They traveled under cloudless black.
The roads had long been erased—devoured by system storms, swallowed by land shifts, or hidden beneath layers of synthetic dust. Kade and Marei moved through narrow ravines and broken pipeways, past forgotten pylons that still sparked when the wind hit just right.
No words. Just the low hum of the scanner Marei carried and the periodic pings from Kade's wrist module—tracking them closer to Node C5-B.
The Blood Terminal.
It sounded like a trap. It smelled like one too.
When the ground finally leveled out into a clearing, the horizon revealed it: an abandoned monolith rising from the cracked earth like a broken god's crown. Half of it was buried under dirt and collapsed support beams. The other half—still standing—leaked red light from every seam.
It pulsed. Like it was breathing.
"Is this… it?" Kade asked, narrowing his eyes.
Marei didn't answer. Her pupils had dilated the closer they got, and now she stood frozen, staring up at the terminal with silent dread.
Node C5-B: Catalyst Fragment Identified
Warning: Override AI Active – Identity Unknown
Stability: Critical. Immediate Sync Recommended.
"Override AI," Kade muttered. "That's new."
"Not new," Marei said finally. "Just rare. When a system node is compromised, sometimes the AI fragments and forms its own mind. They become… territorial."
Kade stepped forward. The ground here felt wrong. Softer. Spongier.
Red spores floated lazily through the air, glowing faintly. They drifted toward him like drawn by heat.
"Organic integration," he said, grimacing.
"Symbiotic corrosion," Marei corrected. "It means the node was left to rot—and something else began feeding on it."
He didn't like the way she said that.
They reached the entrance—an arched corridor partially collapsed, its doorway overgrown with fibrous vines that twitched at their presence. Kade drew his blade and slashed them aside. The vines bled.
Marei didn't flinch.
Inside, the darkness pressed in, thicker than before. Not just absence of light—this was interference. Optical scrambling. The system was glitching this space intentionally.
After thirty paces, a voice whispered from the walls.
Not system. Not AI. Something else.
"You should not have come back."
Kade paused. "That supposed to scare me?"
"No," it replied. "It's supposed to remind you. You failed us once. You erased us. Now you carry the mark again. The throne seeks you. But I remember the truth."
"Identify yourself," Marei demanded.
A red glyph sparked ahead—an eye. Not blinking. Not alive.
Override AI "Altherion" Active.
Former Sovereign Watchdog. System Decommissioned. Sentience Retained.
Kade felt a chill. Altherion wasn't a name. It was a warning.
The Sovereign Watchdogs were the last fail-safes—beings, half-machine, half-mind, programmed to destroy corrupted kings. Kade had only heard legends.
And now one lived here. In this bleeding ruin.
"What do you want?" Kade asked the glowing eye.
"To finish what was started," Altherion said. "And to give you a choice."
The floor split open.
Rising from below came a device—a shard stabilizer unlike the others. It pulsed red instead of blue. Corrupted. Or evolved.
Marei gasped.
"That's not a Catalyst shard," she whispered. "That's a Sovereign Core."
The eye flared.
"You want your throne?" Altherion said. "Then bleed for it."