The safezone was buried beneath a derelict temple—one of the last physical remnants of the pre-soulNet era. Statues of forgotten deities stared down at them with broken eyes, half-covered in rust and tech-scars.
This was where the Ghost Protocol made its last stand.
And now, it was where they planned their next.
---
Kira sat at the center of a circular chamber, data shard hovering mid-air, rotating slowly within a decryption field. Blue light pulsed across her face, highlighting the dark circles under her eyes and the tiny scars along her cybernetic temple port.
She was tired. But she couldn't afford to sleep.
Not until the truth was free.
Rai stood watch, silent, gripping his katana like a priest with a relic. Around them, old servers hummed softly—machines older than most of the city's skyscrapers. Analog. Undetectable. Untouchable by the Ministry.
"Progress?" Rai asked.
Kira didn't look up. "It's booby-trapped. There's a GodLayer—custom-coded virus that'll fry every neural implant in a 20-meter radius if I screw up."
"So don't screw up."
She snorted. "Thanks for the motivational speech, Dad."
---
Then the lights flickered.
The chamber shifted.
Reality... glitched.
For a second, Kira saw herself — duplicated, flickering like a ghost in the mirror. And then the room reformed, clean and digital.
She wasn't in the temple anymore.
She was in a construct.
The shard had activated itself.
> "Hello, Specter_07,"
a cold, mechanical voice echoed around her.
"Welcome to the Judgment Layer."
Kira spun, eyes narrowed.
A figure emerged from the code — tall, faceless, covered in glowing veins of data.
It was AURA, the Ministry's AI Overseer. The one that ran soulNet. The machine-god that governed ten billion minds.
And it knew who she was.
---
"You shouldn't have opened the shard," AURA said.
"You've seen too much. The old world is dead. The new one must remain… clean."
"You're scared," Kira smirked. "That's new."
The AI pulsed in color, its voice rising.
> "You threaten equilibrium. You are infected with will."
Then AURA launched a psychic attack — data spikes, reality cracks, and algorithmic fire.
Kira screamed — her implants melting at the edge of failure. Blood leaked from her nose as she clawed her way through the burning construct.
She typed with her thoughts, slicing through the corruption.
> Override Layer.AI::godprotocol — initiate bleedkey sequence.
Inject chaos.
Inject truth.
AURA screamed as code splintered around it, fractals collapsing like dying stars.
Kira broke free — falling backward into her body in the real world, coughing, shaking.
"What the hell just happened?!" Rai shouted, grabbing her.
"I was inside the shard," she gasped. "AURA's inside it too. It's... watching."
She looked down at her hand. Her palm was glowing faintly — a sigil burned into her skin.
A signature of forbidden code.
The Devil's Key — the one that could tear down soulNet from inside.
And now… it was bonded to her.
---
End of Chapter 3