The moment the Archive sealed behind them, the world above shifted.
Kaelen felt it in his lungs.
In the very pulse of his blood.
The system was no longer just watching, it was reacting. Every breath he took felt tracked, every movement weighed by an unseen judge. And somewhere in the far reaches of Virelith, something ancient had turned its eye upon him.
Vos broke the silence as they emerged back into the ruin's main hall.
"Alright," he said, panting, "Thalanir is coming, we have a dozen hours at best, and you're officially wearing the system's version of a 'kill me' sign. Any bright ideas?"
Kaelen was silent. Then: "We need allies."
Vos blinked. "What kind of allies?"
"The kind who were erased from the system."
Vos swore. "You're talking about the Wyrm-Bound. The Unwritten. The exiled oathbreakers hiding in the Frostcoil. Half of them are myths."
"No," Kaelen said. "They're waiting."
Vos hesitated. "How do you know that?"
Kaelen turned toward the stone wall. "Because I've seen them before. I think… I used to be one of them."
The markings on his body pulsed softly, no longer just passive they were threads to something buried deep in him. Not memories. Not exactly.
Instructions.
Not from the system, but from a voice without code.
A whisper, ancient and boundless: "Rebuild the thread. Sever the lie."
Kaelen clenched his fists.
"I need to find the others like me."
Vos gestured around them. "You sure this place won't collapse the moment we leave?"
Kaelen nodded. "The Archive is dormant again. It did what it was meant to do."
Vos sighed. "Alright. We'll head toward the eastern Frostcoil. There's a canyon there. No system echo reaches it. If anything lives off-grid, it'll be there."
They began gathering supplies. Vos cursed at the state of their gear. Kaelen barely noticed.
He was hearing something.
A song, faint and slow, echoing just beyond the ruin's edge.
He stepped outside first.
And saw it.
A circle of black feathers arranged on the ground in a spiral. At the center, a stone mask carved with no eyes, no mouth just a pattern of waves carved into its surface.
Vos spotted it and froze. "That's not from this world."
Kaelen approached. The moment he stepped into the spiral, the world shifted.
A vision struck him.
He was standing in a mountain pass, a war banner clutched in one hand, soaked in blood not his own. All around him, bodies fell. Not to weapons but to code corruption. A plague sweeping through oathbound and rogue alike. And behind it, floating above the dead, was a man in armor made of starlight and ash.
Thalanir.
The Oathkeeper Prime.
But in this vision, Thalanir was kneeling to Kaelen.
"You told us we were blind," Thalanir said in a voice like thunder wrapped in grief. "We didn't listen. And now it's too late."
Kaelen tried to speak, but his voice in the memory was already saying the words.
"Then remember this. When the thread begins to fray, I will return. And the system will end."
The vision snapped.
Kaelen gasped, dropping to one knee.
Vos ran forward. "Kaelen what was that?"
Kaelen didn't look at him.
He was staring at his hand.
It was glowing again but now the light came not just from the markings, but from within. Like a torch had been lit inside his bones.
He clenched his fist.
"Thalanir knelt to me."
Vos frowned. "That can't be right. Thalanir created the System Codex. He built the Oathkeeper Council. He *hunted rogue nodes."
Kaelen rose slowly. "He also betrayed something. Something older than the system. Something we both once served."
Vos's face paled. "You think this is bigger than just a corrupted oath?"
Kaelen nodded. "It's not about oaths anymore. It's about origin."
Before Vos could respond, the ground shook.
Not far just beneath their feet.
Then a system alert echoed inside both their minds.
[ Warning: High-Priority Authority Arrival Detected ]
[ Proximity: 4.2 km and closing ]
[ Identity: Thalanir – Oathkeeper Prime – Tier Zero Enforcement Active ]
[ Estimate Time to Contact: 1 Hour, 11 Minutes ]
Vos spun. "That's now. That's here."
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "Then we run."
They sprinted for the ridge. The ruin closed behind them with a hiss of stone on stone. The spiral of feathers dissolved to ash the moment Kaelen crossed it.
But as they ran, Kaelen realized something was following.
Not just Thalanir.
Something else had awakened the moment he picked up that mask.
Something from the old thread.
A presence, half-formed, not of the system but not entirely free of it.
The interface sparked again.
[ Notice: Unregistered Entity Following Host ]
[ Classification: Unbound Shade – Subtype: Watcher of the Hollow Path ]
[ Status: Non-hostile – Observation mode active ]
[ Warning: Watcher entities are not bound by system rules. Proceed with caution. ]
Kaelen didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
He felt it.
A shadow that walked with no sound. Eyes that blinked in mirrors. A presence that did not breathe but remembered how it once did.
Vos caught the signal too. He turned pale.
"You've picked up a shade."
Kaelen nodded.
"I think it knows where we need to go."
And then the Watcher spoke.
Not aloud but into his mind.
"North," it said in a voice stitched from thousands of whispers. "To the Vale of the First Flame. Where oath and memory began."
Kaelen whispered back, "Why help me?"
The Watcher replied:
"Because when the Thread was torn, it was you who started the unraveling. And only you can finish it."
Kaelen didn't respond.
He just ran faster.
Because whatever waited at the Vale, whatever memory the world had buried
It was waking up.
And it was calling him home.