The wind howled through the shattered remnants of the ruined city of Nir-Karoth, carrying with it echoes of a civilization long lost to time. Cracked marble columns stood like broken fingers clawing at the gray sky, and ancient glyphs—half eroded, half glowing faintly with dormant energy—lined the walls of crumbling sanctuaries. Kael stood at the edge of a collapsed staircase, his boots caked with ash and dust. Behind him, Mira adjusted the settings on her Reality Lens, her eyes narrowing as the ruins shifted and flickered with residual spectral echoes.
"This place is humming with dead protocols," Mira muttered. "Like something's trying to restart."
Kael nodded, focusing on the [System Beacon] hovering before him. After the events in the Fractal Jungle and the awakening of the Mirror Beast, they had tracked a signal deep into this forgotten metropolis—once the capital of an ancient empire known only as the Chrona Nexus.
[System Notification: Hidden Protocol Detected — "Veins of the Forgotten"]Status: DormantActivation Key Required: Chrona Pulse Core (0/1)
"Pulse Core," Kael repeated. "So it's not just buried tech… it's alive."
The System had grown increasingly cryptic lately. Since Kael ascended to Level 43 and unlocked his fifth core module—Temporal Entanglement—he had begun sensing faint distortions in reality, especially near relic sites like this. The strange dreams had worsened too: visions of himself standing atop a burning tower, his body flickering between dimensions, a mechanical eye watching from beyond the stars.
Kael dismissed the thought and turned toward the subterranean vaults that Mira had scanned earlier.
"Let's go deeper."
The Descent
The stairs spiraled downward into pitch-blackness. Their lanterns cast eerie shadows that danced across walls inscribed with shifting runes. Occasionally, one of the runes pulsed in response to Kael's presence, as if recognizing him.
[System Alert: Temporal Field Detected]Warning: Proceeding may entangle user in Chrona Loop
Kael pressed forward.
They reached a chamber where the ceiling had collapsed, revealing a massive obsidian vein running through the rock like fossilized lightning. Its surface rippled faintly, and when Kael touched it, time warped around him—Mira's voice slowed to a crawl, and ancient voices whispered in his ears.
"The Nexus cannot be severed… We are the clockwork of the stars…"
Kael yanked his hand back. The vein quieted.
"What did you see?" Mira asked, worried.
"I think this vein is connected to the Nexus network. Not just a place, but a living structure—like an exo-brain, still dreaming."
She nodded, pulling out a containment sphere. "Let's extract a fragment. It might be what the Pulse Core needs."
As they began extraction, the chamber trembled. A deep mechanical thrum echoed through the stone.
[System Protocol: Anti-Intrusion Core Deployed]Entity: [Warden of Forgotten Time]Rank: ★★★ Elite Temporal ConstructStatus: Hostile
A massive construct descended from above, its form shifting between a titan of stone and a knight made of shifting hourglass sands. A clock-like crest burned on its chest, its arms ending in spinning blades of prismatic light.
"Warden incoming!" Mira shouted.
Kael surged forward, activating Temporal Entanglement. Time fractured as he blinked through the air, striking from ten angles at once. The Warden adjusted, rewriting its own combat algorithm in real time. Blades met entropy as sparks lit the chamber.
Mira launched a compression burst, slowing the Warden's field reaction by 12%. It was enough.
Kael summoned Chrono Spear, a projection from the void, and drove it through the Warden's crest. With a burst of inverted time-energy, the construct collapsed into a swirl of fractured timelines.
[System Victory Log]Enemy: [Warden of Forgotten Time] — DefeatedEXP Gained: +14,500Loot: Pulse Core Fragment, Temporal Dust, Memory Echo (Ancient)
"Got the fragment," Mira confirmed, holding up the shimmering core.
Kael's interface chimed.
[System Protocol Activated: Veins of the Forgotten]Stage 1 Complete: Pulse Core SyncedWarning: Full Synchronization will require [Blood of the Catalyst]Location: UNKNOWN (Tracking...)
"Of course," Kael muttered. "It's never just a key."
Later That Night
They made camp near the edge of the ruins. Kael sat by the fire, reviewing the Memory Echo they'd recovered. As the projection played, a holographic figure emerged—a tall, hooded being with six arms, standing over a starmap of countless worlds. Behind it, the obsidian veins pulsed like neural circuits.
"The Protocol must be protected. If the System falls into his hands, everything resets—again."
Kael leaned forward. The figure's face remained obscured, but its presence stirred something deep in him.
"Who is 'he'?"
"He wears the Mask of Reversion… the one who unmakes."
The memory ended.
Mira, seated beside him, looked pale. "Kael, that name… It shows up in forbidden network queries. An entity outside System jurisdiction. If that thing is real…"
"It's hunting for the Protocols too," Kael finished. "Which means we're not just leveling up. We're racing."
He opened his status panel, watching the glowing mark of the Chrona Vein now embedded in his hand. The pulsing vein was no longer dormant. It had chosen him.
[System Update: Path Branch Unlocked — "Protocol Ascension: Catalyst's Bloodline"]Risk Level: AbsoluteReward Potential: Infinite
And somewhere deep beneath the stars, the Masked One stirred.