The darkness was not empty. Inside the subconscious layers of the Sovereign Star Protocol, Kael floated in a sea of data. Fragments of the 10-Year Vision flickered past him like dying embers: cities rebuilt with Runic glass, satellite arrays realigning to heal the Fracture, and a throne made of starlight. But as he reached for them, a cold, feminine voice pulled him back to the surface.
"If you die now, the Aries-Azure mutation will stabilize into a permanent coma. And frankly, I don't have the equipment to lug a frozen 'King' across the sector."
Kael's eyes snapped open.
He wasn't in the snow. He wasn't in the General Store. He was lying on a pressurized medical bed inside a room that smelled of ozone and expensive jasmine. The walls were lined with copper faraday cages, and the ceiling was a mosaic of shifting Runic symbols—Gemini patterns, constantly split and mirrored.
He tried to sit up, but a sharp, localized gravity field pinned him to the mattress.
"Don't," the girl said. She was standing by a holographic terminal, her fingers dancing through a sea of code. She looked exactly as she had in the snow: silver-mesh cloak, sharp features, and eyes that seemed to change color every time she blinked—one moment a stormy grey, the next a brilliant violet. "Your internal temperature is still fluctuating between boiling and absolute zero. You're a thermodynamic mess."
Kael looked at his arms. The silver Aether-ink had stabilized, but the skin around the runes was now a pale, electric blue. The Azure Friction essence had successfully merged with his Aries foundation, but the cost was visible. His veins were glowing. He looked less like a human and more like a high-tier Runic artifact.
"Where is the Core?" Kael rasped, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together.
"The Frost-Weaver heart? It's in a containment field," she said, nodding toward a corner of the room where the crystalline heart was pulsing with a rhythmic, violet light. "It's the only reason I brought you here. A scavenger with a Protocol is a curiosity. A scavenger who can kill a Second Calamity is a variable. I don't like variables I haven't accounted for."
She tapped a final command, and the gravity field holding Kael down vanished. He sat up slowly, his joints popping. He felt... different. The "Sovereign Ego" trait was no longer just a passive shield; it felt like a permanent part of his psyche. The fear of Z Town, of the Bloodline clans, of death itself—it felt distant. Irrelevant.
"Who are you?" Kael asked, his eyes locking onto hers. "And how do you know about the Protocol?"
The girl stopped her work and turned to face him. She raised her left hand. Etched into her palm was a delicate, shimmering mark of two interlocking figures. The Gemini sign.
"My name is Lyra," she said. "And I'm the reason the House of Azure hasn't found this basement yet. I've been masking your signal since you robbed Lord Julian. You were clumsy, Aries. You left a trail of resonance that even a blind tracker could follow."
Kael's hand went instinctively to his hip. The haptic interface—the physical shell of the Protocol—was sitting on a table nearby, fully repaired and glowing with a steady, confident gold light.
[PROTOCOL STATUS: RECOVERED] [ZODIAC SYNC: 38%] [NEW ALLY DETECTED: LYRA — GEMINI PROTOCOL (SYNC: 42%)] [ADVICE: GEMINI USERS ARE NATURALLY DUPLICITOUS. TRUST, BUT VERIFY.]
"Your 'App' has an attitude," Lyra remarked, noticing Kael's gaze. "Mine is the same. It keeps telling me to eliminate you because you're a 'High-Risk Asset.' But I think we have bigger problems than our internal logic."
She projected a map of the sector onto the wall. Z Town was highlighted in red, but it was being swarmed by blue icons—Azure Enforcer units. More concerning, however, was a massive black void moving toward them from the North.
"The House of Azure is calling in the First Circle," Lyra explained, her voice losing its playful edge. "You didn't just kill a beast; you killed a Calamity that they were 'farming' for essence. That Frost-Weaver was their private battery. By taking its heart, you've effectively declared war on a Bloodline that owns half the planet."
Kael stood up, his boots hitting the metallic floor with a heavy thud. He reached for his cloak—the charcoal Shadow-Thread Bhy Khay had given him. It had been repaired, the tears stitched together with silver wire.
"I didn't declare war," Kael said, pulling the cloak over his shoulders. "They did when they turned the world into a battlefield. Where is Bhy Khay?"
"The old merchant is fine," Lyra said, leaning against her staff. "He's tougher than he looks. He's currently 'negotiating' with an Azure scout. He's playing the role of the confused old man perfectly, but he won't be able to hold them off forever. They're searching every basement in the district."
She walked toward him, the Gemini stone on her staff glowing. "I have a proposition, Aries. The Protocol has a 10-Year Vision, but Year One requires a 'Foundational Anchor.' You can't be an Anchor if you're a fugitive in a gutter."
"What are you suggesting?"
"We leave Z Town," she said, her eyes flashing violet. "There is a 'Dead Zone' in the North—a place where the Fracture energy is so thick that Bloodline sensors can't penetrate. It's where the Director was heading before he disappeared. If we can reach the Sovereign Array, we can unlock the second Tier of our Zodiacs."
Kael looked at the Calamity Core in the corner. He thought about Bhy Khay's shop, the only home he had ever known. He thought about the Dead Man's Switch on his wrist.
[DEAD MAN'S SWITCH: 16:50:00]
"I have sixteen hours," Kael said.
"Then we better move fast," Lyra replied, a small, dangerous smile appearing on her face. "The First Circle of Azure has a Tier-4 Bloodline commander leading the hunt. He's known as the 'Frictionless Blade.' If he catches us here, our 10-year vision ends in about ten minutes."
Kael grabbed the Calamity Core. The moment his fingers touched the crystal, a surge of violet energy traveled up his arm, being greedily absorbed by the silver Aether-ink.
[ENERGY LEVELS: 100% (OVERFLOWED)] [AERIES-AZURE RESONANCE: STABILIZED]
"Let them come," Kael said, the red and blue light swirling in his eyes. "I want to see if their 'Frictionless Blade' can cut through a star."
They stepped out into the tunnels, not as scavengers, but as the first two pillars of a new world. The Z-Town Initiation was over. The Sovereign War had begun.