade humming as it slashed through the first wave of limbs. The hallway lit with staccato flashes as her armor reflected attack after attack, cutting clean arcs through the swarm.
Sylva raised her hands, glyphs spiraling from her palms, luminous and green.
"Rootbind—!"
But the moment the spell took shape, the air around it glitched.
The Warden's code pierced through, rewriting her glyphs mid-flight.
They fizzled into static and fell apart.
"It's rewriting the laws!" she shouted, backing away. "It's too close to the Core, our magic won't hold!"
The Warden surged forward, limbs fusing into a massive spear of woven steel aimed straight for Lanz's chest.
Then—
Everything snapped.
Lanz's right hand flared with white fire. His chest burned with a familiar ache, the Fractured Core pulsing, syncing with the ancient hall.
Symbols burst along his arms, root sigils, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Time twisted.
The world dropped to a crawl. The limbs slowed. The Warden moved like it was underwater, data dripping from its wings like blood.
Lanz didn't think.
He stepped forward — steady, precise — weaving between each stabbing limb like smoke dodging wind.
He didn't know how.
Only that it felt like… returning home.
Lira's eyes widened as she watched from the frozen edge of motion.
Sylva whispered:
"He's not using time. He's using memory."
Lanz reached the Warden.
The being tried to retreat, wings glitching wildly.
Too late.
He pressed his hand to itforward, right over the red eye.
The Core within him pulsed.
Green and gold light exploded outward.
The Warden's body spasmed, limbs flailing as code tore loose from its bones.
It screamed, a terrible, holy sound, like a choir turning inside out.
Its wings shattered into dust. Its armor cracked.
Lines of living roots burst from Lanz's arm, anchoring deep into its corrupted code, pulling corruption back into the earth.
And then—
The Warden collapsed, its form disintegrating into ash and broken firmware.
Silence fell.
Lira exhaled, still gripping her sword.
Sylva stared, her glyphs dim.
Lanz stood over the remnants, glowing faintly.
"You killed a Warden…" Sylva whispered.
"No one kills those."
"I didn't kill it," Lanz said.
"Then what happened?"
He turned around slowly.
His eyes were flickering green now.
Like old growth through metal.
"It recognized me."
Far above, in a boardroom filled with floating glyph screens, someone else saw the Warden collapse.
The woman in synthetic robes stood.
Behind her, four figures in digital chains turned toward the screen, watching Lanz.
Each had a number carved into their throats.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
She spoke to them without looking.
"The Root has awakened."
"Send the Chainborn."
End of Chapter 19.