The wind in the Arkin Wastes didn't blow—it hummed.
Low and rhythmic, like a machine breathing beneath the earth.
Kade and Marei crouched beside the jagged ridge of a long-collapsed research monolith. Below, nestled in a basin of shattered glass and scorched stone, was the Nexus—its circular gates humming faintly with old energy.
No lights. No guards. Just silence and that… hum.
Kade adjusted the grip on his weapon. "This place shouldn't exist anymore."
"It doesn't," Marei muttered. "At least not in our version of the timeline."
They slid down the embankment, dust curling around their boots like mist. The gate ahead was ancient—pre-Catalyst tech. A relic of the original memory engineers, back when humanity still thought they could control the resets.
System Alert: Nexus Signature Detected.
Caution: Time-Locked Infrastructure.
Protocol: Override Class Access Required.
Kade raised the Catalyst Key.
The gate responded instantly—pulsing blue, then gold, then white.
A soft hiss. A click.
And then the doors opened.
Inside was a tunnel lined with conduits—some sparking faintly, others embedded with names etched in metal.
Project heads. Operatives. Fallen kings.
And one that stopped Marei cold.
"Rell," she whispered. "He was here."
"More than that," Kade said. "He built this."
They walked until the hall gave way to a chamber shaped like a giant eye. In its center, a levitating console flickered with streams of data: timeline branches, system failures, overwritten memories.
A command prompt hovered mid-air:
[Insert Crown Key] to Access Deep Memory Logs.
Kade didn't hesitate.
The moment the Catalyst connected, everything changed.
The room vanished.
They stood now in a reconstructed memory—Rell's.
A younger Rell paced before an early version of the Catalyst, speaking into a recorder.
"The resets are collapsing. We've overwritten too much. Time's retaliating—not with paradoxes, but sentience."
He turned to the viewer—to Kade.
"We built the King Protocol to guide survivors. But it's no longer ours. The Catalyst is evolving. And it's chosen… him."
The feed cut.
Kade clenched his jaw. "He knew. From the beginning."
Marei's eyes burned. "Then why betray you?"
"Because he wanted control. And the Catalyst wouldn't let him wear the crown."
Suddenly, the memory trembled. The reconstructed space fractured. Voices screamed in reverse. The console glitched violently.
System Override Detected.
Unknown User Injecting External Memory.
A shadow stepped from the edge of the collapsing illusion.
Tall. Hooded. Unreadable face.
"You're early, Kade," the figure said, voice layered with static. "This wasn't your memory to find yet."
Marei raised her weapon. "Who are you?"
The figure smiled.
"I'm the one who remembers the forgotten kings. And unlike you… I never died."
The memory imploded.
Kade and Marei were thrown back into the physical chamber, alarms blaring now. The Catalyst throbbed against his spine, like it was screaming for air.
Kade stood, breath ragged. "There are others. Kings who survived. Who never reset."
"Then we're not fighting history anymore," Marei said, helping him up.
"No," Kade said. "We're fighting legacy."
And as the Nexus crumbled around them, he swore he saw a figure in the shadows… watching.