Paths of Power

The room was dim, but not dark. A single vertical light-strand buzzed softly near the ceiling, casting pale white lines across the metal floor.

Raen sat with his back against the wall, legs stretched out, the sling with the egg resting between his feet.

He hadn't moved in hours.

Not because he was scared—though he was—but because his body had finally reached its limit.

His stomach ached. His limbs trembled with the aftershock of adrenaline, and his muscles, twitching from the Voidbeast's feedback pulse, felt like overcooked wires. He hadn't eaten since before the Awakening Ceremony. Not a proper meal, at least. Just water, a few old crackers he'd hidden in a coat seam.

Now even those were gone.

A soft click echoed as a panel on the far wall opened.

The girl entered—silent as shadow. She wore a clean black jacket now, unmarked by gang sigils or tracking threads. Her presence was subdued, but sharp. She carried a dented tray and placed it beside him without a word.

He didn't ask what was in the bowl. It was hot. It smelled vaguely of spice and protein paste. That was enough.

He devoured it.

Her voice came after the first few bites.

"You didn't eat before, did you?"

Raen swallowed, not meeting her eyes. "Didn't get the chance."

Silence stretched between them. Not awkward—just... full.

Then, she sat beside him, cross-legged.

"This place used to be a biometric weapons lab. Before the Grid took over and erased all non-standard tech. My people salvaged it."

Raen nodded slowly.

"Your people. The Forgotten."

She didn't answer immediately.

"We weren't always off-grid. Some of us were born inside it. Some served. Others... escaped."

He turned slightly, eyes narrowing.

"You said I was carrying something that shouldn't exist."

Her gaze shifted to the egg.

"You still are."

---

The egg had changed again.

Only subtly—but enough.

The veins running across its black surface had spread slightly, like roots extending just beneath the skin. The glow within it pulsed not like a machine, but like a slow, patient breath.

Alive. Aware.

Watching.

She tilted her head.

"It's not just a beast. You know that, right?"

Raen didn't answer.

Because he wasn't sure anymore.

At first, he'd thought it was a fragment of his awakening—a byproduct of the Codex, or a gift left behind by something forgotten. But now? Now it felt like the center of a question he hadn't learned to ask.

He looked back at her.

"You said this place was a lab. What kind of experiments?"

"Thread mutation," she said softly. "Before the Codex System was fully absorbed into the Grid, scientists here tried to alter how beasts and humans interfaced. Not just bonding—but merging."

Raen's fingers unconsciously tightened around the cloth sling.

"You mean fusion."

"Not in the way you're thinking," she said. "Not a martial symbiosis. Not like the Beastmasters from the Towers. This was different. Deeper. Closer to... rewriting."

He exhaled slowly.

"Why'd they stop?"

She looked away.

"Because the first time someone succeeded… they lost their mind."

---

Raen didn't sleep much that night.

He tried. But the moment he closed his eyes, something inside him stirred.

Memories.

Of the cold Awakening Hall. The way the lights died the moment he touched the crystal. The looks from the instructors. The silence that wasn't quite silence—too filled with pity and dismissal to be clean.

He thought about the classroom where he sat in the back, too poor to afford an eye-link for lecture notes, always writing with actual ink.

He thought about the empty chair beside him—the one that had belonged to someone who was now gone.

If I'd been stronger…

He opened his eyes.

The egg pulsed softly in the dark.

Not asking. Just there.

---

Raen rose early—or at least he thought it was early. Down here in the forgotten sublayer of Sector 9, there were no clocks. No sunrises. Only the rhythmic thrum of the ventilation grid and the faint ambient glow of backup systems blinking to life every few hours.

He splashed cold water over his face in the corner wash bay, wincing at the bite of recycled chill. There were no mirrors here. No reflections. Just his face staring back faintly in the rippling surface of the basin.

He looked different.

Not drastically. But enough.

His skin was still pale from exhaustion, his frame thin from days without proper nutrition. But his eyes—they had changed. No glow. No mutation. Just… focus. A sharpness that hadn't been there before.

Behind him, the egg lay in its sling near his cot.

Still.

Waiting.

---

"You're up."

The voice belonged to Harn—the silver-dreadlocked man Raen had seen briefly when he first arrived.

He stood near one of the old workstations, arms crossed, watching Raen with the casual tension of a veteran soldier.

"Come," Harn said.

Raen followed without a word.

They walked through a corridor of old servitor bays. Ancient mechanical arms, long since rusted and fused into their charging walls, hung like corpses in the gloom. Harn pushed open a maintenance door and led Raen into what looked like a shattered control room.

There was no furniture. Only crates stacked neatly against the walls, marked with old security runes and identification seals from before the last grid restructuring. Most of them were broken open—salvaged for parts or sustenance.

Harn picked up a small projection stone from the floor and activated it with a soft tap.

A flickering holo-display burst to life in midair.

A map.

Not just of Sector 9, but the entire known region of the Core Provinces. It shimmered with static, age-worn and partially corrupted, but the layout was clear.

Raen stepped closer.

"Is this… everything inside the grid?"

Harn nodded.

"Mostly. This map predates the last systemic collapse, so some of it's outdated. But the structure remains."

He gestured toward the center of the map—an enormous spire-shaped territory glowing gold.

"This is Omnithron Prime. The Throne Sector. Where the Grid Lords reside and the High Ascendant Families operate. Every major genetic lineage is based there. If you're born there, you're assigned a Beast Seed before your fourth year."

Raen's jaw tightened.

"And if you're not?"

Harn's finger traced outward from the center, passing through zones marked Silver, then Bronze, and finally to the outer grey bands.

"Then you're like the rest of us. Measured. Sorted. Scored. And if you fail enough times, you're pushed out here."

He tapped the lowest band—Fringe District B.

Raen stared at it.

"That's all we are to them? A buffer?"

"A filter," Harn corrected. "A pressure valve. We're the margin of error that keeps their system from collapsing."

Raen's hands curled at his sides.

"And no one fights back?"

Harn chuckled softly.

"Oh, plenty try. They just don't live long enough to do anything that matters."

---

They walked back in silence.

But Raen's thoughts churned.

The system—he had always known it was unjust. But he hadn't known it was deliberately so. A designed imbalance, not an accidental one.

He had been taught that success came from effort. That his failures were his own. But now he understood.

He was meant to fail.

Because someone like him was never meant to matter.

---

Back in the chamber, the girl—she still hadn't given him her name—was calibrating an old projection board. She glanced up as they returned, then tossed Raen a ration bar.

"Eat it slowly," she said. "It's compressed protein. Two days of nutrients in one bite."

Raen caught it and sat down.

"I saw the map."

She nodded, unsurprised.

"Let me guess. You're angry."

Raen stared at the bar in his hands.

"Shouldn't I be?"

"Yes," she said. "But don't confuse anger with clarity. Rage will burn you out before you even step onto the board."

Raen looked at her.

"You speak like a tactician."

"I was," she replied. "Before I fell off the Grid."

"Military?"

She didn't answer. Just returned to her work.

Raen broke off a piece of the bar and chewed. It tasted like compressed ash and meat. But it was real food. The first he'd had in days.

He glanced at the egg again.

It pulsed faintly.

Hungry.

The Codex flickered softly in his mind's eye.

> [Codex Pulse Detected – Voidbeast Core Activity: Stable]

Genetic Link: Dormant Bond (Low Affinity)

Recommended Action: Increase Symbiotic Exposure

Caution: Prolonged inactivity may result in beast detachment.

Raen narrowed his eyes.

"What happens if the bond breaks?"

The girl looked over her shoulder.

"Then the beast inside will be reborn wild. And you'll die."

---

That night, Raen didn't sleep.

He sat beside the egg, the katana still sheathed and untouched in the corner.

His body was stronger now—rested, fed, awake.

But his mind was heavier.

What am I becoming?

He didn't know yet.

But he knew one thing—

He couldn't afford to stop.

---

[Codex Entry Logged – Mental State: Directed Focus]

> Cognitive Dissonance: Stable

Internal Strain: 24%

Mutation Factor: 7.1%

Voidbeast Core remains quiet. Awaiting resonance event.

---

Raen stood alone at the far end of the corridor, his shoulder leaning lightly against the cold alloy of the wall. The dim overhead light blinked in and out, casting shifting shadows across the floor. From his vantage point, he could see the flicker of firelight leaking beneath the door to the planning chamber.

The others were inside.

He shouldn't have been able to hear anything through that door. The panels were old-world reinforced, once designed to block electromagnetic surveillance.

But Raen was different now.

His ears weren't just ears.

The Codex hummed in the background of his senses, filtering vibrations through some subtle neural function he didn't understand—but instinctively trusted.

He heard voices.

Low. Sharp.

Harn.

"She's too trusting. This isn't like last time."

The girl—her voice cold but controlled. "He's not like the last one."

"And yet he activated the Codex. That alone should be a red flag."

Another voice—older, maybe the sensor-blind woman. Calm, steady.

"We monitor. We guide. If he breaks—then we decide."

Harn again, voice rising. "He's carrying a seed. One that talks. You saw the interface bleed. If that thing hatches wrong—"

"It won't," the girl snapped. "Because I'm watching him."

Raen didn't move.

The words didn't surprise him.

He was an outsider. A wildcard. The thing inside the egg wasn't just powerful—it was unknown.

And unknowns got people killed.

---

He returned to the side chamber they'd given him—bare cot, ration station, sanitation pod. His katana remained untouched, propped beside the folded cloth sling. The egg rested in its cradle.

It pulsed faintly.

Still asleep.

Still hungry.

Still watching.

Raen sat cross-legged beside it, his eyes unfocused, his breath steady.

He didn't resent their suspicion. It was smart.

If anything, he respected it.

But it made something else clear: he couldn't wait to be told what to do. Couldn't afford to rely on their goodwill. He needed answers. On his own.

Not about the Forgotten.

About the Codex.

About the thing in his blood.

---

> [Codex System – Internal Inquiry Function Available]

Access to full historical logs: Restricted

[Unauthorized access to Codex Genesis Archives requires elevated privileges]

Would you like to engage Shadow Path Protocol?

Warning: This may alert latent watchers in the system grid.

Raen hesitated.

He'd only used the interface for self-monitoring until now. He hadn't dared push deeper.

But waiting had gotten him nowhere.

He focused.

Yes.

The moment he accepted, the world shifted.

Not physically—but in perception.

His vision blurred, then reassembled itself into layers.

One layer showed his room.

The other showed data.

Endless threads of it—spirals of information wrapped in looping fragments of code, scrawled in a language he didn't recognize but understood.

The Codex wasn't just a tool.

It was a door.

And someone had sealed it from the inside.

---

> [Shadow Path Engaged]

Location detected: Low-Vault Sector 9-Beta

Function: Codex Testing Archive

Status: Sealed – Inactive

Access Method: Biometric Override or Beast-Core Key

Codex Suggestion: Compatible Node Located Within 1.7 km

Raen blinked.

A hidden archive?

Nearby?

He stood.

His limbs were still sore from training, but something in him had shifted—clarity like a shard of ice between the ribs.

If the Forgotten weren't ready to trust him yet…

He would give them a reason to.

Not with words.

But with answers.

---

Fringe Sector 9 – Forgotten Layer Outskirts

Slipping past the perimeter wasn't hard. The Forgotten didn't keep guards—only motion sensors and auto-sweepers, most of which Raen had watched reset after a system cycle.

He moved quietly, keeping to the outer vents and side passages. The egg he left behind. It pulsed in silence.

The katana he took.

Still sheathed. Still unfamiliar.

But something about its weight calmed him.

The map the Codex projected was subtle—just a shifting compass in the edge of his vision, flickering every time he passed a junction or crossed a layered zone of electromagnetic waste.

Eventually, he reached a wall.

It wasn't marked by any map.

No sign. No entry port.

Just a flat alloy panel smudged with soot.

But the Codex blinked.

> Access Point Detected

Codex Signature Resonance: 73%

Matching Thread: Primordial Type

Raen reached out.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the panel hissed—and melted inward like wax.

A narrow passage formed.

Beyond it, cold darkness waited.

Raen stepped inside.

---

The chamber was silent.

Old. Dead.

Screens covered in dust. A shattered beast-core incubator, long since cracked open. Chairs overturned. Fractured runes along the floor still glowed faintly blue. This had once been a lab—just like the girl had said. A place of experiments.

Raen crossed to a console.

He didn't need to activate it.

The moment he approached, the Codex pulsed.

> Welcome, Raen Virell

Codex Classification: Irregular Host

Core Status: Fusion Delay State

Legacy Key Matched: Primordial Core

Accessing...

[Codex Archive – Entry One Unlocked]

---

A voice echoed in the chamber.

Not a recording. Not mechanical.

Memetic imprint.

A thought wrapped in sound.

> "If you're hearing this… it means the breach was never closed."

> "It means the last bond failed."

> "You are the final fallback."

Raen stood frozen as the voice crawled into his mind.

> "What you carry is not just a beast."

"It is a survivor."

"Of a war that never ended. Only forgot."

The message ended.

Silence returned.

And Raen understood one thing—

The egg hadn't just chosen him.

It had remembered him.

---

> Codex Update

Core Affinity: +7%

Beast Thread Reactivity: Increasing

Mutation Factor: 8.5%

Voidbeast Status: Stable | Dormant | Watching