15 : Conduits

We all loaded into the Gravehowl.

The armored truck groaned slightly under the weight as the doors sealed shut. Malakai took a seat beside Neo, who sat with arms crossed, gaze unreadable. Mattethis, unconscious but stable, was strapped in at Neo's other side, head lolled gently against the wall. Daniel claimed shotgun beside the GRARC driver, tapping the dash like he'd been there before.

Professor Neil sat between Meredith and Forn, the two of them flanking him like silent guards. Forn's hands rested on her lap, already scrawling something onto her board. Meredith, as always, looked ahead — sharp-eyed, focused, but curious.

As the Gravehowl rumbled forward, its engines roared over gravel and broken streets. But louder still were the sounds outside.

Civilians — the ones still sane, still intact — lined the sides of the street. They clapped and shouted, some crying, others just standing in stunned reverence. It wasn't for the truck.

It was for the people inside.

For the Resonants who had survived.

The zone looked alive again. Not healed — not yet — but alive.

"So, Neil," Meredith began, turning to him, voice casual but laced with curiosity. "What exactly do you research?"

The professor adjusted his broken glasses, then exhaled softly. "Sovereign," he said simply. "I study Sovereign."

He saw the questions in their eyes and smiled faintly. "He's not as advanced as most people think. Not really. Sovereign doesn't know everything — he learns through us. Through our actions, emotions, even desires."

"like a conduit? " Forn wrote, tilting the board so Neil could see.

He nodded. "Something like that. When Xalith descended into the Underworld, it triggered what we call a pulse — a kind of metaphysical ripple. Whenever a Resonant enters a new realm, it sends out a signal Sovereign can interpret. That pulse… allowed him to classify the riftborn as demons. Before that, they were just anomalies."

"So he updates himself based on where we go?" Meredith asked.

"Exactly," Neil said. "No one has ever been to the Old Realm, not yet — but the moment someone does, Sovereign will evolve again. New classifications. New powers. Maybe even new rules."

He paused a moment, then added thoughtfully, "He listens to us. Not directly — not like a voice in your head — but through intention. Thought alone can trigger a boon if the conditions are right. It's not always fair. Not always predictable. But it's reactive. Alive."

"And the Empties?" Meredith pressed. "You said something before… about their memories?"

Neil grew quiet. "Yes. My core research is on them. Sovereign takes their memories — we don't know how. Not exactly. But I think… I think he uses those fragments to forge boons. Like raw material. Grief, fear, purpose, guilt — whatever their final thoughts were... it fuels him."

"That's nice," Daniel muttered from the front seat, not turning around.

Neil nodded slowly, catching the double meaning. "It is," he said. "But also… fascinating. We're walking inside something we still don't understand. There are laws in this world we haven't even discovered yet."

He pushed his glasses up with one finger, a glint of quiet obsession flickering in his eyes.

"Sovereign helps with crafting through a GUI now, and if we uncover anything new, he'll automate that too. He's also... an impeccable recorder of history. Imagine it — one day, we might be able to access it. Everything lost. Every moment. Every death. Catalogued."

He let out a breath, almost a laugh. "It just makes me so excited."

No one responded immediately letting it set.

"What about quests?" Meredith asked. "I heard there were strict restrictions."

"Ah — quests," Neil said, sitting up straighter. "Yes, there are restrictions, but they're usually fair. Most of the time, if the punishment for failing a quest is death, it's tied to something incredibly dire. In those cases, I believe it's... justified."

He paused, thinking.

"Now, the Fateless aliases... that's where it gets interesting. As misleading as it sounds, it has nothing to do with fate directly. From what we've studied, it seems tied to spiritual guardians. For reasons we don't fully understand, when a Fateless individual receives a quest, it doesn't bind to them — it binds to the guardian. That's the only consistent variable we've seen."

Meredith narrowed her eyes. "So Sovereign can't control them?"

"Not in the usual way," Neil admitted. "It's like the system can't anchor itself properly — as if their soulprint refuses to be threaded. I suppose that not being affected by spells or compulsions means Sovereign can't 'mark' you either."

Neil looked at Malakai again.

For a moment, their eyes met.

The Gravehowl's rumble dulled around them — just steel and silence.

Neil didn't smile. Didn't blink. Just studied him, as if searching for the shape of something only he could see.

Malakai didn't look away.

He didn't speak.

He didn't need to.

Whatever Neil was hoping to find, Kai had already buried it too deep.

"Daily meditation might be more powerful than we thought."Neo looked kinda shocked he knew guardians were strong but that made him rethink aliases.

Outside, the last remnants of the imp infested fields slipped past the windows.

Daniel decided to open the hatch and get on the .50 cal however surprisingly he wasn't trigger happy. Instead it was small calculated taps of the trigger aiming for precision.

His target? Imps.

The rest of the trip was just quiet minus the loud gun.

***

Upon reaching Zone Alpha and passing through the required travel checks, we finally pulled into the checkpoint's garage — though calling it a garage was generous. It was more of a sunken concrete field boxed in by high walls, watchtowers, and steel floodlights. Armed GRARC soldiers lined the perimeter above, rifles slung and eyes alert.

As the Gravehowl rumbled to a stop, the weight of everything still hung in the air. No one spoke. The silence wasn't uncomfortable — just heavy. Like we were all still trying to process what we'd survived.

Across from us, in the civilian lot, Forn's car sat gleaming under the harsh lights. Six seats. Clearly expensive. Clean. Untouched by blood or ash or anything that should've followed us out of that zone.

She stood beside it and held up her board with a soft smile:

"I'll drive us home."

Daniel and Meredith both declined. Their families lived near the edge of the city, and they said they'd walk from here.

Neo and Mattethis nodded, stepping toward her car without a word.

Which left Kai.

He hesitated. Every part of him wanted to walk — to vanish into the dark streets, disappear into thought, maybe even get lost on purpose.

But the truth was…

He had no idea how to get back to Nynxreach.

Not from here. Not in this sprawling, restructured Sydney, where even the sky looked wrong some days.

So he sighed — quiet, bitter — and followed.

Not because he wanted company.

But because solitude didn't always mean freedom.

Sometimes, it just meant circling the same wound until it stopped bleeding.

Or worse — until it didn't.

He slid into the back seat and shut the door without a word.

The world kept moving.

And he let it.