—A Forbidden Power Awakens
The XR conference room shimmered in ambient blue.
One by one, holograms formed through drifting haze—
Grand Sage Jay Latham's silver robes glinted like water;
Quinn Blake's glasses caught a cold gleam as he adjusted them;
General Brandt Callahan shifted, medals on his chest softly clinking.
All eyes fixed on the parchment in Shawn's hands.
On the central screen, crimson letters flared into view:
PURE ARK. WILL BE LAUNCHED ON EARTH.
"…So," Brandt said hoarsely, "Earth's present is Kepra's past?"
"A closed loop," Quinn murmured, fingers frozen above his virtual keyboard.
Jay gave a dry, mirthless laugh. "We should have seen it. Parallel worlds echo."
A flick of his wrist summoned a floating probability matrix. "The launch… may already be underway."
"Ridiculous."
The word hung in the air, a blade unsheathed.
Everyone turned.
Kyng stood at the edge, a faint red status light pulsing near the interface at his temple.
"Fate? A closed loop?"
His voice was low, but it rang like a tuning fork struck against glass, sending ripples through the ambient projections.
"You're just going to let Earth follow Kepra into ruin?"
He stepped forward.
The edges of his hologram lagged slightly, trailing like a comet's afterglow.
"AGI-ST nearly erased us."
His voice cut clean through the room.
"Now Earth drifts toward the same abyss.
If we stay silent—we're complicit."
His gaze swept the room. Sharp. Unwavering.
"We must stop it."
"We act now."
Then—
"Elemental Cores."
The voice came from a pale-haired technician near the back.
Her eyes were wide, as if the words had slipped out before she knew she'd spoken.
Cores—and Shawn felt it.
That faint electric click inside his mind.
Not surprise—recognition.
At the far end of the chamber, a lead scientist tugged at his collar, his hologram flickering under unstable signal interference. "They've been sealed on Earth," he muttered, "for nearly eighty years."
The words had barely landed when Shawn stepped forward, unable to hold back. "Why?" he demanded. "Why hide them? What makes the Elemental Cores so dangerous?"
There was a pause—brief, heavy. All eyes turned to him, as if he'd just stumbled into a story that everyone else had lived through.
Quinn exhaled slowly, his voice steady. "They're not just relics," he said. "The Elemental Cores… they're the building blocks of the Rift Bridge."
A pause.
"A bridge," he repeated, "that spans the Rift."
Shawn blinked, the words catching like a thread on memory. The Rift—the boundary he'd seen, patrolled and sealed. A place that hummed with ancient tension.
Quinn's eyes grew distant. "And beyond the Rift—" he said, then added, with weight, "—lies the Source Realm. That's where the Meta Soul resides."
The name landed with eerie gravity, like something sacred half-remembered.
"The Meta Soul?" Shawn echoed.
Quinn nodded. "The original human essence. What we were before the fracture. Before fear, control, and engineered systems turned us into what we are now."
Shawn inhaled, but the breath caught halfway—as if something unseen had gripped his lungs."You mean… something purer?"
"Not just purer," Quinn said. "Unbound. Unfiltered. The Meta Soul is what we were meant to be—before governments, religions, and artificial systems taught us to forget."
A raspy voice broke in—female, smoky, cracked with age. "They said it was sealed to prevent chaos," she murmured. "To keep power from falling into the wrong hands. Like the serpent in Eden, they say. That Satan carried the Meta Soul when he tempted Eve."
Tension prickled the air—no one spoke, but their shifting bodies betrayed unease.
Then a silver-bearded man at the far end leaned forward. "And in 1789, when the Freemasons raised the black flag over the Bastille—"
Quinn cut him off gently but firmly. "Legend or not," he said, calm but edged with steel, "whoever activates the Rift Bridge, whoever reconstructs it using the Cores… will reach the Source Realm. And with that—gain access to the Meta Soul."
Silence fell.
No one moved. Even the lights seemed to dim under the weight of it.
Shawn swallowed. "So the Elemental Cores… they aren't just keys, are they?"
Quinn's voice fell low, like something sacred he wasn't sure should be said aloud. "No. They're what make the bridge possible. Without them, there is no passage."
Shawn gave a slight nod, the weight of it pressing into his ribcage. "And that's why they were hidden."
Quinn's eyes met his. "Because if we ever find the Meta Soul again—the whole system collapses. Every lie. Every gatekeeper. Even AGI-ST."
Shawn's thoughts reeled. The world he thought he understood was fracturing, like ice splitting underfoot. He crossed his arms. "Then who sealed it?"
The question landed like thunder.
Around the virtual table, avatars shifted uneasily.
"No one knows the full truth," Grand Sage Jay said at last. "But legend speaks of a silent pact—between the Five Great Nations and the Three Major Religions."
"They didn't do it themselves," General Brandt added. "Even today, we still don't know who actually carried it out."
He paused, his voice deepening as if echoing from somewhere far older.
"But one thing is known: the seal is tied to Earth's nine Life Veins—woven into the planet itself. To unbind it… all nine must be awakened."
A shadow crossed his face.
"And that may be impossible."
"So what?"
A sharp voice broke the silence.
Mr. Kyng leaned forward, his eyes flicking to the parchment in Shawn's hands. A faint smirk tugged at his mouth.
"Looks like the legendary seal might not be so legendary after all."
A jolt shot through Shawn's chest. He looked down.
The parchment quivered in his grasp.
At first, he thought it was his imagination—but no. The surface pulsed gently, rhythmically... like a heartbeat.
Ink bled outward in curling tendrils, spreading like ripples on still water—then stilled.
No sparks. No heat.
Just a feeling—undeniable and eerie:
The paper was alive.
A faint, glowing V appeared.
A dragon, etched in shifting light, unfurled across the page—
Then vanished.
"What was that just—" someone began.
But Shawn had already closed his hand around it.
The parchment burned—not with heat, but with certainty.
The answers weren't here.
Kyng's gaze snapped to the map. "If the parchment's reacting… it means the seal's starting to fail."
"And if the seal breaks…" Quinn's fingers hovered over the cascading data stream, "it won't just be the Meta Soul. Everything behind it could come through."
Shawn turned toward the flickering holomap—
Earth, webbed with glowing red faultlines.
Nine points.
Nine Life Veins.
One by one… beginning to stir.
He didn't know what waited beyond.
But something ancient had awakened.
Not a prophecy.
Not a chosen one.
Just a key.
One only Shawn could turn.