The Archive's deepest chamber was known as the Core Sim.
Once used by elite Reclaimers for pre-deployment training, it was now under Arin's control. The walls were lined with collapsed servers and glowing circuit veins. This was where reality blurred.
Eron stood in the center of the chamber. Arin adjusted the uplink matrix.
"You want to break into the Citadel," she said. "This sim will help you learn how. Every possible countermeasure, every security node—modeled after their actual data structure."
"Let's begin."
Simulation Start: Citadel Breach Alpha
The environment shifted. Steel walls rose around him. Lights blinked on—red, alert. Automated turrets deployed.
He moved fast.
Using Phantom Step, he cleared the first corridor. Clones took out the sensors. His primary self moved through like vapor. Then came the Golems—automatons wired with Reclaimer combat protocols.
Engaging Chrono Fracture...
Three selves. One diversion. Two flank.
The Echo Blade formed a glaive. He swept low, slicing the nearest Golem's legs. A fractured self absorbed the blast from another.
He kept moving.
Twenty minutes. Fifty-nine encounters. Then... the core vault.
He stepped inside—and everything changed.
Warning: Reality Sync Breach
The sim flickered. The walls turned to static. From the void, a new figure appeared.
Tall. Masked. Blade like obsidian lightning.
"You shouldn't be here," it said.
Eron lunged.
But this foe was faster than Nyssan. It moved like thought, like glitch.
A perfect counter.
Eron's blade clashed—and cracked.
The figure struck, and the simulation ended.
Eron collapsed in the real chamber, gasping.
"What was that?" Arin asked, horrified.
He stared at the chamber ceiling.
"That wasn't part of your code?"
"No," she said.
Then the terminal pulsed.
Unidentified signal detected.Incoming message: "Hello, Echo Bearer."
Someone else had breached the simulation.
And they knew who he was.