The hum of ancient machinery echoed like a dying heartbeat through the labyrinthine corridors of Lock-Seven. Stone walls lined with flickering glyphs seemed to breathe, as if the entire underground system were alive and watching. Ren stood still at the threshold of the chamber, eyes locked on Sentinel-V—no longer just a machine, but a fragmented consciousness bound to the legacy of a forgotten age.
"You are not authorized to override Protocol Echo," the Sentinel warned, voice clipped and calm. Its body—a fusion of smooth obsidian and rusted titanium—towered over him, eyes pulsing a slow blue.
Ren's voice trembled with certainty. "That protocol no longer applies. Project Echoborn died with the war. I'm not here to revive it. I'm here to end it."
A silence stretched between them, long and heavy, before Sentinel-V stepped aside. "Then enter. But understand this: what you awaken may never sleep again."
Ren stepped forward into the chamber beyond. The air shifted—colder, thinner. A monolith rose from the ground, covered in runes that pulsed with a rhythm Ren felt in his spine. A single word hovered above it in pale white flame:
"REMEMBER."
The second his hand touched the monolith, pain lanced through his skull. The world peeled back.
---
He was no longer in Lock-Seven.
He was floating.
Suspended in a river of memories, tethered to thousands of voices, thousands of lives. He saw children playing in a world of spires and stars, scientists wielding spells that bent time, cities filled with glass towers that touched the clouds.
And then he saw it—the Fall.
The Skyblight. The Sundering. The great rift between magic and machine.
He felt the explosion that tore apart the first Vault. Felt the decision—his decision—to fuse memory and power into a single fail-safe. The Soulburn Protocol.
It was me, he realized, not in this body... but I created the lock.
---
Ren collapsed back into his body, gasping.
Sentinel-V stood over him. "You were the last Custodian. Your echo chose reincarnation over annihilation. The others chose oblivion."
Ren clutched his head. "I didn't ask to be reborn."
"No. But you were necessary."
From the wall, the monolith dissolved into mist, revealing a staircase descending even further into darkness. Cold wind blew from below, laced with whispers.
Ren stared down. "What's beneath that?"
"The origin of corruption," Sentinel-V replied. "And the first subject of the Soulburn Protocol."
---
Hours later, Ren and Valka sat beside a flickering lantern, deep in the makeshift rest chamber.
"You good?" she asked.
"No," Ren said honestly. "But I'm starting to understand why I came back."
Valka leaned back. "You saw something, didn't you? The look in your eyes... like something inside you woke up."
He nodded. "We didn't just inherit this world. We built it. Broke it. And now we're supposed to fix it."
"Then we better start fixing fast. You've seen what's happening above. The Breaks are getting worse."
Ren's gaze turned toward the sealed door. Something pulsed beneath it, a rhythmic heartbeat echoing his own.
"Tomorrow," he said. "We descend."
---
Far above them, in the skies near the Obsidian Verge, a figure clad in fractured armor stood at the edge of a floating ruin. Ash blew across their cape.
They watched the storm roll in, their voice barely a whisper over the wind.
"The Custodian stirs. The Verge remembers."
Behind them, a second figure—half-masked, eyes glowing red—stepped out from shadow.
"Shall we greet him, Prophet?"
The Prophet smiled. "Not yet. Let the truth break him first. Then we offer the lie."
---
Down below, Ren dreamed.
He stood at the center of a storm of glass and flame. In the distance, a colossal figure emerged—wrapped in chains of light, eyes burning with eternity.
The flame god, Naelir, whispered in his mind.
"We are far from done, bearer of my soul. The verge between death and memory is thin—and you are the blade that must cut it."
Ren did not wake with fear.
He woke with purpose.