The landscape between the outpost and the Obsidian Reserve was not terrain—it was battlefield memory, fossilized. Burned trees stood like jagged fingers clawing at the sky. The ground crunched with ash and twisted metal. Long-forgotten war machines lay half-buried in moss, their husks leaking residue from wars that predated the system's awakening.
It had taken them less than five hours to reach the edge of the exclusion zone. Not because it was easy, but because the land let them pass.
And that alone was disturbing.
Arix moved at the front of the formation, Concord's pulse strong beneath his ribs. His thoughts felt sharper than before, more aligned with system threads. He could feel paths, estimate signals, trace trajectories before they unfolded. Like a part of him now ran in parallel with the world.
It was useful.
It was terrifying.
Behind him, Calyx checked the charge on her rifle, her eyes flicking to every glint of motion—leaves, birds, nothing. Her silence wasn't from fear; it was focus. The kind that knew how fast situations could shift, especially when the world *wanted* you to walk into the trap.
Kael grumbled under his breath with each step, clearly uneasy. "Feels like a setup. Like the land's got its hand on my shoulder."
Selis walked slower, scanning her pad with growing unease.
"Something's wrong," she finally said. "The Reserve... it should be shielded. Scrambled. But I'm picking up partial signals."
"From us?" Kael asked.
"No. From inside. Active network signatures."
They stopped.
Arix narrowed his eyes toward the horizon.
Ahead, the landscape dipped into a crater lined with obsidian shards and pulsing circuitry veins. A low fog clung to the outer rim, and a faint green glow pulsed from somewhere beneath the surface. It looked like the world had tried to bury a god, and failed.
The Reserve.
It was already awake.
---
They descended cautiously.
The closer they came to the heart of the crater, the more the world changed. The terrain beneath their boots lost consistency, like walking on membrane—soft in places, rigid in others. Glowing veins ran through the ground like molten wires, humming faintly with stored data.
"We're walking on top of a living archive," Selis whispered. "And it's listening."
Kael kicked a stone. It bounced once, then fizzled into light.
Calyx crouched near a dormant panel embedded in the earth. "These were terminals once. Long-range. Pre-Concord. Maybe even pre-Prime."
Arix ran a hand along a jagged node. It thrummed beneath his fingers, like a heart waking from deep sleep. As he touched it, a holographic glyph flickered into view—a shape he recognized.
> [Unity Signature Detected. Sync Link Initiated.]
"No," Selis said sharply. "Don't let it sync. Not without knowing what it is."
But it was too late.
Arix's shard reacted. Light bloomed, and a cascade of images spilled into the air—flashes of battles, corrupted towers, and a figure wrapped in smoke and static standing amidst burning fields.
Then darkness.
Everyone froze.
"What the hell was that?" Kael said, aiming his rifle toward the projection's afterglow.
Selis stared at her pad. "That was a memory shard. Embedded in the node. But it was... fragmented. Artificial."
Arix felt his breathing slow, then even out. "A warning."
"Or a lure," Calyx said, standing beside him now.
---
At the center of the crater, a stairwell descended into the Reserve proper. It was not marked, but the architecture gave it away—layered stone and obsidian, with etched lines that pulsed under touch.
The team exchanged glances. No words. Only nods.
They descended.
---
The interior corridors were cold and precise, carved by machines without artistry. Walls angled inward slightly, giving every hallway the subtle pressure of a narrowing throat.
Selis scanned constantly. "This isn't just a base. It's a testing ground."
"For what?" Kael asked.
"For *versions,*" she said. "Forked Concord protocols. Spliced with something else."
Arix paused beside a sealed door. "How old is this place?"
Selis hesitated. "Old enough to remember Unity... but new enough to still hate it."
Calyx activated a short-range scanner. "I've got three life signs. Stationary. Just ahead."
"Traps?"
"Maybe. Or bait."
They rounded the corner—slowly, weapons drawn.
Three containment chambers stood embedded in the wall. Inside each: a figure.
One human. One machine. One indistinguishable.
All asleep.
Kael swore. "They're not just building weapons. They're *hybridizing.*"
Selis nodded grimly. "They're trying to splice control. Wrap system threads around live minds."
"They're trying to *own* Concord," Arix said quietly.
He stepped toward the pods, but Calyx stopped him with a hand to his chest. "We're not ready to wake what's in there."
He nodded. "We don't wake them. We finish what we came to do."
---
Deep beneath the Reserve's core, they found the access point. A central terminal wrapped in crystal and metal, humming like a heartbeat. Arix approached, the shard in his chest already syncing.
> [Reclaimer Link Stabilized. Deploy Counterthread? Y/N]
"Selis?"
She checked the display. "It'll push a patch through every corrupted node. Temporarily disable the new faction's edits."
"And what's the cost?" Calyx asked.
A pause.
"System backlash," Selis said. "Weakened barriers. Temporary exposure. But we'll buy time."
Kael nodded. "We've survived worse."
Arix placed his hand on the terminal.
> [Deploying Counterthread...]
The light surged.
A wave of system energy radiated outward, rippling through the Reserve. Lights flickered. Somewhere above, something screamed.
The three figures in the pods stirred.
Calyx raised her weapon. "Time to leave."
They moved.