Hours passed since the conclave at Vehrmath. The relay prototype pulsed in low rhythmic tones as if meditating on the weight of what had just been said. Outside, the skies darkened under the ghostlight of artificial moons orbiting the city.
In a lower dome chamber, Benedict stood alone with Nyssa Thornwall. She examined the prototype again, her fingers brushing the outer coils as if reading braille through metal. "You're serious about pushing this to deployment?"
"I am," Benedict said. "We can't wait for permission. The black pulses are testing our lag windows. Whoever's behind them is watching us watch them."
Nyssa frowned. "Or baiting us."
Benedict didn't argue. Instead, he activated the console embedded into the floor. Dozens of pulse threads surged into view, most purple, a few grey-blue, and one—just one—black.
"It's bouncing," Nyssa observed.
"Every four hours. Fixed intervals. No source, no core, just recursive compression signatures."
"That's not mimicry. That's a message."
Before either could decode more, Arden entered, breathless and carrying a magipacket. "New intel. From the Forge Ring. Someone's sabotaging pulse repeaters. Coordinated strikes—six districts."
Benedict took the packet, skimming through the ciphered report. "Three relay towers melted, one stolen. No security footage, no tracking spells—whoever did this erased their presence from the arcane substrate."
"Not even residue?" Nyssa asked.
"Only static. Which means they used counterpulse tech."
Nyssa's face darkened. "That's old war magic. Forbidden."
"Then we're officially out of time," Benedict muttered.
Kael, already in the hallway, called over his shoulder, "Do we retaliate?"
Benedict hesitated.
"No," he said. "Not yet. We adapt."
He glanced at Nyssa. "Send for the mobile foundry team. I want three compression stabilizers functional in twelve hours. We deploy them in the eastern orbitals. Quietly."
"And if the Council notices?" she asked.
"Then they'll know we're serious."
Back in the dome, Lys Kelthorn was speaking privately with Sethar. "You trust him?"
"I trust the tech," Sethar replied. "Not the man. He's too focused. Like a lens that burns everything it centers on."
Lys smiled faintly. "He's becoming Calder Vance. Not our master, but something harder. Hungrier."
They turned as Benedict re-entered, followed by Arden and Kael. The silence stretched.
"I need field agents," Benedict announced. "We're expanding the lattice with or without Council sanction. Who's with me?"
One by one, hands rose—slowly, cautiously, but without turning away.
"I want three divisions," he continued. "Stabilizer guards, lattice data miners, and artifact retrieval. We'll call them Echo Teams. Kael, you'll handle coordination. Lys, pick your people. I want one Echo Team deploying every twelve hours starting tomorrow."
"What about support?" Arden asked. "We're still missing engineers."
"Already working on that," Benedict replied. "The Towered Guilds are fractured, but not useless. I'm recruiting defectors. The ones who still believe this system can change."
Sethar grunted. "They'll come for coin."
"Then we pay in credits and possibilities."
Eline Vort joined them mid-discussion, unrolling a thin silver sheet of signal lace. "We found another pattern embedded in the black pulse echo. A fractal glyph. Not ours. Not Council. Something ancient."
"From where?" Benedict asked.
"The Ruined Line," she answered. "A deep-void signature. It's been dormant since the Foundation Wars."
Nyssa, who had rejoined them, narrowed her eyes. "The Foundation Wars were never officially recorded."
"Exactly," Eline said. "Which means someone is using myths as weapons."
Benedict stared at the glyph. The symbol wasn't just old—it was pre-civilization.
"This isn't escalation," he murmured. "It's resurrection."
A tremor passed through the floor. Everyone felt it.
A silent pulse—no color. No signature. Just presence.
Outside, in the fractured sky, the black pulse blinked again—closer.
And for the first time, it replied.
A wave of distorted signals washed through every bracer and relay in Vehrmath. Not destructive—but declarative. A message.
Three words.
WE ARE RETURNING.
Kael glanced at Benedict, pale. "That wasn't a response. That was a declaration of war."
Benedict said nothing for a moment. Then: "Then we'd better build fast."
Later that night, in one of the underground bunkers repurposed as a command staging center, Echo Team One was assembled.
Kael stood in front of them, projecting the pulse-map via his forearm console. "You're going to Sector 7-A. Low signal fidelity. Still active leyline fractures. Your task: secure the perimeter, deploy the stabilizer, and make contact with any passive nodes that survived the sabotage."
A young artificer—Del Marn—raised a hand. "What if we encounter black pulses directly?"
"Don't engage," Kael answered. "Map them. Record the distortions. Retreat. We're not ready for contact."
A taller woman, face marked with soft-light rune ink, added, "We've heard rumors of disappearing scouts. Any truth?"
Kael glanced at Benedict, who had just entered the staging zone. "No confirmation. But assume it's true."
Benedict addressed them directly. "This isn't a mission. It's a test. For you—and for the system. We're pushing back against something that's been dormant for longer than civilization has existed. We don't know its language, its structure, or its limits. But we do know one thing: it's awake now. And watching."
The room was silent.
Del Marn looked at his teammates, then grinned. "Well, I always said if I was going to vanish, I'd rather do it in style."
Laughter broke the tension. The rune-inked woman rolled her eyes. "Let's just make sure we all come back. No vanishing allowed."
A third artificer, a wiry man named Kesh, tapped his bracer and projected a tactical overlay. "If we take the lower stratum, we might bypass the fractured leyline channels. Less risk of arcane destabilization."
Kael nodded. "Good thinking. Take the southern ingress path. But keep uplinks open every six minutes. If we lose your signal, we deploy extraction teams."
Benedict stepped back, watching the team now buzzing with tactical banter and nervous energy.
Del Marn looked up one last time. "You coming with us, Commander?"
Benedict shook his head. "Not yet. But I'll be watching. And if you make it back, I want every second of data you record."
"Fair trade," Kesh muttered. "Our lives for your homework."
"Your homework saves lives," Nyssa called from the far wall, startling them. She stepped forward with a small crate. "And this might too—backup pulse filters. Designed by Benedict. They'll warn you if you're about to walk into a distortion field."
Kesh whistled. "Now we're talking."
Kael clapped once. "Alright, Echo Team One—gear up. We deploy in twenty."
Echo Team One moved out.
And high above, in orbit where Vehrmath's artificial moons shone cold and pale, another black pulse began to bloom.
Not closer.
But many.
Thousands.