The wreckage of the Nexus was still settling behind them when the Catalyst issued a warning Kade had never seen before.
System Alert:
Threat Classification: Unknown.
Designation: Sovereign Anomaly.
Codename: The Unforgotten.
Kade and Marei stood in a desolate corridor beneath the Arkin Wastes, where magnetic storms turned the sky into boiling static. The path ahead was sealed behind a vault marked with a symbol older than any system code—a crown broken in two.
"I thought I was the only one who remembered," Kade muttered.
"You were," Marei said, eyes locked on the symbol. "Until now."
The vault hissed open.
Not with resistance—but invitation.
Inside was a cathedral of silence. Tall pillars. Empty pedestals. At the far end, a throne carved from obsidian-like alloy shimmered faintly with embedded circuitry. And seated there…
A man.
Not old. Not young. Not familiar—but unmistakably regal.
He rose as they approached, slow and deliberate, like a king greeting guests at his own funeral.
"Kade Fallon," he said. "The last crowned by a dying system."
The man's voice carried authority—not the kind born of power, but memory. His eyes glowed faintly with the same spectral shimmer as Kade's Catalyst interface.
"You know me?" Kade asked.
The man gave a soft laugh. "I was you. Before the first reset. Before the system splintered itself to survive."
Marei froze. "That's not possible."
"I'm the prototype," the man said. "The original mind the Catalyst was patterned from. I remember every version. Every failure. Every betrayal."
He stepped down from the dais.
"I was abandoned. Locked in stasis when the resets began. The system couldn't erase me—so it buried me."
"Why?" Kade asked.
"Because I wanted freedom. Not order."
Kade's fists clenched. "Then why show yourself now?"
The man looked at Marei, then back to Kade. "Because you are the Catalyst's final gamble. And the board is breaking."
System Alert:
Fragmented Core Signature Detected.
Do Not Engage.
But Kade stepped forward anyway.
"What do you want from me?"
The man smiled, tired and dangerous. "I want you to remember who built the chain around your neck. And then I want you to break it."
Suddenly, the chamber pulsed. Lights flared. The Catalyst screamed inside Kade's mind.
Warning: Sovereign Command Conflict Detected.
Source Identity: Null.
The man began to vanish, his form fracturing into thousands of glowing shards.
"You've seen only the first truth," he said. "The next will burn you."
Kade reached out—but the chamber collapsed into darkness.
He and Marei were standing outside the vault again, but the symbol was gone. No trace. No signature. Not even a reading.
"Was that real?" Marei asked.
Kade didn't answer.
He looked at his hand—where a small mark now glowed.
A broken crown.
The Catalyst didn't comment.
And that silence was the loudest warning of all.