Ashen skies loomed over the shattered spires of Headquarters North as Kaizen stood alone in the Vein Analysis Chamber. Black shards floated inside containment tanks—each one pulsing faintly, as though whispering to him. The air around him felt thinner now, heavier with a presence unseen but deeply felt.
Squad Umbra had returned in silence. Krovar's words still echoed in everyone's minds. "You were not meant to fight us... You were meant to lead."
Ayaka, restrained in the medical ward, had barely spoken since she woke. Her mind was unraveling pieces of an ancient text recovered from the ruins—the same cult that once worshipped the Shard King. She was seeing symbols in her sleep. Burning marks on her arms. They weren't just dreams. They were memories.
"Kaizen..." a voice called.
He turned. Captain Tsura entered, expression grim. "We found something in the shard residue. A trace of something... old."
Kaizen's eyes narrowed. "Old?"
"Ancient. Pre-Bist. Pre-Veinborn."
Tsura handed him a vial containing a single flickering spark. It wasn't just energy—it was consciousness. Rage. Memory. Loss. Kaizen touched the vial—and instantly, the world shifted.
He was no longer in the chamber.
He stood in a realm of ash and fire—visions flashing around him:
— A throne made of screaming Bists, shattered by a man with black veins.
— A woman's voice crying out, "Kaizen, you must remember... who you were!"
— And then... a hand, skeletal yet divine, reaching for him from the void.
Kaizen gasped, collapsing as the vision faded.
He looked around. Everyone stared.
"I saw... something," he muttered. "Not a memory. A warning."
Meanwhile, in the lower levels of the HQ, deep beneath the classified archives, a shadow moved.
A man with a mask made of shard fragments whispered into the void, speaking to something behind a sealed door.
"We are almost ready," he said. "He remembers now. The Flame King stirs."
The door pulsed red. A seal broke.
And the name etched into the metal flickered to life for the first time in a century:
Nerovar.
Ye lo bhaii chapter 30