Hours passed.
The storm hit hard.
I found refuge in a collapsed spire—its bones still strong enough to block the worst of the winds. Inside, I sealed myself in a shattered chamber and activated a low-emission thermal field.
I needed time.
To think. To process. To plan.
I sat cross-legged and focused inward, accessing my neural core directly.
Memories swirled—my own and not. Kael Riven, architect of forbidden evolution. And something else... the Catalyst's echo. A whisper of Architect thought, buried in the code.
It spoke.
Not in words, but images.
A map.
Fragmented. Incomplete.
But it showed locations.
Vaults. Relays. Beacons.
All tied to the original Architect network.
And one pulsing brighter than the rest—deep in the Ashen Wastes, where no one returned from.
The Origin Spire.
The true heart of the evolution storm.
If I could reach it… I could find out who woke me. Why the Catalyst was left for me. What the Architects truly intended.
I opened my eyes.
The storm raged outside.
But I felt calm.
This was the beginning of something bigger than survival.
This was war.
*****
By the time the storm began to die, the world outside had changed.
The landscape bore new scars—glassified ridges where lightning had struck, mutated trees warped into crystalline spires, creatures dead or transformed, husks ruptured by volatile evolution surges.
I emerged from the broken spire at dawn.
The sky glowed with unnatural colors—amber, lavender, deep red. The storm had altered the light itself. My visual filters adjusted automatically, narrowing the spectrum. A side effect of the Catalyst. My perception was now layered. I no longer saw just heat and motion—I saw intention. Patterns of movement. Energy trails. Residue left by powers and minds alike.
And someone had left a clear one.
Southwest.
The Awakened woman.
Her presence had carved a path through the storm like a blade through silk. No wind touched her, no mutation dared cross her line. Even the beasts gave her a wide berth.
She was more than a survivor.
She was a pivot point.
But following her now would be suicide. I wasn't ready—not for her, and not for what she clearly represented. She wasn't a drifter. She had purpose, backing, maybe even command.
And I had nothing but a knife, a damaged environment suit, and a symbiotic ancient evolution core in my spine.
I needed more.
I needed a base.
I needed allies.
*****
A day's travel west brought me to a ravine split by a long-abandoned rail line. The mag-train cars were still here, some broken, some sealed. Cargo crates jutted from shattered hulls, overgrown with moss and hardlight fungal growths.
More importantly—there were signals.
Faint. Sporadic. Human.
[Neural Pulse Detected: Civilian Band – Encryption Low]
[Distance: 1.3 km / Elevation: -45 meters]
I crouched at the edge of the ravine and scanned below.
Campfire light flickered through an overhang. Five or six figures moved below—slow, tired. Armed, but poorly. One of them wore a scavenger's harness. Another had a crude exoskeleton built from pre-Fall scrap.
Not Sovereignty.
Not militants.
Scavengers.
Maybe even settlers.
I adjusted my neural emissions to passive mode and began descending quietly.
I approached from behind a rusted container, checking angles and body language. The group wasn't tense—exhausted, yes, but not alert. Two were asleep. One kept watch with a salvaged railgun that probably hadn't been fired in weeks. A small drone hovered above the camp, its lens cracked, but still functional.
I stepped into the light.
The railgun aimed at me instantly.
"Stop right there!" the man barked, rising to his feet. He wore battered polymer armor with faded orange markings and a breathing unit that hissed with each inhale.
I raised my hands.
"Not Sovereignty," I said calmly.
The man narrowed his eyes. "You don't look like anything."
"That's the point."
He hesitated. "State your classification."
"Adaptive hybrid. Lone-tier. No allegiance. Looking for intel, not blood."
He didn't lower the weapon.
The scavenger woman beside him—late thirties, hard eyes, a tech mask over her jaw—spoke.
"Let him in, Korin. He's broadcasting open-band."
Korin scowled, but lowered the railgun. "He twitches, I shoot."
"Fair."
I stepped into the circle and let the light hit my face.
The woman studied me. "Name?"
"Kael."
She tapped her temple. Her internal systems lit up. "That name's flagged in some data cores. Architect projects. You a sleeper?"
I didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
She nodded slowly. "I'm Mira. This is Korin, and that's our crew. We're from Cell 9."
"Resistance?" I asked.
She snorted. "Used to be. Most of the organized cells broke down after the Ashen swept the Coreline. We're not fighters. Just digging for tech. Salvage. Shelter."
"And the Ashen?"
"They've expanded. Took New Bastion last cycle. Wiped out three settlements. They've got a new Commander—some freak with an awakened core and a resonance field. Crushes people with thought alone."
Korin muttered, "Calls himself Prophet now."
Prophet.
The name slithered in my skull like a slow poison.
Kael's memories burned with flashes—red corridors, screaming test subjects, a child in a vat with too much light in his eyes.
One of ours.
One of mine.
"He was one of the early subjects," I murmured.
Mira blinked. "You knew him?"
"Before he had a name."
They exchanged looks.
"What are you?" Korin asked.
"Wrong question."
I stared into the fire. "Ask what I'm becoming."
*****
They gave me a place near the edge of the camp. I didn't sleep. I couldn't. The Catalyst was active again, running silent simulations in the background, feeding data into my subconscious.
It spoke less now. No images. Just impressions.
Adapt. Learn. Integrate. Expand.
It had directives.
It wanted to grow.
But I wasn't its tool.
I was its partner.
And I had my own directive.
Burn the Prophet's throne.
******
By dawn, I'd memorized the terrain and tech layout of the camp. I mapped the exosuit skeletons, the energy cells, the power flows. I could've dismantled the entire camp and rebuilt it better in a day.
But I needed their trust first.
So I offered something small.
"There's an Architect relay buried five kilometers north," I told Mira. "It's offline, but intact. If we tap it, we can access the beacon network. That means live scans of Ashen troop movements."
Mira's eyes lit up. "How do you know that?"
"Because I'm not from now."
She didn't question further.
By midday, she assembled a team of three: Mira herself, Korin with his patched railgun, and a younger girl named Kess with a prototype drone rig.
We traveled light.
It took half a day to reach the relay site. We found it buried beneath a pile of slagstone and fungal rot. The entrance had partially collapsed, but my strength enhancements made short work of the debris.
Inside, the air was sterile. Dead.
But the systems still hummed beneath layers of dust and code corrosion.
Mira patched in through her wrist unit. "It's encrypted."
I stepped forward.
Laid my palm on the console.
The console lit up like it had been waiting centuries for me.
The system opened.
[Architect Relay Accessed – Authorization Accepted]
[User: Kael Riven – Project Origin]
[Status: Incomplete Directive / Catalyst Sync Detected]
[Rebuilding Node Network...]
Korin took a step back. "What the hell are you?"
I didn't answer.
The relay bloomed with light.
Holographic maps spread across the walls—terrain scans, troop deployments, storm paths, Vault locations, dead zones, living zones. A full reconstruction of the known world.
Mira's jaw dropped.
"This is... a full beacon map. We've been blind for years."
"Now you're not," I said.
I marked a location on the far eastern quadrant—deep in the Ashen Wastes.
"The Prophet's core is here. The throne they built him is more than symbolic. It's fused with an Architect artifact—probably an Engine Core."
"What do you want us to do?" Mira asked.
"Help me get there. I'll do the rest."
Korin raised an eyebrow. "You gonna kill him?"
I met his eyes.
"I'm going to evolve past him."
*****
That night, they held a quiet gathering.
Nothing formal.
Just shared warmth and stories. Real ones. Small ones.
Korin spoke of his brother—lost to a failed evolution, turned Wretch. Kess talked about salvaging tech from a crashed Sovereignty skirmisher and almost dying from a collapsed engine cell.
Mira didn't say much.
But she watched me.
Not with suspicion anymore. With hope.
That was dangerous.
Hope made people follow.
Hope made people die.
But I'd need them. All of them. Because the Prophet wouldn't wait forever. His dominion grew by the day. Every Vault he unlocked brought him closer to full resonance.
And if he reached the Origin Spire before me...
He wouldn't just rewrite the world.
He'd erase it.
*****
The wasteland cracked open beneath our feet.
Dust choked the air, clinging to everything—armor joints, weapon barrels, lungs. We moved in a line, five strong: Mira leading with her plasma scout-rifle, Korin watching our rear, Kess piloting her new recon drone ahead, a quiet sniper named Dane who joined from another camp, and me—Kael, anomaly incarnate.
We were headed toward the Verdant Ruin, an overgrown sector from the pre-Fall world, swallowed by an unregulated evolution field nearly thirty years ago. No faction dared claim it. Everything that entered either changed or didn't come back.
Perfect place for a hidden Architect relay.
I could feel it pulling me—an echo in the Catalyst. That meant two things: the relay was active, and it was important. Probably tied to Origin Spire routing data, maybe even power signatures from the Prophet's Core.
But there was something else.
Something off.
Every step closer made the Catalyst tense, like it was holding its breath.
*****
We reached the outer ring of the Ruin by nightfall.
Massive trees—twisted things with silver-veined bark and leaves that shimmered like glass—loomed over us. They weren't natural. Their root systems pulsed with bioelectric energy, feeding on the field. Creatures skittered through the upper canopy—three-limbed simians with hollow eyes and phosphorescent fur.
"Shouldn't stay past dark," Mira said, sweeping the area. "This place shifts."
"What do you mean, shifts?" I asked.
"Reality bends. Structures move. Landmarks disappear. It's like the place doesn't want to be mapped."
"It doesn't," I murmured. "It's self-aware. This is a dynamic evolutionary zone. Architect design. Defense mechanism against intruders."
Korin groaned. "Great. So the forest wants to kill us."
"Only if we trigger it."
Kess's drone beeped in her hand. She turned it, and her eyes widened. "There's movement ahead. Ten—no, twelve life signs. Moving fast. Human-shaped, but distorted."
"Wretches?" Mira asked.
Kess shook her head. "Not feral. Organized. Tactical spacing."
I stepped forward. "Ashen Scouts. They're here for the same reason."
"Then we hold the ground," Dane said quietly, setting up his long-rifle. "I've got overwatch."
"No," I said. "We draw them in."
Mira glanced at me. "You want to fight in the middle of a mutating jungle?"
"No," I repeated, activating my internal systems. "I want the jungle to fight them."
*****
We set the trap under the cover of an old bio-conduit tree—its roots had formed a ring around a clearing, perfect for an ambush.
Korin placed trip mines with sensory pulses. Kess released decoy drones with cloaked heat signatures. I, meanwhile, took a position just off the perimeter and extended a neural spike from the Catalyst into the soil.
The system flared.
[Local Evolution Field Detected]
[Status: Unstable – Responsive]
[Engage: Directive Override?]
I pulsed one word back:
Yes.
The roots beneath me shifted, acknowledging my presence. Bio-signatures swam through the network—predators, tendrils, spore clouds, living traps. All dormant.
I nudged them awake.
Quietly.
Carefully.
Then we waited.
*****
They came at dawn.
Twelve soldiers in matte black armor laced with crimson. Their visors glowed faintly, scanning in overlapping sweeps. No chatter. No mistakes.
Sovereignty elites enhanced by Prophet tech.
My pulse slowed.
I let the Catalyst feed me data.
[Signatures Confirmed: Phase-Sync Units]
[Augments: Kinetic Folding, Short-Term Telemetry Blur, Neural Jamming]
[Threat Assessment: Severe]
Dane fired first.
One headshot—clean.
The soldier dropped without a sound.
Then everything erupted.