The morning sun crept over the cracked spires of Celestial District Alpha, casting broken shadows across the once-majestic walls. Reign stood atop the remains of a fallen building, his coat billowing behind him as the System Interface glowed in his left eye, displaying mission data.
[Quantum Trait Evolution Unlocked: Phased Core Synchronization Lv.1] [New Title Earned: Nexus Breaker] [Exosoul Points: 132,000+]
He had triggered the collapse of the Nexus Tower's first layer. With it, a chunk of the Committee's surveillance web had gone blind.
"Reign," Kiera's voice buzzed in his comm-link, sharp and urgent. "We traced multiple signatures converging on your location. At least three high-tier enforcers and a Strike-Class Hybrid."
Reign smiled. "Let them come."
Below him, the fractured plaza shimmered as quantum anomalies surged through broken circuits. But his mind wasn't on the trap. His thoughts were with Aeon, whose disappearance had yet to be explained.
[SYSTEM UPDATE: Emotional Sync Detected | Family Anchor Trait Enhanced]
He leapt down into the ruined plaza, each step echoing like a gunshot. From the opposite side emerged three figures, dressed in shimmering silver armor, faces hidden behind mirrored visors. Behind them floated a grotesque mass—half-machine, half-beast.
The Strike-Class Hybrid.
"You're under arrest for inciting multiversal destabilization," said the central enforcer. "Come quietly, or your data will be purged."
Reign tilted his head. "How about you shut up, and I make you a part of my archive?"
[Battle Protocols Engaged] [Dimensional Thread Reading: Enabled]
The air twisted as Reign's form split into quantum echoes, each one executing different combat movements. The Hybrid lunged—claws like plasma chains—but Reign was already behind it.
One palm strike.
[Nova Pulse Activated]
A shockwave tore through the plaza, shattering the marble floor and blasting the hybrid through a crystal pillar.
The three enforcers barely had time to react. One raised a plasma halberd, but Reign caught it barehanded, his own weapon materializing from Exosoul code—an obsidian-bladed staff with spiraling data runes.
He spun, slicing through the enforcer's armor. Sparks and gore flew.
[Exosoul Extraction: Successful] [New Skill Fragment Acquired: Combat Haze Mirage]
Before the remaining two could regroup, Kiera dropped from above, blades humming.
"I brought company."
Alongside her were two rogue Guardians—former Nexus Knights who had defected after seeing Reign's viral broadcast.
"We follow the one who makes the impossible real," said one.
With allies by his side, Reign turned toward the fallen hybrid. Its mechanical core hummed weakly.
He knelt, placing his hand on it. His System hummed.
[Analyzing Genetic-Void Construct…] [Multiversal Genetic Seed Identified | Hidden Identity Layer Unlocked: Phase Born Origin]
Reign's eyes widened. For the first time, the System revealed something about his origins.
He wasn't born of a single world. He was a convergence point—a Phase Born.
Behind him, Kiera whispered, "That... that explains your interference with dimensions. You're not just from Earth. You're from all of them."
Suddenly, the hybrid self-destructed, triggering a portal implosion.
Too late to escape.
The world shattered around them.
[System Alert: Multiversal Pull Engaged | Location: Unknown]
Reign's body flickered, caught in the gravitational pull of collapsing data.
Everything went black.
The Central Nexus, a tower that loomed in the heart of the Genesis Domain, had long stood dormant—its gates sealed by ancient mechanisms that even the wisest sages failed to comprehend. Yet tonight, as the stars aligned in a rare celestial harmony, the first tremors of awakening began to echo through the astral planes.
Ash stepped forward, his real identity concealed beneath the sophisticated disguise of "Orion," his alternate persona. With his smart system, NeuroLink, interfacing with the ancient runes embedded into the Nexus, he deciphered streams of forgotten data only accessible to those marked by the Multiversal Sigil.
A brilliant light poured out as the doors slowly parted, revealing a passage carved from luminous obsidian, its surface etched with hieroglyphs of civilizations lost to time. Ash's MythCore—a refined evolution of gene points—flared inside him, feeding him real-time analysis from NeuroLink.
> Warning: Unknown dimensional rift detected beyond threshold. Probability of hostile awakening: 79.3%.
Ash smirked beneath his hood. "Let it awaken."
Inside, he wasn't alone. The first chamber pulsed with energy. Seated at its center was a relic—the Echo Altar. As he stepped closer, memories not his own began flooding into him. Wars waged across timelines. Beasts of thought. Gods who could fracture reality.
But something else stirred. Behind the altar, a black pool began to ripple.
Out stepped a creature, humanoid yet impossible to define—its form changed every second: fire, crystal, smoke, then skin. It spoke in a voice layered over itself.
"You bear the code of the Ancestrum. Why do you awaken us?"
Ash took a step forward, cloaked in the aura of both confidence and sorrow. "Because it's time this realm remembered who its creator was."
In the real world, the City of Vorthos was under siege by Voidlings—creatures bred in broken universes. The public didn't know it, but this was the doing of the same hidden faction that had banished Ash's father into the Spiral Expanse. And now they were back.
Using a backdoor through NeuroLink, Ash accessed one of the city's high-altitude drones. Through his alternate identity as "Orion," he began a live broadcast—an encrypted signal sent only to the resistance.
> "Prepare the Exodus Drive. Tell Alira to initiate Phase Eclipse. I'll bring the heart of the Nexus."
Back inside the chamber, the Echo Entity raised its hand. "You must pass the Trial of Duality. Success means dominion. Failure means nonexistence."
Ash accepted.
The chamber shattered like glass. Suddenly, he was in a mirrored world—one version of himself standing noble and radiant. The other, cloaked in shadows and rage.
It was a fight of minds. Skills. Memory. Regret.
His shadow self lunged, hurling a shard of guilt. Ash dodged and countered with a burst of MythCore energy laced with time echoes. The fight raged for what felt like days, but Ash emerged victorious—by embracing both sides.
"I am not half a man. I am the sum of pain and love. Of rage and reason."
The Nexus core accepted him. It pulsed once and opened a network of wormholes across multiverses—he had now become the Prime Architect.
But outside, a new threat loomed. A faction named Heliophage, a shadow army led by a being whose mask looked just like Ash's older persona—Doller.
Suspense crackled in the air.
Could this be someone from his past? A brother? A clone?
Back at Vorthos, Alira saw the sign from the drone feed—one
eye flashing silver.
"He's back," she whispered.