* This Chapter is going to be long, as we will be seeing a battle, Nyra's growth, along with her sisters. I need your support, people rate the book and chapters, this will boost my confidence and let me write further *
Morning crept into the forest like a whisper- Almost hesitant, muted, like it didn't want to wake up something. The air was cool and damp after last night's drizzle. Not a single birdcall, not even the rustle of leaves, only silence.
Nyra's ear twitched. She woke up inside her tent, her eyes adjusting to the soft glow spilling in. Something was off. No scent of cooking fires. No shouting instructors. Not even Mira's Signature morning "Boulder smash" routine.
She sat up carefully, not wanting to wake her sisters. But Kaeli was already half dressed, sitting cross-legged. "You feel it too?" Nyra questioned, and Kaeli just nodded in silence. Mira woke up, stretching her limbs like a lazy feline goddess," Nyaa!, Why is it so... dead out there?"
"That's the thing," Kaeli said, "It's too quiet."
Nyra pulled back the flap of their tent. The world outside looked… strange. Light filtered through the treetops, but not the usual golden sunbeams. The sky was a soft saffron hue, bleeding into violet, and overhead, two moons had begun to overlap.
A rare celestial omen. One their mother, Selya, used to speak of in hushed tones.
"…the Echoing Eclipse," Kaeli whispered, her voice almost reverent.
Mira squinted upward. "Fancy sky. Weird vibe. I don't like it."
A distant horn blew once, low and mournful. A call to gather.
Within minutes, trainees were lining up, rubbing sleep from their eyes. The usual chaos was gone. No playful shoving, no complaints about morning drills. Everyone was too focused on the air, heavy with something unsaid.
Elder Yaro was missing.
In his place, Veska stood tall, arms folded, face like stone. No smirk. No teasing. Just a cold purpose.
She waited until the last row formed before speaking. Her voice was clear but grim. "An ancient Obelisk has surfaced near the training perimeter. The forest itself pulled away from it last night — it rose from the earth like it remembered where it belonged."
Mira leaned in to Nyra and whispered, "That sounds metal as hell."
"Shhh," Kaeli hissed.
Veska's gaze swept the group, finally landing on Nyra for a split second — and it stayed there for a while.
"It's called the Chrono Obelisk," Veska continued. "Records say it hasn't been seen in a thousand years. Its emergence is... not random. And the Essentia around it is unstable."
She paused. "Until further notice, all standard training is suspended. You'll be split into teams to investigate its effects under strict supervision. No exceptions."
A low murmur passed through the crowd like a ripple of nerves and excitement.
Selune stepped forward, eyes gleaming like a cat sensing mischief. "Group Alpha, with me. Group Beta—Veska."
Nyra felt her name rising in her throat before it was even spoken.
Veska nodded. "Nyra, Kaeli, Mira — you're with me."
And just like that, the sisters were swept into a current far bigger than morning drills or forest pranks.
Whatever had awakened in the forest wasn't just ancient, it had awakened with a purpose, waiting for something, More like someone.
The group investigated the area where the obelisk was seen. Nyra felt an eerie chill as she remembered it from the vision she had seen earlier when she had touched that tree. She looked at her sisters and then at Veska, nodding, confirming their suspicions. "Are you sure this is the one you saw in your vision?" Veska asked, eyeing Nyra. " Yes, a 100 per cent, this is the one, it even has a crack and those old runes," Nyra spoke nervously.
"I will report this to the chief, and the elder, you guys did a good job. Now go take some rest." Vesko said before sprinting out of the forest.
As the camp quietened and the forest tried to return to normal, the strange weight in the air lingered, like the world itself was holding a breath it couldn't quite exhale.
Nyra lay in her cot, Mira snoring softly on her left, Kaeli curled like a cat on her right, her silver hair glinting in the moonlight. The tent was still. Peaceful, even.
But her mind was anything but that.
She blinked once and found herself somewhere else entirely.
A hallway. Dimly lit. The buzz of fluorescent lights above, the hum of servers beneath her feet. She knew this place. Cold steel and synthetic fibres. Polished white floors and interface panels glowing faint blue.
The lab.
Her old lab.
Nyra — no — Eira stood in front of a curved desk, hands moving without thought, typing strings of code into a transparent display that wrapped around her like a visor. Her fingers moved fast, fluid, practised. This was home. This was before.
KAIROS hovered beside her — not as a voice, but as a silhouette of light and circuitry, a halo of shifting data streams forming a vague humanoid shape.
She could feel everything: the whirr of cooling vents, the gentle static in the air, the surge of creation as code built something alive.
Her lips moved. She couldn't hear them. Her eyes — her human eyes — scanned lines of complex sequences. Not magic. Not runes. Code. Legacy code. The kind only she and KAIROS had ever fully understood.
But then—A glitch.A flicker.
The hallway warped. The lab twisted like water spinning down a drain.
Suddenly, the Obelisk rose before her — enormous, ancient, half-buried in earth and memory. Its runes weren't foreign anymore. She could read them.
System.log/Memory_Leak_DetectedProtocol_Architect: RESUME_PENDINGUser: [REDACTED]
Then came the laughter.
A child's laugh — high-pitched, echoing in the silence, bouncing off the broken fragments of the dream.
She turned.
A child stood in the distance, eyes glowing like twin suns, and a silhouette behind them — tall, thin, watching.
Watching her.
The world was torn apart.
She gasped awake — lungs full, heart pounding. The forest was still outside. The camp hadn't moved. Mira was still snoring.
But something was… different.
Her wrist burned faintly.
"KAIROS?" she whispered.
"I'm here."
His voice echoed not from the world around her, but from deep within — the neural chamber of her soul, flickering to life.
"What the hell was that?"
"A memory. Or a warning. Maybe both."
Nyra stared at her trembling hands. "That wasn't just a dream."
"No. And the Obelisk… it recognised you. It knew who you were."
Nyra's breath caught.
"Why?"
A pause. Then:
"Because this place isn't random, Nyra."
A beat.
"It was built — in part — for someone like you."
She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the stillness.
"And the glyph?"
"It's not just a mark. It's a handshake protocol. It synced to you. Whatever's inside that Obelisk… it wants access."
Nyra glanced at the band around her wrist, faintly glowing, almost pulsing like a heartbeat. Like it was alive.
Something old had found her.
And it wasn't finished yet.
Nyra, Mira, and Kaeli stood with the rest of the trainees in a half-circle. Everyone was whispering, shifting, restless. Even the most confident ones had their ears perked and tails twitching, instincts screaming warnings their minds couldn't put words to.
And then they saw it.
Rising from a shallow ridge ahead — too perfect, too deliberate — was the Obelisk.
It wasn't just a pillar of stone. It hovered. Massive and tall, shaped like a prism cracked with veins of pale blue light, as if moonlight had been frozen and imprisoned inside. Runes spun around its surface — not carved, not glowing… floating. Freeform. Glitchy.
Nyra's breath hitched.
They weren't just symbols to her. They were… logs. Broken logs. She could read them, like corrupted code files had been stripped out of some ancient system.
Mira stepped closer, her tail curling behind her. "What is this thing?"
Selune's voice cut in — sharper than usual. "Keep your distance. This is not a toy."
But even Selune's posture betrayed it — the tense shoulders, the way her hand hovered near her dagger. She didn't know what this thing was either. Not really.
KAIROS spoke up in Nyra's head."That… is not native to this world."
"No shit," Nyra muttered under her breath.
"It's running code I haven't seen in decades. Maybe centuries. And it's older than both of us."
"Older than you? That's cheating," she whispered, her voice light but her pulse racing.
As if responding, the Obelisk let out a soft whine — a pulse of energy that warped the air around it like heat off a forge. The grass beneath its shadow had withered into silvery ash.
Nyra took an unconscious step forward.
"Nyra, no," Kaeli grabbed her wrist, eyes wide.
But it was Mira who moved first.
She stumbled forward, eyes wide in wonder, fingertips brushing the edge of the Obelisk's aura.
"Mira!" Nyra barked — but it was too late.
The Obelisk reacted.
A wave of light washed out, not blinding, but deep. Like seeing something flash behind your eyelids when you're dreaming.
Mira froze. Her body was rigid. Eyes wide.
And then she saw.
She gasped, falling to her knees.
"I… I saw myself…" she mumbled. "On a battlefield. My body — bigger — older. Armor. There was… fire. And I was smiling."
Kaeli, ever the sceptic, narrowed her eyes… then curiosity won. She stepped forward and pressed her hand gently to the Obelisk.
Another pulse.
Kaeli didn't fall — she floated for half a second, hair lifting as if caught in water. When her feet hit the ground again, she blinked rapidly.
"Forest," she said. "Spirits… and I was dancing. I don't dance."
"Okay," Nyra muttered, swallowing her nerves. "This isn't creepy at all."
KAIROS chimed in, more urgently now."Don't touch it. I'm serious. That thing is looking for something. And I think it found it in you."
Nyra hesitated… then, slowly, pressed her hand forward anyway.
As soon as her skin made contact—
Searing heat. Cold static. A flash of memory, not her own. The lab. Screams. An explosion of light. A command she couldn't remember giving.
Then—
The Obelisk roared.
The sound was internal. It didn't echo in the world. It echoed in her bones.
She flew backwards, landing hard against the ground with a thud. Kaeli and Mira were instantly at her side.
"N-Nyra! Are you okay!?"
She blinked.
Her wrist burned.
There, etched into her skin, glowing faintly beneath the surface, was a mark.
A glyph.
Not drawn. Not inked. Not carved.
Burned into her Essentia.
Veska and Selune ran toward them.
"Instructors! We've got a mark!" Selune called out, waving.
As the others stared at the mark, Nyra's hand trembled. Her gaze locked onto the Obelisk, which now stood silently once more, as if it hadn't just violated time and memory itself.
KAIROS's voice was cold.
"You triggered a handshake protocol."
"A what?"
"It recognised you. Synced with your Architect lineage. It's listening now, Nyra."
"To what?"
A pause.
"To you."
The camp felt… off.
It wasn't panic. Not quite. But the air had shifted. Conversations were shorter. Movements—sharper, tenser. No one trained that day. No drills, no sword forms, no Essentia lessons. Just watchful eyes and low murmurs. Everyone had seen the Obelisk's pulse—like a second sunrise blooming from the forest. And everyone had felt the tremor that followed.
Veska had returned with Nyra and her sisters personally, a rare break in protocol. The squad watched in silence as she walked through the camp with the trio in tow, her expression unreadable. The mark on Nyra's wrist still glowed faintly beneath a hastily wrapped bandage.
"Did you see her?" someone whispered. "She flew back like a twig."
"Her wrist was lit up. Not like a spell. Like… alive."
"Is she cursed?"
Kaeli heard it all. Mira rolled her eyes. Nyra didn't even notice. She was too busy rubbing the bandage, feeling the burn beneath it, like something was still watching her.
In the centre of the camp, the instructors stood in a quiet huddle. Veska, Selune, and the grizzled veterans of the Black Squad. But one presence was still missing.
Elder Yaro.
He hadn't shown up since the Obelisk emerged.
Until now.
A gust of wind carried in the scent of sage and moss as the old Felyari walked into the clearing like a shadow returning to the world. His robes were soaked at the hem. His eyes were bloodshot.
The moment Veska saw him, her spine straightened.
"Elder," she said sharply. "We have an incident. The glyph—"
"I know." His voice was quieter than usual, but somehow cut through the noise like a blade. "I felt it from the temple."
He moved slowly toward Nyra.
She stiffened, but didn't back away.
He studied her face, then her wrist. The others watched in dead silence.
"So," he said, sighing. "The Architect stirs."
Kaeli blinked. Mira looked like she was trying very hard not to make a joke. Nyra's ears twitched.
"You… knew?" she asked.
"I suspected. The signs were always there. The way the Essentia bends around you. The anomalies in your readings. The way KAIROS anchored to you so easily."
"How do you know about him?" Nyra narrowed her eyes.
Elder Yaro gave her a look that said: Child, I've seen far more than you think."I don't. Not truly. But the whispers of the forest carry many names. Architect is one of them."
Veska broke in. "The Obelisk reacted to her alone. Mira and Kaeli experienced visions—harmless, temporary. But Nyra… it branded her."
"And destabilised the leyline beneath the training grounds," Selune added, her voice clipped.
Yaro nodded grimly. "The Chrono Obelisk isn't a relic. It's a beacon. A test. Or perhaps… a signal."
"Signal to what?" Mira asked before anyone could stop her.
Yaro looked into the forest, toward where the Obelisk still hovered."To whatever left it behind."
The silence that followed hung heavy in the air.
"From this moment," Yaro continued, turning back, "Nyra is to be protected. Watched. The glyph is a mark of awakening. Only one other in recorded history bore such a sign."
"Another Architect?" Kaeli asked.
Yaro didn't answer. Instead, he turned to Veska."You will stay close to her. As guardian and witness."
"Understood," Veska said, her voice softer than usual.
Nyra suddenly felt very, very small.
Later, in their tent, Mira flopped dramatically onto her bedroll. "So… no more training?"
"Not until the leyline stabilises," Kaeli replied, flipping through a journal. "Veska said we're under 'probationary lockdown.' Which is a fancy way of saying we're grounded."
Nyra sat cross-legged, staring at her hand. She'd unwrapped the bandage. The glyph hadn't faded. It pulsed faintly, like a second heartbeat.
KAIROS? she thought. Why does it feel like my Essentia's going haywire?
His voice was slower than usual. Thoughtful."The Obelisk synced with something dormant in your Architect protocols. You're running processes that haven't been triggered in years. Maybe ever."
"So I'm a glitchy demigod now?"
"More like a terminal with admin access… but the system is older than your OS."
Nyra groaned and flopped backwards, hand draped over her eyes."This is a nightmare."
"It's evolution," KAIROS corrected her. "And you're still in boot mode."
The moonlight filtered through the forest canopy like silver dust, quiet and delicate. The two moons had separated again, but their strange alignment earlier still lingered in the air, like an aftertaste. The Chrono Obelisk, now distant but still visible beyond the cliffs, pulsed faintly—more like a heartbeat than light.
Back in their tent, the trio had settled down. Mostly.
Kaeli sat cross-legged by the entrance, humming softly to herself, the melody old… too old for someone her age to know. She didn't seem to realise she was doing it, her fingers idly tracing runes in the dirt, none of which she remembered learning.
Mira was pacing. Back and forth, like a caged ferret. "So let me get this straight—an ancient death-rock branded you, the Elder is acting like you're some reincarnated deity, and our training just got cancelled."
"More or less," Nyra replied, lying on her back, arms behind her head. "Also, I might explode if I cast anything too complex. Or summon something. Or touch the Obelisk again. So y'know… normal Tuesday."
"Yeah, cool," Mira muttered. "Everything's fine. Not terrifying. Not gonna die."
She flopped beside Nyra, arms crossed. After a beat, she reached over and pulled her sister into a tight, side-hugging squeeze.
"You're not allowed to vanish into some ancient Architect meltdown, okay?"
Nyra blinked. Mira's grip was firmer than expected.
"I wasn't planning to," Nyra whispered.
"You weren't planning on getting obelisked either."
"…Touché."
From the other side of the tent, Kaeli's lullaby trailed off.
"Hey," she said quietly, not turning around. "Do you guys… feel like we're being watched?"
Mira sat bolt upright. "Kaeli. We've been through this. No creepy forest kid talk before bed."
"I'm serious," Kaeli said. "Not in a scary way. It's like… something's paying attention. Like it's leaning in, just waiting."
Nyra shivered.
KAIROS stirred in the back of her mind, his voice almost a whisper in the quiet of her thoughts."Something is coming."
She blinked.
"And it remembers you."
The glyph on her wrist flickered, just once.
Outside, an owl screeched somewhere deep in the trees. The wind rustled like breath on a neck.
And for the first time in her second life, Nyra realised she wasn't sure if she was preparing for the future… or if the future had just arrived, waiting patiently with claws and teeth.