Chapter 4 – Ashes of Truth
[Neutral Zone 12 – Lower Conduit District, 10:41 AM]
The rain had stopped, but the stench of ozone and scorched concrete still lingered. Jun walked in silence beside Sol through the abandoned conduits—massive underground tunnels that once powered half the Neutral Zone's western grid. Now, they were just hollow arteries filled with graffiti, cracked pylons, and the bones of machines no one remembered how to fix.
"Where are we going?" Jun asked, his breath visible in the cold air.
"To the Archives," Sol replied. "If your past was erased, that's where we'll find the pieces."
Jun frowned. "Why now? Why not just tell me everything you know?"
Sol stopped walking. His expression softened for the first time since they met.
"Because this isn't just about you anymore. The moment you touched that relic, you became a signal. Everyone felt it. And someone—something—answered."
Jun remembered the voice. The chains. The eyes in the dark.
"You mean… that thing?"
Sol nodded. "It's not a myth. And it remembers the last time the Hollow Crown was touched."
Jun clenched his fists. "My brother."
"Exactly."
They continued walking until they reached a massive blast door sealed with triple-locked glyphs and rusted mechanical clamps. Sol placed his palm on the center circle. Energy spiraled through the carvings, and with a groan, the door split open.
Behind it lay a stairwell descending into darkness.
---
[Neutral Archives – Level B7, Forbidden Wing]
The Neutral Archives were not a library. They were a vault. Shelves of crystalline memory shards stretched into the dark, each humming faintly with Essence. Holograms flickered between the shelves—faces, records, echoes of forgotten lives.
"This place is insane," Jun whispered. "Why would Neutral Zones have this?"
Sol answered without looking back. "Because Neutrality is a façade. The Dominion wants people to think balance means peace. It doesn't. It means hiding the truth long enough to weaponize it."
Jun reached out toward a glowing shard. It pulsed at his touch.
"Careful," Sol said. "Some of these memories are alive."
They turned a corner—and stopped.
Someone was already there.
She stood barefoot on the cold floor, black cloak soaked in dust. Her hair was platinum white, cascading like melted glass down her shoulders. Her skin shimmered faintly with Essence burns, and her left eye glowed gold while the other was stitched shut with thread.
She was holding a memory shard.
"Step back," Sol warned.
The girl smiled faintly. "I was wondering how long it'd take you."
Jun stepped forward cautiously. "Who… are you?"
She looked at him. "I'm Calista. I remember what you forgot."
---
[New Character – Calista Veir]
Calista Veir, 19. Once a memory archivist apprentice for the Neutral Network. Lost half her sight in an Essence rupture, survived by binding her soul to an incomplete shard. Now functions as a living archive—part girl, part conduit. Her mind exists across dozens of fragments. She can see past versions of people—but only in pieces.
---
Sol approached slowly. "You shouldn't be here, Calista. This wing is sealed."
She held up the shard. "This wasn't just his brother, Sol. There were others. Candidates from the last Trials. They were erased, just like him."
She offered the shard to Jun.
"It's not safe," Sol warned.
Jun took it.
Images exploded behind his eyes.
A boy, older than him. Laughing as he swung a staff of obsidian and light. Leading others. Fighting something massive—shadowed in flame and bone. Screams. The sky cracking open. Then darkness.
Jun gasped and dropped the shard.
"That was him," he said. "My brother."
Calista nodded. "They called him Kael. Kael of the Crownless."
Jun stepped back. "But… why erase him?"
"Because he won," Calista said quietly. "And the Crown didn't vanish—it fractured. A piece of it is inside you now."
---
[Scene Shift – Blacksite Observation Post, Operated by The Eclipse]
High above the Zone, a different kind of power watched.
Inside a stealth-locked facility suspended between clouds, a masked figure stood in a glass chamber surrounded by monitors. The air shimmered with kinetic pressure.
"Subject is moving deeper into the Archive," said a voice over comms.
The figure didn't move. His mask was silver, with a vertical slit for a single glowing eye. Two sabers were strapped to his back in an X-shape.
"Shall I deploy?" another voice asked.
"No," the masked man replied. "We wait. Let him remember. When the boy sees the full truth, that's when he breaks."
The monitors zoomed in on Jun's face.
> "And that's when he becomes ours."
---
[Back at the Archives]
Jun sat on the floor, head in his hands.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to be anymore."
"You're a fuse," Calista said. "Between what was and what's coming."
Sol nodded. "And that makes you dangerous. But also necessary."
Suddenly, alarms flared. Red glyphs flashed across the walls. The Archives began to rumble.
"They found us," Sol said.
Jun stood. "Who?"
A panel exploded inward. Three figures entered, each cloaked in midnight armor. No insignias. No words.
But their auras screamed wrong.
"Essence Assassins," Sol muttered. "The Eclipse sent them."
Calista stepped forward, her stitched eye twitching. "I'll hold them. Get the boy out."
"No!" Jun yelled. "I can fight—"
"Not yet," she whispered.
Her skin glowed. The memory shards around her lifted into the air.
> "I remember pain. Let me show you what it taught me."
A pulse of golden light exploded as Calista charged the assassins.
Sol grabbed Jun and ran.
---
[Underground Exit – Archive Tunnels]
As they reached a safer corridor, Jun turned. "We can't leave her!"
"We have to," Sol snapped. "She knew the cost. You are the target. Not her."
Jun's hands shook. "I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one ever does," Sol said. "That's what makes you worthy of the truth."
They ran deeper into the tunnels.
Behind them, the sounds of battle faded.
---
[Meanwhile – Deep Core, Unknown Entity's Prison]
The chains rattled louder.
Blood ran down ancient stone.
"She remembers," the voice growled. "And she delays the inevitable."
The crimson eyes opened fully.
The earth trembled.
> "The boy must reach me before they do. Or the world burns in balance."