The throne dissolved into nothingness.
Kade dropped to one knee, panting hard as the simulated battlefield collapsed around him, pixel by pixel. His hands trembled. Not from pain—though that had been real enough—but from the weight of memory dragging itself out of hiding.
Fragments still echoed in his skull.
A castle crumbling beneath firelight.
A woman's voice crying his name.
And something worse—him, standing before the Reset trigger, saying nothing as it consumed the world.
Sovereign Trial Complete. Tier 1 Access Granted.
The message shimmered, then vanished.
Kade barely had time to catch his breath before the glass platform beneath him splintered. He fell.
Not through space, but through data—flashes of code, screaming nodes, bright neural lines that looked like spiderwebs stitched across stars.
And then—impact.
His boots slammed against steel.
The world came back slowly. This time he wasn't alone.
Marei sat on the floor of the reawakened lab, staring into a pulsing shard suspended in the center of a cradle.
"Kade," she said softly. Her voice had changed—lower, more distant. "The system just synced you. You survived it."
"Define survived," he muttered, pulling himself upright.
"You triggered Tier One," she said, not looking at him. "That means you've been marked by the Sovereign Line. You're officially back in the system."
Kade's eyes narrowed. "What does that actually mean?"
Marei turned now. Her irises flickered with static.
"You're no longer a ghost. You're a variable again. A threat. The system will start testing you more aggressively now. More… publicly."
"Publicly?"
She nodded toward a console lighting up behind her. Kade approached it warily.
Across the interface danced video feeds—real ones. Distant cities, ruined highways, system-controlled outposts. Every feed had something in common:
A symbol.
His symbol.
Spray-painted. Etched in ruins. Worn on the backs of rogue units and data cults.
"You've been gone long enough for your myth to turn into rebellion," Marei said. "But now the system knows you're awake—and so will they."
Kade leaned forward, watching one of the videos closely. A masked figure raised a banner with the Sovereign sigil on it. Around them, people cheered in silence. No sound. But the gesture was unmistakable.
Hope.
"They think you're alive," Marei continued. "And now… you are. What happens next depends on how you use that."
"I didn't ask for this."
"No one did. But you triggered Tier One. The Catalyst accepts your lineage. That means more shards will begin activating—others will be drawn to you. Allies… and enemies."
Kade looked down at his hands.
For the first time since waking after the reset, they didn't feel like they belonged to a stranger.
Then the system's voice returned. This time, colder. More clinical.
Priority Shard Sequence Unlocked: Node C5-B — "The Blood Terminal"
Distance: 237 km
Warning: High instability. Local override AI detected. Corruption status: 92%
Kade blinked. "Blood Terminal?"
Marei's jaw tightened. "That's one of the black zones. Forbidden during the previous reset cycle. We didn't even know it survived."
"System wants me to go there?"
"It's not a request."
A low vibration rolled through the floor.
Kade didn't wait to hear more.
He grabbed his gear, sheathed the shard stabilizer at his back, and looked to Marei.
"You coming?"
Her smile was sad. "Always."