Transition: With war declared and no safe zones left, the Guild mutates into something new: a weapon.
Veil wasted no time.
The Guild's sanctuary halls were reforged into battlegrounds. Sentiment gave way to efficiency. Loyalty was now forged in flame.
"Forget what you were," Veil barked. "You're Division Thirteen now. We don't save the world. We erase its cancer."
Kael met his squad for the first time:
Jin, blind but sees through pulse-coded illusions projected via echolocation.
Mara, a war widow whose emotional protocols had been wiped to stabilize her fighting instincts.
Solace, a child born inside the Nexus—a phenomenon that should be impossible—whose Resonance output exceeded even Kael's.
And Ayla, reborn in a combat skin Echo herself coded—a blend of human, system, and ghost.
"They're broken," Veil told Kael. "Like you. But broken things make better weapons."
Echo floated beside him. "If I sync with them partially, we can attempt a composite firewall breach. That's the only way we reach the Architect's code root."
Kael stared at his new squad.
"If this is what the Nexus is becoming… then we make sure it remembers our names."