The air inside Delta-9 was no longer just heavy—it was aware.
Each corridor pulsed like veins in a slumbering beast, and as Kael led the group deeper, the ruin's walls warped with memory echoes. Sometimes a child's laughter. Sometimes screams. Sometimes a humming that only Zarith dared hum back to.
It wasn't madness.
It was memory saturation.
"We're close," Kael said flatly, his hand brushing across a floating glyph that flickered and swirled into a spiral of equations only he could read.
Sera stepped beside him, frowning. "You keep saying that. Close to what?"
"Whatever the ruin doesn't want us to see."
Tessia sniffed the air. "Smells wrong. Like wet firewood… and rot."
"Temporal bleed," Zarith muttered. "The ruin is folding time. Smells like old years, dried blood, bad history."
"Charming," Dren grumbled, tightening his grip on his blade.
They came upon a chamber shaped like an hourglass—walls curved inward, laced with mirrors of polished obsidian. In the center hovered a sphere of fractured crystal, constantly shifting, its surface bleeding faint silver mist.
Kael stepped forward, ignoring the sudden resistance in the air.
He raised his hand.
The ruin answered.
Glyphs unfolded around the sphere, rearranging into a circular lock. Six segments. One missing.
"I've seen this type of gate before," Kael murmured. "Not in this world. But in data constructs."
"A lock?" Sera asked.
Kael nodded. "But not for keeping something out. It's meant to keep something in."
Before anyone could speak, the entire ruin shivered.
The obsidian mirrors vibrated—then flickered.
And suddenly, images bloomed inside each one.
→ A scorched battlefield of the Ash Years, soldiers consumed by flame and chanting gods' names in vain.
→ A collapsing floating city—Aerathurn, centuries ago.
→ A boy, not Kael, but someone familiar—standing alone before a monolith shaped like a massive eye.
→ And Kael himself—or someone wearing his face, whispering to a ruin as it died around him.
Tessia stepped back, eyes narrowing. "That's… that's not possible."
"It's a warning," Zarith muttered. "Or a memory. Or both."
"Then what is it warning about?" Sera asked.
Kael turned to face them. "Not what. Who."
The mirrors went black.
Then one shimmered again—showing the entrance to Delta-9.
And outside it—
Figures.
Armored.
Runeblade insignias.
Crimson Vultures, crossing the sand.
Skyships dropping ropes and climbing squads.
Kael's jaw tightened. "They've entered the outer gates."
"How?" Tessia hissed. "This ruin shouldn't allow that."
"They're not fully inside," Kael said. "The ruin is confused. Splintering. It doesn't know who's real anymore."
Dren smirked darkly. "Just like us."
Sera stepped toward Kael. "What's your plan now, genius? We're trapped between ghosts and incoming armies."
"We finish the sequence," Kael said.
"And then what? Hope it teleports us somewhere nice?"
"No." Kael turned back toward the core crystal. "We open what this ruin has locked away. And use it before anyone else can."
"And if it kills us?" Dren asked.
Kael's gaze sharpened. "Then we die first."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Tessia sighed. "You're really committed to this 'mad tactician' thing, aren't you?"
Kael gave a rare grin. "Only because it's working."
Before anyone could retort, the ruin pulsed again—this time more violently.
The core cracked.
Just slightly.
A voice whispered—not from the air, but from the minds of everyone present.
"You walk toward what was sealed…Not by chains.But by choice."
Zarith stumbled. "It knows we're here. It knows who we are."
From above, the sound of impact—someone breaching a defensive shell.
Kael's fingers moved rapidly across the hovering glyphs, recalibrating them.
"Thirty seconds," he muttered. "Hold the room."
Sera turned to the others. "Weapons ready. Dren, block the entrance. Tessia, high ground."
The air thickened with static.
Another breach.
This time closer.
Then—footsteps.
Boots on the stone floor.
Kael didn't look up. "If they enter before the core opens, they'll trigger a collapse protocol."
"Meaning?" Sera demanded.
Kael's hands moved faster. "Meaning they'll die. And so will we."
Sera swore.
Tessia growled, crouched with two knives drawn.
The glyphs surged—final lock disengaging.
The core unfolded like a flower.
And within it—a sphere of pulsing thought. Not metal. Not magic.
Memory.
Kael reached out.
The moment his fingers touched it, the ruin screamed—one long, broken pulse of light.
And in that instant, everything outside froze.
Time, sand, wind, and warriors in mid-step.
Kael's team stood alone.
The ruin had chosen.
And now… so would Kael.
[ END OF CHAPTER 14 ]