The ruins emerged from the earth like a buried thought remembered too late.
They weren't ancient in the traditional sense. There were no broken columns or crumbling walls. Instead, what rose from the southern edge of the Rift was clean geometry—stone shapes smoothed by time and touched by something non-human. The ground here was flat but unnatural, covered in pale dust that didn't shift underfoot. The air was dry. Dead.
But beneath the silence, something lived. The Failsafe Core.
Reven felt it before he saw it. The moment they crossed the final ridge, the Flamecore in his pack began to tremble. Not violently—just enough to remind him it was listening.
Kaela noticed. "It's reacting."
"It's afraid," Kaelex said.
Lirien dropped from a high perch overhead, landing beside them with a low thud. "There's movement at the centre. No patrols. No guards. Just… pressure."
"Like the Spire?" Kaela asked.
"No," Lirien said. "Worse."
The centre of the ruins was a basin—wide, shallow, and seamless. At its core, half-buried in the floor, was the failsafe. A monolithic structure, cylindrical and inverted, like an engine that had swallowed itself. Around its edges, crystal pylons jutted out of the earth, pulsing with faint, arrhythmic light.
Reven approached slowly. He didn't speak. Neither did the others.
It was Kaela who broke the silence.
"This doesn't look like it was meant to be found."
Kaelex stepped forward. "It wasn't. The Failsafe Core was buried after the First Spire went dark. It was never built to activate. It was built to erase."
Lirien's eyes narrowed. "Erase what?"
"Everything," Kaelex said. "If the Flameborn corrupted, if the system lost its integrity—this was the kill switch."
Reven reached the edge of the basin. "Then why is it waking now?"
Kaelex didn't answer, because the answer was already forming around them.
The pylons flashed. The dust lifted and then the voice came.
"Cycle failure detected."
Reven froze.
"Authentication required. Identified: Reven. Unauthorized access. Legacy code anomaly present."
Kaela's blade was in her hand now. "That didn't sound welcoming."
Lirien moved to higher ground. "This isn't a test. This is judgment."
Reven stepped closer to the core. "I didn't ask to carry this."
The voice replied.
"You were not chosen. You were spared."
The ground shook.
A ring of light surged outward from the failsafe, forcing them back several steps. The air hissed as atmosphere collapsed inward, sucked toward the core's growing field.
Kaelex raised her hand. "It's rejecting you."
"I know," Reven said, his voice low. "But I didn't come to be accepted."
He reached into his cloak and withdrew the Flamecore.
It pulsed against his skin, resisting—not from fear, but uncertainty. As if even the fire wasn't sure it belonged here.
Reven stepped into the basin.
Kaela shouted after him. "Reven—"
He kept walking. The ground was too quiet. The light too bright. But he didn't stop. Because the failsafe wasn't just a weapon. It was a mirror and Reven had to see what it reflected.
He stopped three meters from the core.
"I'm not a glitch," he said. "I'm not a virus in your code. I'm the truth that got left behind."
The failsafe pulsed again.
"Legacy accepted. But memory remains unstable."
And then the light collapsed inward.
A singular beam struck Reven in the chest, not burning—but scanning. He dropped to his knees as visions surged into his skull. Not memories. Data. The system's blueprint. Its last intentions. Its abandoned truths.
At the centre of it all, a name. Project Hollowlight.
A file, Locked. Buried beneath every level of security the system had.
Reven's vision dimmed. The core began to hum louder. The pylons shifted position. The failsafe was changing—not erasing, not attacking, but rewriting itself.
Adapting.
Reven gasped as the Flamecore in his hand blazed brighter than it ever had. The failsafe's energy met it, pushed against it—and didn't win.
The two forces locked and then merged. The light broke, everything fell still.
He came to lying in Kaela's arms, his breathing sharp, his pulse like thunder in his ears.
"You idiot," she said. "You absolute idiot."
He blinked. "Still here?"
"Barely."
Lirien appeared at his side, her eyes wide with awe. "The core didn't reject you."
"No," Reven said. "It rewrote itself around me."
Kaelex stood nearby, her face pale.
"You shouldn't have been able to do that."
Reven sat up, wiping blood from his mouth. "Guess I'm not what the system expected."
Kaela helped him stand.
"Project Hollowlight," he said. "What is it?"
Kaelex looked away.
"Something even the Flameborn weren't supposed to know."
Reven's jaw tightened. "Well, now I do."
He looked toward the horizon. For the first time in days, the sky above was clear.