Location: Sector X-Null – Forbidden Zone
The air shimmered unnaturally, warping around the figure as they stepped through the energy barrier. No map showed this place. No records confirmed its existence. Yet the masked man walked like he belonged.
He entered a room where the walls pulsed like living tissue. In its center: a crimson cocoon suspended in midair, humming with a heartbeat not entirely human.
A voice echoed from the shadows.
"The process is unstable. He wasn't born from the Primordial Shard. His core is… fractured."
"Good," said the masked figure. "Let him be broken. Kael rose too pure. This one will rise with rage."
A nearby terminal buzzed to life, displaying distorted surveillance images—Kael in battle, Kael training, Kael awakening.
"He was only the first echo," the masked figure whispered. "But the Void doesn't create only echoes. It leaves... shadows."
The cocoon pulsed harder—black lightning crackling out, singing the air.
Suddenly, the figure reached up and removed his mask.
He looked almost exactly like Kael.
Younger. Wilder. His eyes glowed a twisted violet instead of blue.
"He'll awaken soon," the voice continued. "But he won't be like the original."
"Exactly," the clone murmured with a crooked grin. "Kael was light pulled from darkness. I'll be the darkness that never needed light."
Cut To – Kael's Apartment, Vel Talem
Kael jolted awake.
His heart thundered. His gravity core throbbed violently—like it had just been touched by something miles away.
"What the hell was that…" he whispered
Outside his window, a single black feather drifted past. But there were no birds in Vel Talem's upper skies.