Echoes of The Rewrite (50)

Arix stood still in front of the glowing screen, letting the data sink in.

Obsidian Prime.

Not a rogue algorithm. Not a mutation of the Reserve. It was something older. Something anchored beneath layers of failed containment, threaded through every corrupted command since the Vault breach.

Behind him, Selis was still speaking—but her voice was far away.

"We've got partial system uplink. Core diagnostics are unstable, but I'm isolating echo signals. Arix, if you can interface again—"

"No." His voice came low. Final. "Not yet."

Calyx glanced up from where she sat with her damaged leg braced against a shattered crate. "What is it?"

Arix turned toward them, and for a moment, the lines in his face were sharper, his eyes less human. The shard was no longer dormant. It wasn't glowing, but it was alive, flickering through layers of thread that didn't belong to the present.

"It's rewriting me."

Kael stiffened. "What?"

"The system. Whatever we triggered below didn't just open a door. It started a rewrite protocol. Not just in the surface. In me. In all of us, maybe."

"Speak for yourself," Kael muttered.

Selis tapped a few more keys. "He's not wrong. I'm detecting fragmentation in our Concord identifiers. The system's trying to reclassify us."

"To what?" Calyx asked.

"To new roles," Arix said before Selis could answer. "Roles it hasn't used in centuries."

---

An alert sounded.

A proximity warning. Not local—global. Something massive had just blinked into existence near the city's edge. Not walked. Not flown. Arrived. Like it had always been there but hadn't been acknowledged until now.

Selis projected a holomap. A crater had formed at the perimeter of the urban distortion zone, where the spike of black light had landed. Around it, architecture was folding like paper, reshaping.

"That's the Obsidian Crown," she whispered. "The root of the Prime."

Kael stared at the map, then back at Arix. "So we just leave it alone and hope it forgets us?"

Arix shook his head. "It won't. I felt its thread the moment I touched that thing in the Reserve. It's linked to me. And now it's pulling."

"We're not ready for another fight," Calyx said flatly.

"We won't survive one," Selis added.

"I know." Arix turned back toward the data stream. "That's why we don't attack."

Kael frowned. "Then what do we do?"

"We infiltrate."

---

Three hours later, the outpost was quiet.

Selis had stabilized most of the system uplinks. She'd rewritten temporary Concord access keys and cloaked their location under a decaying system echo. It wouldn't hold forever, but it would buy them time.

Kael slept fitfully in the corner, weapon in hand. Calyx had propped her leg up on a broken med-station table, eyes closed but not asleep.

Arix stood alone in the auxiliary chamber, staring into the nullglass mirror.

The system shimmered faintly around his reflection.

> [USER CLASS: RECLAIMER | REWRITE SIGNAL DETECTED]

[SYNC PERCENTAGE: 63%]

[NEW PARAMETERS BEING ASSIGNED]

He reached out—and the mirror rippled, showing more than just his face.

He saw himself standing in the city, alone. Buildings half-formed around him. The sky torn in strands of obsidian and light. And something stood across from him—a reflection, but not quite. Taller. Sharper. Eyes like threads pulled taut over void.

Obsidian Prime.

It didn't speak. It didn't need to.

Because Arix understood now.

The Prime wasn't a boss to be defeated. It was the end state. The final version of what Concord had started—and what he was becoming.

Obsidian Rewrite isn't an event, he thought. It's a choice.

---

He returned to the central chamber.

Calyx opened one eye as he stepped in. "You're thinking too loudly."

Arix smirked faintly. "You're still hurt."

"You're still annoying."

"I've made a decision."

She sat up straighter. "Oh?"

"We infiltrate the Crown. But not as intruders. As fragments. I can mask us—partially. Pretend we're part of the rewrite cycle."

Selis blinked. "That's… dangerously stupid."

Kael, just waking up, grunted, "Sounds like most of our plans."

Arix nodded. "It might work. And it's our only shot to reach the Prime without being reduced to dust."

Calyx looked at him carefully. "And if we get there?"

"Then I talk to it."

"Talk?" Kael snapped. "That thing wants to overwrite the world!"

"Exactly," Arix said quietly. "And I want to know why."

---

> [NEW QUEST: ENTER THE CROWN]

> Objective: Penetrate the Obsidian Crown without triggering the defense matrix.

Condition: At least one team member must survive the approach.

Optional: Interface with Prime Core Thread.

Status: Accept?

Arix accepted.

Thread lines burned across the wall in response.

The world outside was changing faster now—layered, fracturing, but forming something whole underneath the chaos. Something it wanted them to be part of.

He stepped toward the exit hatch, Calyx limping behind him, Kael and Selis checking weapons.

The sky above wasn't static anymore.

It was watching.