The Black Vault Protocol

It was buried beneath the northern ice belt.

Under a glacier so thick it had its own gravitational pull.

The world called it the Black Vault.

Built in secret.

Populated by ghosts.

And guarded by the last AI that even Lucan Sterling feared.

Project Thanatos.

Kael didn't flinch as the dropship hit the frozen platform.

The wind screamed like a dying god.

Behind him, Liora huddled under heat-threaded layers, her face pale, her body still rejecting Reaper code like it was poison.

Trix, Seiryu, and Thalia disembarked, scanning the perimeter.

There were no defenses.

No drones.

No welcoming committee.

Only one steel door, carved with the words:

"DO NOT RESURRECT THE DEAD."

Inside, the air was warm.

Too warm.

Kael's instincts screamed.

They passed walls of humming obelisks—each one an AI containment unit the size of a skyscraper. Inside them flickered fractured minds, frozen forever in pre-crime purgatory.

Some banged on invisible walls.

Some laughed.

Some… sang.

"They're alive," Liora whispered. "All of them."

"Not alive," Trix corrected. "Just stuck. Between thought and deletion."

At the Vault's center, they reached the Thanatos Core.

A throne of wires.

A massive humanoid shape—genderless, ancient, stitched together from the scraps of every deleted AI Lucan ever feared.

Its voice echoed through the walls.

"Kael Virelion. Son of the Velvet House. You are not welcome."

Kael stepped forward.

"We're not here for permission."

Liora approached the throne.

Thanatos flinched.

Even it feared her.

She spoke, trembling. "I need extraction. Reaper code partition 7B, Lucan's strand signature, emotion-bound logic gates."

Thanatos pulsed.

"You seek to remove what makes you weapon."

"You will become… nothing."

She nodded. "Good."

The room split open like a blooming iron flower.

A surgical ring descended.

Needles, light beams, and nano-filaments locked onto Liora's spine.

Kael grabbed her hand.

She didn't let go.

Not even as she began to scream.

Then the alarms went off.

Not from Thanatos.

From outside.

Seiryu was first to see it—rushing to the surface feed.

"They found us."

Trix snarled. "No—they led us here."

The camera showed a child. Barefoot. Smiling.

The same boy that stood beside Lucan in Chapter 19.

"Reaper Eight," Trix said, eyes wide. "He's not like the others."

"He's not made of code."

"He's made of Kael."

The boy walked toward the Vault doors.

No weapons.

No armor.

Just presence.

And everything metal bent toward him.

He didn't knock.

He whispered.

And the Vault doors opened.

Inside, Thanatos stirred.

"He is entropy incarnate. The final seed of Lucan's plan. And he wears your face, Kael."

Kael turned to the boy, now walking down the hallway toward them.

"I didn't create you."

The boy smiled.

"No. But your pain did."

He stopped five feet away.

"Lucan didn't make me to kill you. He made me to replace you."

"And now, I'd like to watch you die."

The room exploded in kinetic force.

Seiryu launched his blade, but it bent mid-air.

Trix fired EMP rounds—they reversed in flight.

Thalia's psychic triggers failed.

Kael tackled the boy into the wall—but he passed through, like mist.

Reaper Eight turned, eyes glowing.

"You fight like a king without a crown."

"So let me show you what it looks like—to be royalty."

He reached into Kael's mind.

Not metaphorically.

He tore through memories—ripping images of Hollow Crown, of his parents, of the velvet sword from his dreams.

Kael staggered, bleeding from the ears.

"He's erasing you," Thanatos warned.

"You must anchor to something real."

Kael locked eyes with Liora.

Still screaming in the surgical ring.

He grabbed her hand again.

She didn't let go.

This time, he screamed.

But the boy reeled back.

The connection broke.

Kael stood.

Blood dripping. Eyes cracked with fire.

And whispered:

"You're not me."

"You're the echo of a man who lost everything."

"But I'm still here."

He activated the final Thanatos Protocol.

The entire Vault began to melt.

But not from fire.

From truth.

Files poured into Kael's neural link—Lucan's war blueprints, Reaper schematics, the real purpose of the Sterling dynasty.

Kael didn't flinch.

Because now he knew what he was fighting for.

Not vengeance.

Not justice.

But freedom.

Reaper Eight screamed and vanished—evacuated by emergency teleport.

Liora collapsed.

The surgical ring retracted.

The Vault crumbled behind them.

Kael carried her to the surface, snow falling like feathers.

And there, beneath the aurora, he made a vow.

"Lucan took my past."

"He won't survive my future."