The door didn't just close. It sealed.
The metallic shriek of the rusted hinges echoed in the silence, a sound that felt like a blade sliding across **Khai's** raw nerves.
Then came the click. The lock.
**Grog** was gone. **Tian** was gone.
The heavy, oily pressure of the ***Rank 4 Aura*** had vanished, but the vacuum it left behind was worse. It was a hollow, suffocating void.
**Khai** lay in the absolute dark.
The "**Hollow Hum**" of **Marrow-Burn**—the planet's mechanical heartbeat—seemed to grow louder now that the brothers' breathing was no longer there to mask it.
*Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.*
The vibrations traveled through the floor, through the tarp, and into **Khai's** cracked ribs. Each pulse was a reminder of the machine-world beneath him, a world that didn't care about the two orphans it had just separated.
Against his cheek, something felt cold.
It was the silver-sealed tube of ***Grade-B Nutrient Paste***. **Grog's** "charity."
To anyone else, it was just a meal. To **Khai**, it was a piece of his brother's soul. It was the price of a punctured lung and a lifetime of slavery in the ***Deep Veins***.
***
**Khai** didn't move for a long time.
His mind, sharpened by twenty-three years of royal education and the bitter wisdom of the gutter, was a storm of static.
He closed his eyes, and all he could see was **Tian's** smile.
That small, tragic smile as he walked into the dark.
*"I'm just going to go find the sun for us."*
The words were a lie. **Khai** knew they were a lie. **Tian** knew they were a lie. But in the ***Ashen Grave***, lies were the only things that didn't rust.
A sudden, sharp pain flared in **Khai's** chest.
**Grog's** aura had left physical damage. Every time **Khai's** heart beat, it pushed against a bruised rib.
The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth—thick, iron-heavy, and cloying. He spat it out, the fluid landing with a wet 'splat' on the dirt floor.
**[VITALITY: 1.34%]**
**[TIME TO TOTAL COLLAPSE: 158 HOURS]**
The blue text of the ***System*** was mocking him.
158 hours.
**Tian** had sold himself for a week of life. If **Khai** didn't eat, those 158 hours would shrink to zero.
**Tian's** sacrifice would be nothing but a footnote in the history of a dead planet. A waste of good blood.
**Khai's** fingers, thin as dry twigs, twitched.
He reached for the silver tube.
His muscles screamed. The simple act of moving his arm felt like pulling a rusted chain through a bed of gravel.
His fingernails—jagged and yellowed—clawed at the silver seal.
*Rip.*
He didn't have the strength to use his hands. He used his teeth.
He bit into the tough, synthetic plastic, tearing it open.
A scent hit him.
It wasn't the burnt-plastic smell of the grey sludge they usually ate.
This smelled of concentrated minerals. Of synthetic proteins. It had an earthy, rich undertone that made his shriveled stomach cramp so violently he almost lost consciousness.
***
**Khai** stared at the opening.
Inside was a golden-brown gel. High-grade fuel for the masters of the ***Upper Districts***.
His 23-year-old pride, the pride of the **Li Clan**, felt a surge of pure, acidic revulsion.
*"Don't eat it,"* a voice in his head whispered. It was the voice of the **Prince** he used to be. *"It's the price of your brother's blood. It's the taste of your own cowardice."*
But then, another voice answered. A colder voice. A voice born from seven years in the soot.
*"If you don't eat, Grog wins. If you don't eat, Tian died for a corpse."*
**Khai** squeezed the tube.
The first drop of the ***Grade-B paste*** touched his tongue.
It didn't taste like food. It tasted like power.
It was thick, warm, and hit his throat like molten gold.
As it slid down his gullet, **Khai** felt his body "wake up" in a way that was agonizing.
It was as if his dormant cells were tiny, starving animals that had suddenly been thrown a piece of raw meat. They tore into the nutrients, screaming for more.
His stomach burned. His veins throbbed.
The transition from starvation to high-grade fuel was a physical assault.
His heart rate spiked. The dry, sandpaper friction in his lungs eased for a split second as the synthetic lubricants in the paste began to work.
**[VITALITY INCREASING: 1.34%... 1.35%... 1.36%...]**
**Khai** swallowed again. And again.
He hated the taste. He hated the texture. He hated himself for wanting it.
With every gulp, he repeated a name in his head.
**Grog.**
Each swallow was a promise.
**Grog.**
Each ounce of strength returning to his limbs was a brick in the foundation of a future execution.
***
As the tube emptied, a strange sensation began to crawl up **Khai's** spine.
It wasn't just the nutrients.
There was something else in the ***Grade-B paste***. A trace amount of "***Refined Aether***"—the energy that powered the ***Vessels*** of the ***Higher Realms***.
To a normal miner, it would have just made them feel slightly less tired.
But **Khai** wasn't a normal miner.
He was a ***Null-Link*** user. A descendant of the ***Sovereign line***.
His soul was a dry riverbed, and for the first time in seven years, a single drop of rain had fallen.
The **[SYNC STATUS]** notification, which had been a frozen **0.00%** since the day he arrived, began to flicker.
It vibrated. It buzzed.
The blue holographic text turned a violent, unstable violet.
**[WARNING: UNKNOWN ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED]**
**[ATTEMPTING TO SYNC...]**
**[SYNC STATUS: 0.00%... 0.001%... ERROR]**
**Khai** gasped, his back arching off the mat.
It felt like a lightning bolt had been threaded through his nervous system.
The pain was exquisite. It was a searing, white-hot heat that made **Grog's** aura feel like a summer breeze.
He clawed at his chest, his fingers digging into the translucent skin over his ribs.
*"More,"* his soul demanded. *"I need more."*
But the drop was too small. The "rain" evaporated before it could fill the river.
The violet light faded. The status returned to a cold, dead blue.
**[SYNC STATUS: 0.00%]**
But the seed had been planted.
**Khai** lay panting, sweat soaking the tarp beneath him. The sweat smelled like chemicals—the toxins being pushed out of his pores by the high-grade paste.
He wasn't strong. Not yet.
He was still a kankal (skeleton) in a rusted shack.
But for the first time, he didn't feel like a victim.
He felt like a predator that had been forgotten in a cage.
He turned his head toward the door.
In the dust on the floor, something caught a stray beam of grey light from the window.
A small, metallic glint.
**Khai's** heart skipped a beat.
He dragged his body toward it, inch by agonizing inch.
When he reached it, his breath stopped.
It wasn't the whole coin.
It was a jagged, crescent-shaped fragment of the **Sun-Gatherer's copper coin**.
**Grog** had crushed it in his hand, and this piece had fallen during the struggle.
**Khai** picked it up.
The copper was warm.
As his fingers closed around the relic, a final notification appeared—one that didn't come from the ***Null-Link***.
It was a whisper from the very air of **Marrow-Burn**.
***[The Grave remembers its Princes.]***
**Khai** clutched the fragment to his chest and began to laugh.
It was a dry, rattling sound that held no joy.
**Tian** was in the ***Deep Veins***. **Grog** was in the ***Upper District***.
And **Khai**?
**Khai** was finally, truly, awake.
**[VITALITY: 1.45%]**
**[TIME TO TOTAL COLLAPSE: 172 HOURS]**