---
The gate was buried beneath Eos District — deep in a forgotten layer of the megacity where the Empire had once mined voidstone… and stopped.
Now Kael understood why.
> "They didn't run out of resources," he muttered.
"They ran into something they couldn't control."
The Lucent-Fold wasn't just a gate.
It was a wound.
A scar in reality, humming with unstable void resonance.
He stood before it now — a broken monolith of spiraling rings, half-phased out of sync with the physical world. Glyphs pulsed faintly across its jagged structure, glowing with violet heat.
> [ Rift Signature Confirmed. ID: LUCENT-FOLD_γ93 ]
[ Access Protocol Matched. Opening Phase Tunnel… ]
A swirl of darkness opened in the air, like space tearing apart and trying to remember what it looked like.
---
> "If I step through this, there's no going back," Kael whispered.
But going back wasn't an option.
He stepped in.
---
Phase Tunnel: ∇Δ Space Between
The world shattered.
For a moment, he was everywhere — suspended between echoes of possible pasts.
He saw himself as a child... training.
He saw himself as a soldier... dying.
He saw a version of himself never born, still floating in a tank of fluid.
Each version screamed silently across the void.
> [ Memory Echo Alignment... UNSTABLE. Neural Sync: 72% ]
[ Caution: Identity Fragmentation Risk ]
Kael gritted his teeth.
> "No. I'm not a fragment. I'm the one who woke up."
The tunnel closed behind him.
---
Arrival: Eos-7 Sub-Containment Sector
A cold wind greeted him.
The facility was ancient — covered in dust and void corrosion, wires like veins across the walls, lights flickering in dead rhythm. He felt eyes on him.
Not cameras. Not machines.
Something older.
The Rift Gate behind him snapped shut with a crack of thunder.
And then came the whisper.
> "Another one returns…"
Kael spun, Echo State flickering on instinct — but he saw nothing.
Just shadows.
Until they moved.
---
A figure stepped forward — cloaked, half-transparent, like a ghost flickering in and out of dimensions.
Not human.
Not clone.
Something between.
> "Who are you?" Kael demanded.
The entity spoke with many voices at once.
> "We are the Watcher Fractals. Left behind when your kind opened what should have stayed closed."
> "You are Echo-23. And yet… not."
> "You are nearing Collapse."
Kael's body tensed. The Memory Echoes surged again — whispering truths, warnings, threats.
> "Why did they build me?" Kael asked.
"What did they want to bring back?"
The Watcher was silent for a moment.
Then it whispered one name:
> "The Void Architect."
---
> "And you…" the Watcher hissed, backing into the shadows, "...are not the only one walking his path again."
The lights dimmed.
From deeper within the facility, a pulse of Void energy ignited.
And Kael felt it.
Another Echo.
Awake.
Watching.
Waiting.
---