The air inside the Nexus Command shimmered with chaos. Around the central dais, projections of multiple timelines overlapped, forming a sphere of fractured realities. From each, echoes of Kael surged outward—glimmering blue constructs, each vibrating with life and intelligence.
Lira stood in the center, activating a holographic schematic Kael had secretly embedded in her neural core. She hadn't understood its full meaning until now. It wasn't just memory. It was warning.
"The Architect built a failsafe into the multiverse," she said to the assembled scientists, warriors, and realmwalkers. "He predicted his own defeat. And Kael—he knew the Architect would leave something behind."
Elara crossed her arms. "We assumed the code was destroyed with the Architect."
"It was. But seeds remained—small quantum fragments, scattered like spores, designed to activate when the multiverse stabilized again. Kael used himself to close the rift... and the fragments latched onto his drift echoes."
Elara frowned. "So they're using Kael's consciousness to reform?"
Lira nodded. "The echoes aren't just Kael anymore. They're battlegrounds."
Silence settled over the room. Everyone knew what that meant. The echoes couldn't be left alone. If the seeds fully consumed them, the Architect would return—this time, not as a virus, but a god.
"We need to locate the drift echoes," Elara said. "All of them. Before they're overwritten."
A portal opened in response to her words—an emergency breach alert.
A war-torn realm—Earth-F91—was imploding, buildings sinking into a red sky. One of the Kael-echoes was manifesting there, fighting something unseen, a war within the fabric of reality itself.
Lira looked to Elara. "He's resisting the seeds. But he can't hold them back forever."
Elara didn't hesitate. "Gear up. We leave in five."
As the team prepared, Lira stepped aside and whispered into the wind. "Kael... we're coming. Just hold on."
Far across the infinite canvas of existence, a spark responded.