Zone Three had been dead for years.
No cleanup crews. No patrols. Just crushed buildings, looping audio feeds, and the scent of melted steel. People called it a null zone. Something about the way signals vanished when you stepped too deep.
Kael Isono knew better.
He called it a graveyard.
He moved through the corridor quietly, boots crunching over shattered glass and twisted metal. Every footstep echoed too loud. The air was thick with dust, heavy with heat. Red flickers pulsed beneath the walls like an exposed vein.
He adjusted the strap on his shoulder—his scavenger pack was heavier than usual. Not with food. With equipment. Damaged drive cores. A busted relay node. One fractured sphere that still gave off trace energy, faint but familiar.
The only reason he came back here.
He reached the edge of the corridor and knelt beside a rusted access terminal. The screen was half-melted, its casing dented, but the port still worked.
Kael plugged in his tapdrive.
The screen sparked—just once. Then:
ACCESSING…
SYSTEM CORE: OFFLINE
RELIC FILE DETECTED
…
…
CORRUPTED DATA FOUND
"Of course it is," he muttered.
He was about to pull the drive when the screen shifted.
A single line of code blinked.
Not in standard format. It was jagged. Organic, almost.
.exe_run//_valiant001
Kael blinked. The terminal began to glow. Lines of unknown language filled the glass, scrolling faster than he could read. His fingers hovered over the disconnect key—but something stopped him.
It wasn't fear.
It was recognition.
He'd seen this code before. In a dream. No—worse.
In a memory.
Before the Rift collapsed everything.
Then the screen turned white.
And from the hall behind him—footsteps.
Kael spun, reaching instinctively into his coat for the broken shock blade he kept duct-taped to the inside lining.
But what entered the room wasn't human.
It moved like a man, but twitched between frames—like a corrupted hologram. Its limbs bent backward. Its skin shifted between color and chrome.
A Nullborn.
Kael backed up slowly. He could feel the static rising off the thing like heat off pavement. His throat tightened.
The Nullborn tilted its head. Then—
A sound like a skipping hard drive. The air distorted. The thing lunged.
Kael dove sideways as the monster's arm swept the space he'd just been. The wall cracked. Sparks flew. He hit the floor hard, pain shooting up his ribs.
"Shit—!"
He rolled, scrambled back, pulled the tapdrive from the terminal and shoved it in his pocket. The monster came again. He ducked low, slammed the broken end of the blade into its chest—nothing. It glitched backward, as if rewinding time, then snapped forward again with a backhand that launched Kael across the room.
He hit the wall with a crunch. The wind left his body. Blood ran from his nose.
His vision blurred.
And the device in his pocket—his backup core—started to glow.
Not white.
Not blue.
But red. Bright. Unnatural.
Kael pulled it free, coughing.
It pulsed. Fast. Syncing to his breath. His pain.
His fear.
Then… a voice.
"SYNC SIGNAL DETECTED. .EXE FRAME COMPATIBLE."
"No… no, no, not now—!"
The device exploded in light. Symbols circled his body. Data flooded the air. His skin began to sear with heat. He dropped to his knees, screaming.
The suit didn't wrap around him—it invaded him.
Hardpoints stabbed into his spine, locking in with metallic cracks. His hands fused into black gauntlets. Armor formed in stuttering plates. It wasn't sleek. It was angry. Red lines flared along the plating—like veins, like fire.
The helmet dropped last.
He couldn't breathe.
His ribs were breaking.
And then—
Stillness.
Kael opened his eyes.
The HUD flickered in front of him—black and red interface code. His heartbeat tracked in the corner. A message scrolled in jagged font:
.VALIANT: REDEEM.EXE — FRAME ONLINE
The Nullborn shrieked and charged again.
Kael didn't think.
He just moved.
His body knew what he didn't. He met the creature head-on, and his fist smashed into its chest. The armor cracked on impact, sending shockwaves up his arm—but it held.
The Nullborn staggered.
Kael took the opening. His hands shifted—morphing into a blade. Not designed. Not clean. More like code jagged into a shape. He slashed low, then spun with the recoil, cutting deep into the thing's side.
The creature howled—bits of it already fading, data unraveling.
It swung wildly. Caught him in the side.
Pain again.
Ribs flared. Armor fractured. Kael dropped, one knee hitting the floor.
But this time… he didn't stay down.
"I'm not dying in this dump," he growled. "Not like the others."
He leapt, brought the blade down—and split the creature's face.
It died like a glitch.
Flickering. Folding in on itself.
Gone.
Kael collapsed again as the armor peeled off, chunk by chunk. Not fading—but withdrawing—like it knew its job was done. For now.
He lay on the ground. Blood dripping from his lip. Hands shaking.
He didn't understand what he just did.
But he knew what it meant.
Something was waking up.
And now… it had his name.