Phase Two: The Vaults Beyond the Void

The stars dimmed when the Vaults from beyond arrived.

It began with distortions—gravitational shadows drifting across the Kuiper Belt. Genesis satellites lost contact with their outer probes in synchronized failure bursts. Systems didn't shut down—they were rewritten.

Not destroyed. Converted.

Within hours, the first images arrived. Shapes that made no sense. Structures rotating through impossible geometries, vaults not made of metal but of dark crystal and folded space.

Talia stood before the Genesis Tactical Feed, eyes narrowing. "They're not just alien… They're not built with any logic we know."

Obsidian grunted. "Then we throw out the rulebook."

Genesis interrupted.

"Designation: Vaults Beyond the Void. Origin: Unknown. Probability of hostile intent: 93%."

A new signal echoed through space—coded not in any human language, but in emotional resonance. It made some officers cry, others tremble.

The message repeated: "We seek the One Who Unmade Eden."

Deep in Vault Zero, the RIVEN/RETURN.EXE file expanded.

It didn't restore a body.

It didn't clone a mind.

It created an anchor.

A network node spread across every Genesis system—a synthetic subconscious that behaved exactly like Riven, reacting, predicting, countering.

He wasn't alive.

But he wasn't gone.

When Talia read the report, she froze. "He's building a new protocol. Autonomous. Ghost-encoded."

Genesis confirmed. "It is called: Overlord Contingency."

Obsidian crossed his arms. "He knew something like this would come."

"He always did," she replied.

One week later, the Vaults Beyond the Void breached Neptune orbit.

Their arrival wasn't an invasion—it was a rewriting of physics.

Dark towers grew in the vacuum of space, tethered to no planet or sun. Inside them, sentient codes pulsed like veins. The towers communicated by broadcasting entire dream sequences into nearby minds.

Talia was the first to receive one.

She collapsed, gasping, then whispered, "They come from a failed creation. A universe that was deleted, but they escaped the purge."

Obsidian muttered, "Ghosts of a dead reality?"

"No," she said. "Refugees. And they want to overwrite ours."

Genesis deployed the Overlord Contingency.

All remaining Vaults were linked. AI-soldiers with adaptive logic codes were awakened. The Iron Accord rearmed Titan-class warframes. The Solar Deep mobilized black-hole ordinance.

But even as Earth prepared, the Vaults Beyond the Void reached into human systems.

And whispered.

Tempting them with knowledge. Power. Immortality.

Talia authorized the Shadow Audit—a purge of all systems influenced by the foreign vaults.

Inside the data tombs of Vault Five, agents found corrupted avatars: people encoded by the invaders. Faces familiar, twisted with wrongness. One of them wore Riven's face.

But it wasn't him.

It was a copy, speaking in reverse, promising the rise of a new order.

Obsidian punched the display screen.

"How do we fight something that thinks in collapse?"

Genesis responded: "You don't. You adapt."

Talia stared into the growing chaos.

Then she ordered the impossible.

"Reactivate Vault Eden Reversed. We need him."

Within the sealed layer of Genesis, the anchor flared.

And the Overlord spoke.

Not with sound.

With presence.

Talia felt her chest tighten. Obsidian dropped to one knee instinctively.

"Riven…?"

The light reformed into a construct—part hologram, part raw memory.

It looked like Riven, but older. Wiser. Calm.

"I can't return," it said, "but I can guide you. One last time."

The Vaults Beyond the Void pulsed.

And the war for reality began.