The crimson-gold glow of the harmonic chamber slowly dimmed, receding like a dying star into the intricate, geometric etchings of the walls. The light didn't just fade; it seemed to be absorbed back into the smooth, resonant Ashurim alloy, leaving the room in a state of twilight stillness.
Zander sat cross-legged on the floor, the surface beneath him cool and thrumming with a faint, subsonic vibration. He was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving in a rhythm that he consciously worked to slow. Beside him, Aethros lounged, a massive, dark shape against the dim light. The beast's wings were folded tight against his back, and heat radiated from his obsidian scales like a quietly simmering forge, distorting the air around him.
Their recent harmonic-training session had been intense—a grueling marathon of frequency matching and physical exertion that had pushed Zander's tempered body to its absolute limit. Yet, as his heartbeat slowed and the adrenaline faded, Zander felt it.
A gap. A void. A distinct, nagging hollowness in his technique.
It wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't a lack of power. It was a flaw in his foundation.
He looked at his hands, still trembling slightly from the exertion. He was building a skyscraper on shifting sand. The ancient knowledge Arkeon had revealed so far—the basics of the Force Echo, the history of the Ark—had broadened his horizons, certainly. But the true depth of the Ashurim, the terrifying power that had built this place and defied the Drakkoryn, felt locked behind a sealed, heavy door.
Zander could sense it every time Arkeon spoke. There was a hesitation, a microscopic pause in the AI's cadence before answering a question. It wasn't processing lag; it was calculation. It was the silence of a guardian deciding how much truth a child could handle.
He stood, the movement fluid but heavy. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the joints pop, and looked up at the central wall crystal.
"Arkeon," Zander said, his voice quiet but cutting through the chamber's hum. "I want more."
The crystal, the physical anchor for the Ziusudra Protocol, flickered. Its core-light, a deep, intellectual blue, pulsed with faint, rhythmic intelligence.
"Clarify your request, Zander. 'More' is an abstract concept. Do you require increased gravity? Higher thermal density? A recalibration of the atmospheric nutrients?"
Zander took a deep breath of the energized air, tasting the ozone and the ancient power. "No. I don't want more variables. I don't want fragments. I want the source." He stepped closer to the wall. "I want the real teachings. Your martial archives. Your cultivation paths. The techniques that allowed your creators to fight gods. Everything."
Aethros huffed, a sound of sharp approval that expelled a small cloud of steam from his nostrils. His molten eyes glimmered in the dark, fixing on the crystal. Finally, the beast seemed to say. The cub grows teeth.
Arkeon did not answer immediately. The silence stretched, heavy and thick. The blue light in the crystal swirled, reorganizing itself, as if the AI were accessing files that hadn't been touched in millennia.
"You ask," Arkeon finally responded, his tone dropping an octave, becoming heavier, "for the legacy of the Ashurim High Martial Council. This is a lineage older than most of your species' written histories. It is a path of power that is far more dangerous to the unprepared than any beast or blade."
Zander nodded, his gaze unflinching. "I'm prepared."
"No," Arkeon replied instantly. The denial wasn't harsh; it was a statement of mathematical fact. "You are not. Your vessel is tempered, yes. Your will is strong. But you are not prepared for the weight of this history."
The light in the crystal softened slightly. "But... you want to be. That is a different matter entirely. And a promising one."
Aethros chortled, a low, grinding rumble in his throat, his tail flicking against the metal floor. "He's stubborn enough to break a mountain with his head. That is a start."
A soft, rising hum vibrated through the chamber, a sound of immense power building up. Arkeon activated a series of concentric holographic projectors embedded in the floor. They lit up in sequence, expanding like ripples in a pond, weaving light into matter.
Slowly, a figure materialized in the center of the room.
It was an outline at first, then a detailed, three-dimensional specter. It was a humanoid silhouette, massive and imposing, standing nearly three meters tall. It was clad in armor that looked like it was grown from the same black alloy as the Ark, intricate and terrifying, with a helm that completely obscured the face.
"This," Arkeon said, a note of reverence entering his synthesized voice, "was one of my previous wielders. High Councilor Serath-Ka of the Seventh Circle. He held the line at the Siege of the Antediluvian Gate for nine days, alone."
Zander stared up at the hologram. Even as a projection of light, the figure exuded a crushing pressure, a sense of absolute, perfected violence.
"Through him, and others like him," Arkeon continued, "I gathered centuries of combat logs. Biological stress data. Refined cultivation routines that took lifetimes to perfect. Their experiences, their muscle memory, their very understanding of the Force... it all resides within my core."
Zander felt his pulse quicken, a thudding drum against his ribs. This was it. This was the missing piece.
"You have their actual training logs?" he asked, his voice hushed.
"Correct. These are not summaries. They are not text descriptions or video files. They are direct, neural-mapped sequences. Their struggles. Their breakthroughs. Their failures. The exact sensation of their Force flow." The AI paused. "Their lives."
The hologram dissolved into a shower of blue sparks, fading back into the floor.
"But," Arkeon continued, the light in the crystal pulsing a warning red for a fraction of a second before returning to blue, "I cannot grant you access. Not as you are now."
Zander frowned, frustration tightening his jaw. "Why not? I opened the gate. I activated the Ark."
"You authenticated your bloodline," Arkeon corrected. "That grants you entry. It does not grant you mastery. The Ashurim forbade the sharing of the Council Archives with the uninitiated. To access the full martial database, you must be more than a guest. You must become my proper wielder. My recognized master. Only then will the Council Memorial Protocol unlock."
Aethros straightened, his ears perking up. The predator in him recognized the shift in the conversation. "A trial?"
"A Trial of Compatibility," Arkeon confirmed. "A challenge designed by the Council. It tests physical capacity, yes, but also mental clarity, harmonic stability, and emotional fortitude. It tests if your soul can withstand the weight of the dead."
Zander exhaled slowly, the magnitude of the offer settling on him. "So… if I pass it, you become my personal intelligence? Like a bonded system?"
"Yes. I will bind to your harmonic signature permanently. I will cease to be the Ark's custodian and become your custodian. I will grant you the unsealed legacy of the Ashurim."
Zander looked from the fading sparks on the floor to the glowing crystal. He didn't hesitate.
"Then I accept."
Arkeon paused. The blue light swirled, tightening into a focused point.
"There is one prerequisite before the Trial can begin."
The room's temperature dropped slightly, the "nutritious" air growing thinner, colder, as the AI's tone shifted to a serious, almost clinical register.
"I must interface with your personal technology. Specifically, the quantum device on your wrist."
Zander blinked, looking down at his watch—the piece of tech Leo had built for him, his last link to his old life. "My watch? Why?"
"To update my systems to modern standards," Arkeon replied. "My last full firmware update and calibration was… approximately 41,820 years, 4 months, and 12 days ago." A brief, dry pause. "A manual calibration is significantly overdue."
Aethros snorted, a sound like a collapsing steam vent. "No kidding. You're a fossil."
Arkeon ignored the beast. "Your quantum device contains the current epoch's data. It will allow me to gather planetary geography, human biological metrics, modern technology standards, language shifts, and—most importantly—your personal frequency imprint to build the Trial parameters."
Zander clenched his fist, feeling the cool metal of the watch against his skin. It felt small, primitive compared to the titan in the walls.
"Will this hurt?"
"No. But it will require a total system resource allocation. It will temporarily shut me down as my consciousness transfers, compresses, and reboots within your system's architecture. You will experience several minutes of absolute silence. The Ark will go dark."
Zander stepped forward, holding out his arm. The gesture was one of absolute trust.
"Do it."
Aethros watched closely, his body tense, protective but trusting of Zander's judgment.
Arkeon extended a filament of pale-blue light from the wall crystal. It wasn't a laser; it was a solid stream of hard-light data. It reached toward Zander's wrist like a spectral thread, weaving through the air. The moment it touched the face of the quantum watch, Zander felt a gentle vibration—not heat, but a soft, harmonic pulse that seemed to echo inside the marrow of his bones.
The watch screen flickered wildly, scrolling through code faster than the human eye could follow.
"Connection established," Arkeon said, his voice beginning to distort, layering over itself. "Synchronization beginning. Translating Ashurim Syntax to Binary... Compressing Petabytes... Preparing to enter the deep update layer…"
The chamber lights dimmed further, the ambient hum of the Ark dropping in pitch.
Zander inhaled sharply as the thread of light fully sank into the quantum watch. For a moment, he felt something vast—a consciousness stretching far beyond human experience, a mind that had watched glaciers carve the earth—brushing the edge of his own awareness. It was cold, ancient, and incredibly heavy.
Then, it faded into silence.
Arkeon spoke one last time, his voice a whisper from the watch itself, barely audible:
"Zander… your path forward will not resemble anything you have known. When I awaken, you will understand the truth of the Ashurim. And you will understand the true nature of the world you now walk upon."
His voice faded into static. The blue light in the crystal died. The wall panels went dark. The hum of the "nutritious" air filtration ceased, leaving the room dead silent and rapidly cooling.
Zander stood in the sudden, oppressive dark, the only light coming from the faint, rebooting glow of his watch face. He felt alone in a way he hadn't since the volcano.
Aethros padded over, his claws clicking softly on the metal. He lowered his massive, horned head until it was level with Zander's chest, his breathing a warm reassurance in the cold.
"You ready for this, little one?" he asked, his voice rumbling like distant thunder in the quiet hall.
Zander placed a hand on his companion's horned brow, feeling the solid, living reality of the beast. He looked down at the watch, where a progress bar was slowly, agonizingly beginning to fill.
"I am."
Somewhere deep in the walls, ancient systems shifted and locked into place. The past was merging with the present.
The Trial awaited.