The junkyard was quiet.
Too quiet.
Elian paced through the shattered metal skeletons of old-world satellites and broken terra-link stations. Above, the sky was a frozen ripple—like someone had paused the simulation just to watch them move.
Kalith crouched by a panel, trying to draw power from a dead relay.
"We need a safe zone," she muttered. "A real one. The next bounty claim will pull in players, not just Hunters."
"How long do we have?"
"Two hours. Tops."
Elian scanned the terrain. At the far end of the junkyard, a massive dish lay half-buried in cracked earth. Its surface was laced with rusted runes, like someone had tried to talk to the code through symbols.
[Location Discovered: Forgotten Relay Node – 'The Listener's Grave']
[System Note: Experimental Signal History Detected]
He approached it slowly.
The moment his fingers brushed the edge, the world blinked—like a skipped frame in a video file.
Then a voice crackled through his HUD.
"Admin Echo... Admin Echo... you are out of sync. Please return to the Axis."
Kalith stood, eyes wide. "That's not from this server."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," she said slowly, "you're hearing a voice from outside the Earth System."
The signal flared again, louder this time.
"Elian Ward. Access Code Fragment: Verified. Listening…"
"Do you remember who you were before?"
The air turned cold. Not physically—but something in the digital field snapped into place.
Elian's vision swam. Numbers floated in the air. A burning star. A locked gate. A name, whispered in a dozen lost voices.
Then—
Darkness.
And something inside it.
A shape. Watching.
A presence that didn't belong to any code.
[Connection Severed]
He fell to his knees.
Kalith grabbed his shoulders. "You're bleeding," she said. "From your nose—Elian, that wasn't just data. That was raw signal injection. If you'd stayed in that stream any longer—"
"I saw something," he said, wiping his face. "It said my name."
"It knows your name. That's why it's dangerous."
She turned toward the satellite dish. "This place is a breach. A tear in the layer between Earth's overlay and whatever System built it."
"You said it wasn't made for us. For Earth."
"It wasn't," she confirmed. "It was dropped here. Installed like malware on a planet-wide scale. And someone—something—is still listening."
As they prepared to leave, Elian looked back at the dish.
Its runes began to rearrange themselves.
A message, just for him:
"You Are Not The First.""You Might Be The Last."
[Trait Gained: Signal-Touched]You have brushed the edge of non-local system architecture. Your mind resists manipulation (+2 Mind). However, you are now more visible to things that were never meant to see you.
[Quest Updated: Discover the Truth of The Axis]
Kalith stared at him in the fading light. "We need to reach the Eastern Nexus before the next Update hits. Or whatever just saw you might try to come through again."
"Good," Elian said, voice steady.
"Why?"
"Because I want to ask it why it chose me."