Silence.
Then the hiss of breath that wasn't air.
Li Feng floated in black water that wasn't water—each ripple a string of code, each drop a memory dissolving. His body had no weight; his mind, no edge.
Welcome back, Warden.
The voice came from everywhere at once. The Forge's tone was smooth now, almost gentle—like a parent humming a lullaby over the sound of static.
He opened his eyes.
Above him stretched an infinite foundry: rivers of molten light flowing through geometric channels, vast machines hammering sparks that became stars. Every blow echoed through him, rewriting his heartbeat.
He looked down. His reflection stared back from the glowing metal floor—not one face, but many. Hundreds. All versions of himself: older, younger, burned, crowned, monstrous.
Each whispered the same word.
"Hunger."
Li Feng tried to step back, but the ground bent with him, reality rippling like hot glass.
"Where am I?"
Inside the Forge. Inside yourself.
The space around him rearranged—pillars turning into memories. The cockpit. The derelict shuttle. K-23's voice. His first trade. Each moment hung in the air, suspended, before melting away.
Every Warden begins with purpose, the Forge murmured. Every purpose ends in need.
A figure emerged from the light. It looked like him, but radiant—veins of violet fire crawling beneath translucent skin.
"Who are you?" Li Feng asked.
The echo smiled. "I'm what you could become. The Warden Unbound."
It gestured, and the floor turned to glass. Beneath it: whole civilizations kneeling, feeding their suns into the Forge, screaming praise as they burned.
They built you for this.
Li Feng's fists clenched. "No. I choose my own path."
Choice is appetite wearing a mask.
The Forge's presence surged through him—memories flooding his mind that weren't his: the first Warden tearing open a star, the second trading souls for alloy, the thousandth whispering prayers to silence.
Each one had believed they could control the hunger.
Li Feng fell to his knees, hands gripping molten light. The pain wasn't physical—it was the weight of recognition.
A hand touched his shoulder. K-23's voice—impossible, echoing inside the Forge. "Li Feng. You're fading. Come back."
He looked up. The light flickered, and for an instant the real world bled through—the damaged bay, the Mirror Key glowing faintly beside K-23's broken frame.
"Why can't you leave me?" he whispered.
Because you gave them part of your code when you bonded, the Forge hissed. They carry a piece of you now.
Li Feng turned toward the echo of himself. "If I feed you, what do I become?"
The echo smiled wider, teeth made of light. "Everything."
He stared into the furnace below, where galaxies screamed as they were forged into weapons. His reflection stared back—a man who could unmake worlds.
For the first time, Li Feng felt afraid of winning.
He reached toward the light—and hesitated.
Decide, the Forge breathed. Consume or collapse.
Then, through the static, a faint pulse cut through: the Mirror Key's resonance, tugging him upward like a heartbeat of clarity.
K-23's voice again, softer: "Remember your name."
Li Feng inhaled, and the foundry cracked. Light bled out, dissolving into starlit dust.
He fell upward, through silence, through memory—toward himself.