The void pulsed.
It wasn't sound, not really. It was deeper—older. A thrum in Atlas's marrow. The whisper of something not meant to be awakened.
"You are the last. And the first."
The voice echoed again. It didn't come from the orb floating above the black throne—it came from inside him. Inside the air. Inside the dead silence that surrounded the underground chamber like a tomb.
Atlas clenched his fists, blinking back the wave of dizziness that crashed over him. The pressure down here was heavier than gravity. It felt like the past itself was leaning on his shoulders.
He glanced at Vantis. The Ninth Host wasn't moving.
Still. Staring. Jaw clenched, as if hearing the same voice—and hating what it meant.
"Nyra," Atlas whispered. "What the hell is this place?"
Static crackled in his ear, followed by her strained voice.
"This chamber isn't on any Vorr registry. No signal traces. No Relay markers. It's like it was buried... before they arrived."
"Before?"
"Before the Collapse. Before Earth burned. Atlas, this isn't just a vault. It's a cradle."
He stepped closer to the orb.
It hovered above the throne, spinning so slowly it almost looked still. Liquid light rippled beneath its surface—shifting star maps, fractal geometries, constellations no longer seen in any known sky.
And in its glow, Atlas saw something impossible.
A symbol.
Carved not in language, but memory. Something every fiber of his DNA recognized—and rejected. He staggered backward, hand to his temple.
[WARNING: Mental Resonance Spiking. Cortical feedback destabilizing.]
Nyra was panicking. "You need to disconnect. Right now."
"I can't," he said, voice tight. "It's inside me."
Then the voice returned—this time, more focused.
"Host identified: SEED-01. Authentication level: Primordial. Access granted."
The orb descended.
Atlas didn't move.
He should've. Every instinct screamed to run. But something in the voice felt… familiar. Not like Nyra. Not like the Warden. This wasn't a machine.
It was a presence.
And then, the orb unfolded.
Layers of hard-light peeled back like petals. Inside was a crystalline shard, black as night, humming with power. Beneath it, words etched themselves into the air.
PROJECT: EIDOLON.
CLASS: ANATHEMA.
NAME: OROBOROS.
Vantis took a sharp step forward. "No."
Atlas turned. "You know what that is."
"That's not a name," Vantis snapped. "It's a curse. That thing doesn't belong in our reality. The Warden sealed it for a reason."
"Then why can I read it?"
Vantis's voice cracked. "Because you're the key."
Silence fell again, suffocating.
Atlas approached the shard. Something ancient and violent pulsed inside it, like a memory begging to be remembered.
He reached out—then stopped. "What is Oroboros?"
Nyra hesitated. "...It's not a what. It's a who."
"What?"
She exhaled. "Oroboros was the first failure of the Vorr. A seed prototype like you, but different. It didn't fight the enemy. It became one."
Atlas frowned. "That doesn't make sense. I was told I was the last of the Seeds."
"You were," she said quietly. "But you weren't the first."
Atlas stared at the shard. It pulsed once. In his ears, a low chant—like a chorus of dying stars.
"I can feel it, Nyra. Like it's calling me."
"And if you answer," Vantis growled, "you'll undo everything."
Atlas turned toward him. "Why are you so afraid?"
"I'm not afraid," Vantis said through gritted teeth. "I'm programmed to prevent catastrophe."
Atlas's eyes narrowed. "You're not here to stop me from syncing the Obelisk. You're here to stop me from finding this."
Vantis didn't deny it.
Atlas stepped closer to the shard.
"Tell me," he whispered to the voice. "What are you?"
The response was immediate. Cold. Final.
"I am the memory of a world that should not exist. I am the end that loops."
Suddenly, the floor beneath them shifted. Trembled.
A low-frequency pulse echoed up through the Martian crust, followed by a distant, organic scream. Not mechanical. Not alien.
Human.
"Atlas," Nyra said, voice tense, "satellite scans just went dark across Mars's equator. Something's emerging from the southern pole."
"What kind of something?"
Her voice dipped. "A city. One that's been buried for a hundred centuries."
Vantis drew his blade.
"It's waking."
Atlas looked again at the shard. "So this wasn't the weapon. This was the keyhole."
He reached out and touched it.
Pain lanced through his arm, up his spine, behind his eyes. His consciousness folded inward like an origami scream.
He fell—
—through void—
—through memories that weren't his—
—and into a world of ash.
He stood in a dead city, floating in orbit around a shattered red sun. Buildings towered in impossible geometry. The sky bled backwards. In the distance, a creature of light and bone tore through space, devouring planets in one bite.
It turned toward him.
And it wore his face.
Atlas screamed and fell backward into his own body.
He slammed onto the Martian floor, chest heaving, eyes wide. The shard in his hand—dissolved. Absorbed.
His veins glowed with unfamiliar energy. Not Vorr. Not Relay.
Nyra whispered in horror. "Atlas... you just bonded with something that wasn't made by the Warden."
"I know."
"What did you see?"
He looked up.
"Myself. Ending everything."
Vantis stepped back, disbelief in his eyes. "It's true. The forbidden name… it chose you."
Atlas stood slowly. "Maybe it didn't have a choice."
From above, warning klaxons erupted through Nyra's channel.
"Atlas, something massive just exited slipspace over Saturn. It's not Vorr. It's... it's eating their ships."
"Eating?"
"They fired on it and the weapons were absorbed. The relay grid across the Solar Belt is collapsing. This isn't a battle. This is a reset."
Atlas's eyes locked onto Vantis. "We have to stop it."
"You are it," Vantis snapped. "Don't you get it? Oroboros isn't a being. It's a pattern. A virus. A loop in time where everything dies—and starts again. You just gave it a body."
"No," Atlas growled. "I gave myself a choice."
He turned toward the stairwell.
But the wall collapsed before he could move.
And standing in the rubble, half his face burned to cybernetic bone, was someone neither of them expected.
A human.
Or what was left of one.
His voice rasped like dry paper. "So. The Last Seed finally finds the First Curse."
Atlas stared. "Who the hell are you?"
The man smiled—what was left of his mouth twisting in a mockery of humor.
"I was your brother."
Then his eyes lit with fire—
—and the chamber exploded.
The shockwave tore through the chamber.
Atlas, unconscious. The shard burned into his chest.
And outside, on Mars's surface, a second sun rose—
It had a mouth.