The cold of the Cryo Vault had finally lifted.
Kael and Lyra emerged into the daylight, the shard secured in a reinforced container slung across Kael's back. Snow still clung to their boots, but the horizon was clear—vast plains stretched ahead, kissed by morning light.
"Three shards down," Kael said, squinting toward the sun.
"Only one remains before the Rift Compass is complete."
Lyra glanced sideways.
"But something's changed, hasn't it? Since the Vault."
Kael nodded.
"That Guardian... it knew me. It didn't feel like a test. It felt like a message."
Before Lyra could respond, a pulse of dark energy shimmered in the distance—momentary, faint, but unmistakable. Kael stopped.
"Someone was watching."
Far beyond, in a ruined tower cloaked by enchantments, a hooded figure stood before a mirror-like pool of water, the image of Kael and Lyra walking across the tundra rippling gently.
He touched the water with a gloved finger.
"He carries her flame. Still foolishly noble," the figure muttered.
"But more dangerous now. He's remembering."
Another voice answered from the darkness, chilling and soft.
"Then the chains must be tightened. If he recalls everything... the gate will open before we're ready."
"It matters not. The goddess thinks she's clever," the man sneered.
"But he is ours as much as he is hers."
---
Back at camp, Kael scribbled calculations into his notebook, the pages filled with runes, schematics, and fragments of memories from his past life. Beside him, the three shards glowed faintly—each one encoded with a set of dimensional coordinates.
"When all four align," he murmured, "a rift opens. A stable portal. I'll return home…"
Lyra approached quietly with two cups of hot broth.
"Thinking about her?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"Every moment."
She sat beside him, quiet for a time, then said softly:
"When you see her again… will you still fight for this world, too?"
Kael looked at her. The firelight danced in her eyes.
"I will. Because you helped me build a reason to."
Suddenly, a high-pitched whistle rang through the air—one of their perimeter alarms.
Kael was on his feet in seconds.
"We're not alone."
He grabbed the shard case, and Lyra drew her twin daggers. From the shadows of the trees, several figures emerged—cloaked, masked, and armed.
Kael's mind raced.
"No... these aren't dungeon scavengers."
One of the cloaked figures stepped forward and pulled down his mask—revealing a scar across his lips and a strange metal device embedded in his temple.
"Kael Arven," he said coldly, "you weren't supposed to survive the Vault."
Kael's heart dropped.
These weren't strangers.
They were agents of the organization from his original world.
And somehow… they'd crossed into this one.
The silence after the scarred man's words was like a blade drawn but not yet swung.
Kael's breath caught.
Agents. Here. In this world.
That wasn't just a breach of magical boundaries — it meant the organization had found a way to follow him across realms.
Lyra stepped in front of him, her daggers gleaming.
"Who are they?" she whispered, eyes locked on the intruders.
Kael's voice was low, urgent.
"They're from my original world. The ones who… killed me."
The lead agent smirked.
"You always were the dangerous one, Kael. We offered you a place at the top. But you chose sentiment. Weakness."
Kael's fists clenched.
"I chose humanity."
The agent stepped forward.
"And now, in defiance of death itself, you're building another gate? That's a threat we can't ignore. Hand over the shards."
Lyra's voice was cold.
"You'll have to pry them from our corpses."
A flick of the agent's wrist — and the others surged forward.
Kael shoved the shard case into his satchel and activated a hidden switch on his wristband.
With a pulse, a burst of light flared around him and Lyra—his Flashguard, a barrier he'd invented in his past life, now modified for magic-rich environments.
Blades struck the shield and bounced off, but it wouldn't hold long.
Kael's mind calculated everything in real-time: distance to tree line, attack intervals, energy flux of the Flashguard's battery, Lyra's angle of counterattack.
"On my mark—left flank, now!"
Lyra flipped sideways, her daggers slicing one agent's thigh. Kael ducked a strike and unleashed a shock orb — his fusion of basic elemental mana and scientific capacitors. It exploded with a sonic blast, disorienting the attackers.
"Lyra! Fall back to the ridge!"
They sprinted through the trees. Arrows flew. One grazed Kael's shoulder — pain flared, but he kept running.
At the ridge, they dove behind cover. Kael tapped into his satchel and pulled out a detonator.
"We're outnumbered. But not outwitted."
He pressed it.
Boom. A chain of silent charges he'd embedded earlier—just in case—triggered behind them, collapsing trees and cloaking the ridge in smoke.
They didn't stop running until the forest thinned and the stars stretched overhead. Breathless. Bruised. But alive.
---
Later that night, Kael sat by the fire, shoulder bandaged, staring into the flames.
"They weren't supposed to be able to follow me here. This world was supposed to be safe."
Lyra looked at him, serious.
"You're not just running from your past anymore, Kael. It's chasing you."
He nodded grimly.
"Then it's time I stopped running. And started preparing for war."
He held up the shard, watching it pulse faintly.
"Because if they're here… they'll do anything to stop me from saving her. And I will do anything to make sure they fail."
The campfire flickered low, casting soft golden shadows on Kael's face as he adjusted the runic circuit in his gauntlet. Each motion was precise, his fingers guided not by trial—but by memory.
Beside him, Lyra sat silently, her cloak pulled tight. The tension in the air was heavy. The ambush had shaken them both—not just physically, but emotionally. Kael had died once. Yet his enemies had followed him into another world.
"This isn't just about me anymore," he finally said, voice barely above a whisper.
Lyra looked at him.
"You mean... her?"
He nodded.
"Her. And now… you. This world. Everything."
He paused, then slowly pulled a metal disk from his satchel. It was battered, its edges chipped, but its surface glowed faintly—etched with names, both real and coded.
"This was a memory shard," he explained. "One I created just before… I died. I encoded the blueprints for the Rift Compass in it, thinking it might outlive me."
Lyra leaned closer.
"And it did."
"Yeah. But there's more," Kael whispered. "There's a voice inside it. A message I left for myself."
He tapped a small switch.
The disk pulsed… and a faint hologram of Kael's former self shimmered above it—tired, bloodstained, but determined.
"If you're hearing this," the projection began, "you made it to the other side. You reincarnated. That means Project Osiris worked, at least partially. Good. That also means they failed to break you. But if they followed you… then time is running out."
Kael's breath caught in his throat.
The projection continued:
"The final shard isn't just a key to the portal. It holds the blueprint for the worldgate device itself. Without it, you can't return… and she can't be saved. But that shard... is in the Labyrinth of Vale."
"Be warned. The labyrinth shifts. It's alive. It remembers. Only one with genius and resolve will reach the core."
The projection flickered.
"One last thing… trust Lyra."
Kael's eyes widened.
The image vanished.
He looked at her. She stared back, equally stunned.
"Wait," Lyra whispered, "what did he mean… trust me?"
Kael's expression grew unreadable.
"He knew you'd be here. He predicted it."
"But how—"
Kael interrupted softly.
"Because the me who recorded that… knew I'd need someone who would see the world not as it is, but as it could be. He didn't choose a weapon. He chose you."
A silence passed between them—thick with meaning, a bond deepening in the firelight.
Suddenly, Kael stood and picked up his cloak.
"We leave at dawn."
Lyra followed suit.
"To the Labyrinth?"
He nodded, eyes filled with a fierce resolve.
"To find the final shard. And to finish what I started—across two lifetimes."
Dawn bled across the sky like watercolor on parchment. Kael stood at the edge of a narrow trail winding into the ancient forest known as the Whispering Vale—the only known path to the Labyrinth of Vale.
The trees were tall and twisted, their branches tangled like fingers reaching to hide secrets from the sky. A chill wind passed through them, carrying strange whispers in a tongue neither of them understood.
"This place feels alive," Lyra said, hand on her blade.
Kael adjusted the strap of his satchel.
"Because it is. The Labyrinth isn't just a structure… it's a being. Some scholars theorized it was once a sentient dimension, sealed into physical form."
"Wonderful," Lyra muttered. "So we're walking into the belly of a thinking maze."
"Not just thinking," Kael added grimly. "Judging."
They stepped into the trees.
As they walked deeper, time seemed to bend. The air grew thick, and the path behind them vanished like smoke. Strange symbols began to appear on the bark of trees—shifting runes that pulsed softly as Kael approached them.
He reached out.
"These are trial markers. Memory-based illusions. The labyrinth tests your identity, not just your strength."
The forest opened into a clearing, where the ground was cracked and covered in ancient stone tiles. At the center stood a twisted black gate—arched like bone, inscribed with glowing red glyphs.
It pulsed once, then split open with a groan.
They stepped inside.
---
The inside of the Labyrinth was nothing like the forest. The walls were obsidian glass, reflecting not their bodies—but their fears. Lyra flinched as her reflection twisted, turning into a shadowed version of herself, eyes burning with regret.
"It's trying to shake us," she whispered.
Kael nodded but didn't respond. His own reflection showed something worse—himself, lying lifeless in the arms of the woman he loved, her screams echoing as blood soaked the floor.
He clenched his fists.
"You'll never show me anything worse than what I've already lost."
The walls pulsed. The maze shifted.
Suddenly, the ground gave way beneath them.
---
They landed hard in a chamber with floating stone platforms, suspended over a bottomless void. Runes rotated slowly in the air, each emitting a low hum. At the far end of the chamber, a crystal pedestal held a glowing map fragment.
"That's it," Kael said, pointing. "Part of the shard locator. We need it to reach the core."
But before they could move, the runes ignited.
A voice echoed from above—cold, ancient, and mechanical.
"To proceed… surrender what you fear most."
A shimmer appeared in the void, forming a phantom figure—her.
Kael froze. It was her smile. Her eyes. The woman he had died for.
She stepped forward, but her form flickered, revealing blood, wounds, then fading back into beauty.
"Is this… her?" Lyra whispered.
Kael's knees buckled slightly.
"She's not real. This isn't her. It's a test."
But the illusion knelt before him.
"Kael… why did you leave me?" it whispered.
His heart screamed. His mind fought back.
"Because I had to return stronger."
He stepped past the illusion. It didn't stop him.
He reached the pedestal and grabbed the map fragment. It burned in his hand, but the pain steadied him—real and grounding.
The room dissolved into light.
---
Outside the Labyrinth, the gate reappeared behind them as they stumbled into the open. Kael fell to one knee, clutching the map.
"We have the coordinates. The final shard is in the crater of Zheron's Fall."
Lyra helped him up.
"And the map?" she asked.
Kael held it high. A glowing constellation of symbols and routes hovered above it.
"We're close."
Then, from behind the trees, a soft mechanical hum echoed. Kael spun, eyes wide.
A figure stepped out—wearing black armor, half-human, half-machine. Its eyes glowed red, scanning him instantly.
"Target confirmed: Kael Arven."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"They've sent a Reclaimer."