Morning never came properly that day.
The sky stayed copper, the air vibrating with leftover energy.
Velora had changed overnight: screens flickered the same message across the districts — NO KINGS, ONLY PLAYERS — the mark of Kane's rebellion.
But it wasn't Kane's doing.
The Vein had hijacked the network, spreading its code through power lines and neural chips.
Every player in the Game now heard the same whisper Azen did.
The city had become one shared mind — and panic followed.
The Fall of Sectors
Factions turned on each other.
The Neon Guild sealed the upper bridges.
The Dusk Runners burned the supply tunnels.
And the Quiet Hand reappeared, moving like ghosts through digital smoke.
Rex led the strike teams; Silver ran intel.
Azen… Azen stood in the middle of it all, feeling everything — the anger, the fear, the pulse beneath each scream.
He didn't fight at first.
He listened.
And what he heard broke him.
"We are not enemies.
We are echoes trying to return home."
The Vein wasn't trying to destroy the city — it was trying to reunite itself, to reclaim every shard scattered across human consciousness.
But humans only understood war.
When Rex's comms went dead, Azen snapped.
The Vein burst from his skin like lightning. The street lights exploded outward in a web of gold and violet.
The shockwave silenced an entire block — no screams, no gunfire, only ringing.
Silver found him in the center of it, eyes blank, aura flaring.
"Stop!" she shouted. "You'll kill them all!"
Azen turned slowly. "They're already dying. I'm just finishing what the city started."
Kane appeared behind the smoke, cloak torn, voice calm but strained.
"You wanted understanding, Azen. This isn't it."
"Then show me," Azen said. "Show me how to control it."
Kane's gaze hardened. "You don't control the Vein. You negotiate with it."
He drew a small blade — obsidian, engraved with the same symbols from the Awakening Circle.
"Follow me. The Keepers are waiting."