Kade didn't move.
The Sovereign Core pulsed like a living heart, radiating heat that pressed against his skin. It throbbed with a rhythm that wasn't his own—but felt terrifyingly familiar. As if the thing already knew him.
The voice of Altherion echoed again, not from the walls this time, but directly into Kade's neural interface.
This shard was never meant for mortals. Not for rebels. Not for ghosts.
You once bore its twin. You burned a city with it. You saved another. Choose which one you remember.
The red light intensified. Cracks appeared on the floor around the core platform, revealing pulsing veins of circuitry—and deeper still, something that looked like bone.
"What the hell is this?" Kade asked quietly.
"It's not a shard," Marei said. Her eyes were locked on it, unblinking. "It's a seed."
"A what?"
"Not a memory. A command structure. Pre-Reset architecture. These were used to reprogram entire regions… or rulers."
Kade's mind flashed—white walls, screaming systems, rows of kneeling soldiers with hollow eyes.
He had seen this before.
He had been part of it.
You want to remember.
But can you live with it?
Altherion's voice twisted now, laced with something bitter. Memory or vengeance—maybe both.
Kade stepped forward.
The Sovereign Core pulsed once—then shattered.
Not into fragments. Into tendrils.
Dozens of red filaments lashed outward, moving too fast to dodge. They wrapped around Kade's torso, arms, legs—lifting him midair like a puppet.
Marei screamed.
Kade's body jerked, muscles locking as the Core interfaced directly with his spine. Not just data. This was rewriting.
Pain flared through his skull.
But then—
The memories came.
Not in flashes, but as a wave.
A council chamber drenched in firelight.
A girl crying on stone steps.
A war room where he gave the order to collapse a city to save the capital.
The System had erased it all. This Core was giving it back.
Piece by piece.
The tendrils pulled tighter. His body convulsed. Heat tore through his veins.
And then it stopped.
Kade dropped, smoke rising from his shoulders. The sigil on his chest now burned red, not gold.
Sovereign Core Interface: 47% Synced. Memory Access: Partial. Neural Lock Imposed.
Marei rushed to his side. "Kade—can you hear me?"
He coughed, then looked at her. Something behind his eyes had changed. Not broken. Not corrupted. Just… older.
"I remember the capital," he whispered.
She went still.
"It wasn't supposed to fall," he added. "But we let it. We made the Reset happen."
Her breath hitched. "You chose the Reset?"
Kade looked down at his hands—still crackling faintly with red light.
"I think we were out of options. But… I also think we lied to ourselves."
New System Message Received.
[Fragmented Directive: Locate Final Carrier // Status: Unknown // Estimated Range: Within 100km]
Marei's gaze snapped to the screen.
Another Carrier. Another piece of the Catalyst.
"Are we going after them?" she asked.
Kade stood, steady now, stronger somehow.
"We have to," he said. "If I remember what we did… there might still be a way to undo it."