The Hollow Citadel loomed ahead, a jagged monolith rising from the dead earth like a blackened tooth. No light touched its upper spires. No life stirred within its crumbling walls. It was a remnant of the Old World, abandoned after the Omega catastrophe, left to rot in the endless dusk that blanketed this forsaken region.
Kai approached slowly, his every instinct screaming caution.
[System Notification: Entering Restricted Zone – Hollow Citadel][Warning: Signal Interference - System Functions Reduced by 35%]
Even now, the System flickered erratically, struggling to maintain a stable link. In places like this, it was like walking through a decaying dream—half memory, half nightmare.
The gates to the citadel were massive, shaped like twin slabs of onyx carved with glyphs that seemed to squirm under Kai's gaze. The entrance stood partially open, the thick doors jammed off their hinges by some tremendous force.
With no other choice, Kai slipped inside.
The interior was worse.
Collapsed pillars, shattered statues, and endless shadows. Broken monitors still sparked weakly from the walls, displaying looping messages too corrupted to read. The floor was littered with fragments of forgotten technology—prototype Omega devices that had failed their final tests.
But it wasn't the ruins that made Kai pause.
It was the silence.
There was no ambient hum. No mechanical noise. Not even the groaning of old metal. It was as if sound itself had been stripped away, leaving only an oppressive vacuum.
He pressed forward, following the faint pull of the Omega Thread woven into his soul.
Through corridors that bent at impossible angles. Through rooms where time itself had stuttered, freezing shattered glass mid-fall. Through auditoriums where skeletal figures sat slumped in chairs, forever waiting for a briefing that would never come.
Then, at last, he found it.
The Core Chamber.
A wide, circular hall with a central platform floating above a chasm of endless dark. Holographic projectors lined the edges, creating flickering maps of the Ascension Project's last known data streams.
And at the very center—suspended in a stasis field—was Subject Zero's last known location.
Or at least, a recording of it.
Kai approached, activating the projector.
A scene unfolded before him: Subject Zero, no longer a child, but a teenager now—fifteen, maybe sixteen years old. Dressed in a regulation Ascension uniform, hair like silver fire, eyes like shattered mirrors.
They were arguing with someone—a tall figure draped in ceremonial Omega robes, face hidden by a gleaming mask.
"No more experiments!" Subject Zero shouted, voice raw with anger. "I won't be your weapon!"
The masked figure replied calmly, almost sadly. "You were never meant to be anything else."
Subject Zero lashed out, and the recording shimmered—clearly damaged. The next moment showed them running, tearing through halls much like the ones Kai had just passed, with security drones in pursuit.
Then the feed cut to static.
[Data Fragment Recovered: Subject Zero - Last Stand.]
Kai clenched his fists.
Subject Zero had escaped. They hadn't been destroyed. Not yet. But someone had tried very hard to erase them—and all records of their flight.
That someone might still be here.
A sudden noise snapped Kai's attention around—a faint clinking sound, like metal brushing stone.
He wasn't alone.
Emerging from the shadows was a figure draped in rags, their face hidden behind a rusted mask fashioned from scavenged tech. They carried a long staff crackling with unstable energy. Their movements were jerky, spasmodic—as if fighting invisible strings.
The voice that came from behind the mask was distorted but intelligible.
"Protocol breach... Subject retrieval... Order Omega-Z-23..."
An ancient guardian.
Kai activated his blade.
The fight was immediate. The guardian lunged with surprising speed, staff lashing out in a blur of electrical arcs. Kai barely sidestepped the first strike, feeling the air sizzle where the weapon passed.
He countered with a sweep of his own, striking the guardian's side. Sparks burst from torn wiring, but the thing barely flinched. It fought on, programmed long ago to defend secrets that no longer mattered to masters who no longer lived.
Kai ducked, rolled, struck again—this time severing one of its legs at the knee.
The guardian collapsed, twitching violently as corrupted code tried to repair its broken form.
Kai finished it with a pulse blast to the core.
The guardian dissolved into scrap and fading light.
[Threat Neutralized. Area Clear.]
Breathing hard, Kai looked back to the recording platform. New data pulsed at its base—hidden behind the guardian's defenses.
He accessed it.
A new map unfolded—ancient, hand-annotated, overlaid with System updates. It pointed to an area far north of the Hollow Citadel, deep within a region marked only as The Rifted Expanse.
Subject Zero's last known coordinates.
[New Mission Unlocked: Journey to the Rifted Expanse.]
As Kai absorbed the information, the System chimed once more.
[Optional Objective: Investigate the Silent Choir.]
Kai frowned.
The Silent Choir?
Before he could ask for clarification, the System glitched, the map distorting. Brief images flashed—buildings suspended upside down, pillars of black flame, and a figure clad in shattered white armor, singing to an empty void.
A chill ran down his spine.
Whatever the Silent Choir was, it was tied to the Omega catastrophe—and to Subject Zero's fate.
He couldn't ignore it.
Gathering his supplies, Kai turned back toward the ruined corridors.
The Hollow Citadel had given up its secrets—but it had also whispered promises of deeper nightmares ahead.
As he stepped into the shadowed halls once more, he made a silent vow:
No matter what waited in the Rifted Expanse, no matter what the Silent Choir truly was—
He would find Subject Zero.
And he would finish what they had started.
One way or another.
End of Chapter 18