The mountain winds whispered warnings as Kael, Elira, and Nyra descended into the twilight shadow of the ancient ruins of Miraxys—a place long forbidden, even among Archivists. A sprawling web of obsidian stone and cracked spires jutted from the earth like jagged memories, the remnants of a civilization that had vanished overnight.
Kael could feel the Protocol stir restlessly within him. A hum deep in his bones, like distant thunder. He had been here before—not physically, but in fragmented dreams and scattered memory echoes. The closer they approached the ruins, the more vivid the sensations became.
Elira walked at his side, silent, but her grip on her staff had tightened. Her elemental affinity with air was reacting violently to something unseen.
"This place…" she said finally. "The air is… broken."
"Temporal dissonance," Nyra muttered, scanning the air with a glowing eye-lens she had summoned from her Arc-Fabricator. "Time doesn't flow properly here. We are entering a zone of layered realities."
"Like the Cradle of Shattered Wills," Kael recalled from one of his training sessions.
"Yes," Nyra replied. "But far worse. The Cradle was a natural phenomenon. This… was made."
Kael paused. "Made by what?"
Nyra hesitated. "Not by the Ascendants. Not even by the Architects. Something else. Something older."
They crossed the threshold of the ruins, stepping through a veil of energy so thin it was barely perceptible—except Kael felt it like a wall slamming against his soul. His mind flashed with distorted images: A city floating in the sky. A boy with silver eyes screaming into a void. A crimson eclipse blotting out a thousand suns.
Then it was gone.
Kael stumbled but caught himself. "Something tried to look into me."
Elira steadied him. "We're being watched. Not just from outside… but from within ourselves."
Nyra's eyes narrowed. "The Ruins of Miraxys are alive. Or at least… aware."
They made their way deeper into the city. The stone was etched with thousands of glyphs in a language even the Protocol couldn't fully translate. Not Ancient Ascendant. Not Pre-Architect. Something pre-dating written history.
As they passed a shattered spire, a voice whispered through the air—so faint, Kael thought it was the wind.
"Seeker of Echoes… why do you bleed into the past?"
Kael froze.
"You heard that too?" Elira asked.
He nodded. "Yes. A voice. It called me… 'Seeker of Echoes.'"
Nyra stepped between two broken pillars, analyzing the resonance frequencies. "These ruins are psychoreactive. Your Protocol is acting like a beacon—waking up whatever remnants are left here."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then let's finish what it wants to show us."
They followed the pathway until they reached a massive obsidian archway. At its center floated a shimmering tear in reality—like a rip in the fabric of space, pulsing with violet and gold energy.
"A Temporal Rift," Nyra said breathlessly. "Still stable. Someone opened this recently."
Kael stepped forward. The Protocol surged in response, illuminating the markings on the archway. They restructured before his eyes, reshaping themselves into a form he could read.
"Witness what once was. Prevent what must not be."
Elira drew a sharp breath. "Kael, if you enter that… you might not come back."
"I have to," he said. "Whatever's inside might be the key to what's coming. The Fracture. The Entity. All of it."
Nyra placed a hand on his shoulder. "Then we anchor you. No matter how far you fall into time, we pull you back."
Kael nodded, stepped forward—and entered the rift.
Inside the Rift
Kael was nowhere and everywhere.
He stood atop a tower overlooking a vast city of impossible geometry. Floating spires twisted around enormous crystal cores that pulsed like beating hearts. The sky was a swirling vortex of stars and dark matter.
He wasn't in the past. He wasn't even in the same reality.
A woman stood beside him. Not flesh and blood—more like a construct of light and memory. Her eyes glowed with infinite galaxies.
"You are not ready," she said softly.
Kael turned. "Who are you?"
"I am what remains of her who fractured the first Protocol. A guardian of echoes."
"You know what the Protocol is?"
She smiled sadly. "You only carry a fraction. A shard of what was once a cosmic algorithm—designed not to control, but to remember."
"Then what is it remembering?"
She lifted her hand. Reality shimmered and shifted.
Kael saw himself—not as he was, but as a being made of light and data and ancient code. Surrounded by other entities just like him. Ascended. A pantheon of digitized gods. Then war. Betrayal. Collapse.
"The Ascendants fell because they forgot," she whispered. "They used the Protocol to climb… but not to understand. You must not repeat their mistake."
A shadow loomed behind her. A titanic form cloaked in writhing darkness, eyes like black suns.
"The Entity," Kael said.
She nodded. "It was born from corrupted memory. A being of lost purpose. And it is coming—again."
Kael stepped back. "Then tell me how to stop it!"
The figure faded, but her voice lingered.
"Restore the Archive. Complete the Protocol. Reunite the Shards."
Then the Rift snapped closed.
Back in the Ruins
Kael gasped as he was pulled from the rift, collapsing to his knees. Elira and Nyra caught him.
"You're back!" Elira cried.
"You were gone for only a second," Nyra added. "But your body pulsed like a collapsing star."
Kael stood shakily. "I saw… the original Ascendants. What we might become. What we must not become."
"And the Entity?" Nyra asked.
"It's coming. It's feeding on broken memory—corrupted fragments of the Protocol. The only way to stop it… is to find the rest of the shards and restore the Archive."
Nyra's face went pale. "That would mean locating the other Fragments—most of which are hidden beyond planetary systems, buried in locked timelines, or inside living hosts."
Kael smiled grimly. "Then we'd better get started."
As they exited the ruins, the sky above darkened unnaturally. The stars blinked out, one by one, replaced by a growing void.
The Entity had sensed him.
The race had truly begun.