Kaelen descended the narrow fracture, his boots scraping against cold, mineral-smooth walls. The light from his Spinal Drive pulsed in soft waves—amber, then blue, then the faint, dangerous violet that came whenever deeper Layers tugged at him. He breathed slower than usual. Even though he felt more alive down here than on the Surface, the Deep Layers always watched back. Nothing in the underground was ever still.
He touched the rock. Warm. That meant the Layer below was shifting again.
Behind him, Lys groaned as she squeezed through the crack. "Kaelen, this place is barely wide enough for air. How far down are we going?"
"Layer 12. Maybe 13," Kaelen answered. "The readings said fossil movement. That usually means Chronoplast deposits."
Lys steadied herself, brushing dust off her gloves. "Or a collapse. Or a Pale-zone leak. Or something alive."
Kaelen smirked. "Alive is better than empty. Empty layers are worse."
"Yeah," she muttered, "because empty means something ate everything else."They moved again, deeper. The passage opened into a horizontal cavity—an old maintenance tunnel from the Ruined Crust hundred years ago. The ceiling sagged in places but held strong. Ancient pipes ran along the walls like metal vines.
Lys scanned the area with her detector. "I'm getting temporal noise. This tunnel's been exposed to Era-drift."
"How strong?" Kaelen asked.
She hesitated. "Strong enough that I don't like it."
Kaelen's Spinal Drive flickered in agreement.
He stepped forward, and something crunched lightly under his boot. A pattern. Not random rock. Carved impressions—symbols etched into the floor.
Kaelen crouched. "These aren't from Crust Era. They look older."
Lys leaned over his shoulder. "Older like… Deep? Abyss?"
"Deep, probably." Kaelen traced a symbol with his gloved finger. "This one means… boundary. Or threshold."
"Threshold to what?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
The tunnel vibrated with a hollow thud, like a distant heartbeat shaking through stone. Dust fell from above. Lys steadied herself again. "Okay, that's new. Don't like that either."
Kaelen stood quickly. "It's below us."
"What is?"
He lowered his voice. "Something big. Fossil-mass displacement."
Lys blinked. "A fossil is moving?"
Kaelen didn't respond. The heartbeat-thud sounded again—closer this time.
He activated the Spinal Drive. Light rippled from his back and lit the tunnel in shifting hues. The floor trembled gently, then violently, and a crack split open beneath them.
Kaelen grabbed Lys's arm and pulled her back as the stone fractured into a jagged maw. From the newly opened gap, a faint golden glow rose like trapped sunlight.
Lys stared wide-eyed. "Chronoplast bloom!"
Kaelen nodded. "A big one. Bigger than anything this high up."He dropped to one knee and peered inside. Beneath the crack lay a chamber—maybe natural, maybe carved—filled with glimmering crystal clusters. Golden strands pulsed inside them like frozen lightning.
But that wasn't what made him freeze.
At the center of the chamber… was a shape.
A colossal, petrified hand.
Its fingers curled halfway, as though something had died reaching out.
"Kaelen…" Lys whispered. "That's… a god-fossil. That's Abyss-level."
"No," Kaelen said quietly. "This is worse."
The hand was not stone-grey or bone-white. It was black, like obsidian soaked in shadow. And its surface shimmered, as if reflecting a geometry that didn't exist on the Surface.
Nothing in the Abyss looked like that.
Lys shivered. "How is this up here? It should be a hundred Layers deeper."
"It rose," Kaelen murmured. "Something pushed it up."
The heartbeat-thud echoed again—this time from the fossil itself, sending ripples across the golden crystals.
Lys stepped back. "We should leave. Report it. Seal the tunnel. Do anything except stay here."
Kaelen shook his head. "If we leave now, someone else will take it. And we both know a fossil like this changes everything."
Lys gripped his arm. "Kaelen, it's dangerous. Even for you."
The Spinal Drive dimmed slightly, like it was waiting.
Kaelen exhaled. "I don't think we have a choice."
The fossil hand shifted—stone grinding on stone—its massive fingers tightening by a fraction.
Lys gasped. "Did you see that?"
Kaelen stared. "Yeah."
The ground pulsed outward again, a shockwave knocking loose more dust. The crystals in the chamber flickered brighter.
Kaelen activated the Spinal Drive fully. Light flared in a sharp circle around him. "If that thing wakes up, the Layers above will collapse. We need to stabilize the reality field before it resonates upward."
"How? You can't anchor an Abyss-era artifact this close to the Surface!"
Kaelen took a slow breath. "I'm not anchoring it."
The Spinal Drive whirred, its plates shifting like living metal.
"I'm syncing with it."
Lys's eyes widened in horror. "Kaelen, no!"
He leaned over the crack, letting the glow touch his face. The fossil hand seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, as if recognizing something inside him.
The tunnel around them darkened. A low hum filled the air.
Kaelen whispered, "It's calling to me."
Lys grabbed him. "Kaelen! You'll go Pale—worse than Pale—you could lose yourself!"
Kaelen didn't pull away. "If this thing is rising through the Layers… something even deeper must be pushing it. Something alive. Something awake."
The fossil hand's glow intensified.
Kaelen squared his shoulders. "If I don't understand it now, the whole Surface could crack."Lys shook her head, terrified. "Then at least wait! Plan something! Don't jump into—"
The fossil hand flexed again, more sharply, and a burst of golden energy shot out, sweeping the tunnel and shattering old pipes.
Kaelen shielded Lys with his body as metal shards pinged around them. The Spinal Drive absorbed most of the shock, glowing an angry red.Lys clung to him. "Kaelen—please—don't do anything stupid."
He helped her stand. "I won't."
Then he stepped directly over the crack.The Spinal Drive's colors shifted violently—blue, amber, violet—each hue stretching across the chamber like echoes of different centuries.
The fossil hand stirred.
A whisper brushed the air, like a voice speaking from a thousand years below them.
Lys stepped back, trembling. "Kaelen… something's waking up."
Kaelen kept his eyes on the fossil. "I know."
The golden crystals began to rise slowly, lifted by invisible force, rotating around the fossil like orbiting moons.
And then the fossil hand opened—just a little.
A gust of temporal wind roared upward.
Kaelen braced himself, eyes narrowing. "Get ready."
Lys steadied her weapon, even though she knew it wouldn't matter.
The fossil's fingers twitched again, revealing a hollow center.
Inside that hollow…
Something glowed with shifting symbols.
Kaelen inhaled sharply.
"It's… a Core Mark."
Lys shook her head. "Impossible. Core Marks only exist in the deepest—"
The fossil flared with blinding light.
Kaelen stepped forward.
Everything around them bent, reality warping like heated glass.
Lys screamed his name.
Kaelen reached toward the fossil—
and the world shattered into layered colors.