Location: Off-Grid Neighborhood — Safe House — Elijah's Room — Night
The monitor glowed.
Blue-white light spilled across Elijah's face, carving shadows under his eyes, highlighting the silver streak in his hair. The game's menu screen pulsed with slow, rhythmic beats—a heartbeat made of pixels and code.
Echo of Vaults.
The catalogue menu unfolded like a scroll. Setting. Story Mode. Exhibition. Multiplayer Challenge. The last option was locked—a padlock icon, grayed out, chains wrapped around its base.
Behind the menu, the background shifted.
A woman appeared. Not real—rendered. Her hair was silver, cascading down her shoulders like a waterfall of mercury. Her gown was white, embroidered with constellations that moved as she breathed. She stood in a throne room of crystal and light, her hand resting on a spear that gleamed like captured starlight.
Princess Kira of Othomos.
The image faded.
Another figure replaced her. A warrior, massive, his skin the color of bronze. He wore armor that seemed forged from molten rock, cracks of orange light pulsing through the plates. His helmet was shaped like a snarling beast, and from his back rose the silhouette of folded wings—not angelic, draconic.
Asura of Netherest.
The wallpaper cycled through seven portraits—each one a sovereign, each one surrounded by elemental residue that flickered and danced. Fire, water, earth, air, light, shadow, gold. The colors bled into each other, forming a halo around the menu options.
Tyla stood behind Elijah's chair.
Her arms were crossed. Her brows were furrowed. She watched the screen with the expression of someone trying to understand a language they had never heard.
"A childish game," she said, "when we could be checking on the turf cliques. The Calvetti are watching Nathan Drayke. The Wycliffe are moving. And you're... playing?"
Elijah leaned back.
His hands spread wide. His fingers traced the air—a gesture that was theatrical, expansive, the gesture of a man who had just been asked to explain the obvious.
"My always bright and beautiful companion," he said, "do I look like a fellow who doesn't know what he is doing?"
Tyla's eyes moved to his face.
Then to the screen.
Then back to his face.
Her internal thoughts churned.
Well. You matched at the Freakshow in disguise. Caused a disturbance that put you under Morrecca's radar. That led to the partnership with the Tunaro through your antics—attracting that loose-pants kid. Then assassins were sent, but it turned into good fortune. We acquired gear. You used it to cheat another turf faction into hating the Morrecca, leading to their destruction.
So if I'm not wrong, you are quite a fox.
Everything you do might appear simple. But it isn't.
But a kid's game...
That I can't quite understand.
"Explain," she said.
Elijah turned back to the monitor.
"The power I have—the Astraseal—it came from somewhere. A force. It entered me through a... star node. A spatial anchor. Wilder found the coordinates of that node hidden in this game."
"Coordinates?"
"Buried in a quest. A tree. A carved message." He tapped the keyboard. "There are six more. And I believe they're also hidden here."
Tyla was quiet.
"So your power was given to you by some force you believe came from an opened star satellite. And you think there are six others."
"Yes."
"And you're playing a game to find them."
"That's the plan."
She uncrossed her arms.
"Then play."
---
Elijah selected Story Mode.
The screen went black.
Then—light.
Not the harsh blue-white of the monitor. Something softer. Golden. Warm. A sun rising over a world that had never known darkness.
"In the beginning," a voice said, "there was chaos."
The voice was female. Not loud. Not soft. Just... present. The voice of a storyteller who had told this tale a thousand times and would tell it a thousand more.
"Seven sovereign states. Centuries of war. Brother against brother. Kingdom against kingdom. The soil drank blood, and the rivers ran red."
The screen showed armies.
Spears. Shields. Swords. Seven colors—crimson, azure, emerald, gold, silver, bronze, black—clashing on a plain that stretched to the horizon. The animation was not realistic. It was stylized. Figures moved in sweeping arcs, their weapons tracing trails of light, their bodies flickering like frames in a flipbook.
"Then the sky split open."
The screen changed.
A rift tore across the heavens—not jagged, circular. Seven beings descended. They were not human. Their forms shifted, blurred, as if the eye could not decide what it was seeing. Light radiated from them, warm and golden, and where it touched the battlefield, the fighting stopped.
"The saints came. They brought peace. They taught mankind the arts of weapon and wheel, of seed and harvest, of stone and steel."
The screen showed montages: a figure teaching blacksmithing, another guiding a plow, another drawing geometric shapes in the air.
"And they divided the world."
Seven territories appeared on the map.
Anta. White plains, crystalline rivers, mountains that scraped the sky. The architecture was curved, organic, like coral grown into cities.
Othomos. Rolling hills, stone castles, forests of silver-leafed trees. Banners waved from spires, and the roads were paved with white stone.
Borderland. Red earth, vast canyons, skies that burned orange at dusk. Buildings were carved into cliffs, bridges spanning chasms that had no bottom.
Uxi. Golden fields, pagodas that touched the clouds, rivers that flowed in perfect straight lines. The cities were walled, their gates painted vermilion.
Netherest. Green jungles, stone temples overgrown with vines, waterfalls that fell from floating islands. Statues of elephant-headed gods watched over crossroads.
Utopia. Frozen tundra, domed cities of glass and steel, lights that danced in the sky like curtains of color. The architecture was brutalist, functional, beautiful in its harshness.
Juda. Desert sands, pyramids that gleamed like mirrors, oases that bloomed with flowers that never wilted. The cities were carved from single blocks of stone.
"Each saint chose a territory. Each territory received a gift."
The screen showed seven figures—the saints—descending into the map. Where they touched, the land changed. Colors deepened. Rivers sparkled. The sky seemed brighter.
"And the descendants of the saints became the sovereigns. The children of heaven. The rulers of the seven kingdoms."
The voice paused.
"For thousands of years, there was peace."
---
Elijah's fingers hovered over the keyboard.
His eyes were fixed on the screen, but his mind was elsewhere.
That tale, he thought. Erickson told me a similar story. The seven tribes. The invaders. The Asurim. Gilgamesh.
The Echo of Vaults is telling the same history. Just... dressed in different clothes.
"Wonko," he thought.
"Yes, stinky brat?"
"Are you seeing this?"
"I see it."
"It's like a perfect parallel."
"Parallel. Or mirror."
Elijah's internal voice was sharp.
"Who are you calling stinky? And who made you a field scientist?"
"In my time, I was respected. Many achievements. A mind that pierced the veil of reality itself."
"And that eventually led you into turning into a ghost."
Wonko's mental voice was flat.
"You are a brat."
"And you're old."
"I am not old. I am experienced."
"That's what old people say."
Inside the orrhion chip world, the hologram shimmered.
Wonko sat on a chair that had not been there a moment ago—a high-backed thing of light and shadow, its edges crackling with pale blue energy. His form was more solid than before. His robes. His beard. His eyes, which were not quite human.
He crossed his arms.
He looked grumpy.
"Oh, forget it," he said aloud, though no one in the physical world could hear him. "Focus on the game, brat."
"Already on it."
---
The story mode continued.
"Then they came."
The screen shifted.
Rifts appeared—not in the sky, on the ground. Black fissures that split the earth, that opened in the middle of marketplaces and farmlands and palace courtyards.
A scene played: Netherest. Children running through a field, laughing. A girl with dark hair and bare feet chased a boy in a tunic. Their hands glowed—faintly, barely—as they kicked up dust.
Earth affinity, Elijah thought. The Netherest people can move stone.
One of the children stumbled.
The ground beneath her cracked.
Not from her power—from below.
A claw emerged. Black. Segmented. It wrapped around her ankle and pulled.
The boy screamed.
The screen cut to black.
"They were called daemons."
The screen showed them now.
A serpentine figure, humanoid but scaled, its eyes slitted, its mouth too wide. It moved like water, its limbs bending at angles that should have broken bone.
A batlike creature, its wings tattered, its body skeletal. It had twelve eyes, then fourteen, then twelve again—counting impossible.
A horde of them. Crawling from the rifts. Swarming across the fields, the villages, the cities.
"They came in droves. Unprepared, the people fell."
The screen showed battles.
Soldiers with spears facing serpentine daemons. Archers shooting at batlike figures that dodged every arrow. Mages—their hands glowing with elemental fire—burning a path through the horde, only to be overwhelmed by numbers.
"The sovereigns fought. But the daemons had lords."
Massive figures emerged from the largest rifts. Humanoid. Armored. Their faces were masks—blank, smooth, expressionless. And behind them, the sky arrays appeared.
---
"The daemon lords used a celestial sky array to seal the star satellites."
The screen showed it.
Seven points of light—one above each territory—flickering, dimming, going dark. The connection between the people and their elemental gifts... cut.
"Without the satellites, the people lost their power. Their gifts became echoes. Shadows of what they had been."
The fighting changed.
Soldiers without magic. Archers without enhanced aim. Mages whose hands sparked and died.
"It was slaughter."
The screen showed the fall of Uxi. Golden fields burning. Pagodas crumbling. The gate—the great vermilion gate—shattered.
Then the screen showed the sovereigns.
Seven figures. Kira of Othomos. Asura of Netherest. The others—faces hidden, bodies silhouetted against the flames.
"They made a choice."
They gathered at the center of the map.
Their hands joined.
Light erupted from them—not golden, white—and it pushed back the daemons. It sealed the rifts. It chased the lords into the darkness.
"They destroyed the tunnels. They divided the daemons into nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine levels. The lords were buried deepest."
The screen showed a labyrinth—impossibly vast, spiraling down into darkness.
"The sovereigns died. But they left behind keys."
Seven keys. Each one glowing with a different color. Each one hidden in a different dungeon.
"Keys that could restore the satellites. Keys that could give a new sovereign the power of the saints."
The voice faded.
The screen went black.
Then: "To be continued."
---
Elijah stared at the monitor.
His internal thoughts churned.
The Astraseal, he thought. Is it like a celestial container? A vessel for holding the keys? Allowing me to gain dominion over a specific planetary frequency energy when I unlock a keyhole?
If so...
I need to locate the other six star nodes.
He clenched his fists.
Sir Chrono.
Just who are you?
Your manner of ensuring no traces of who you are—no photos, no family, no connection to subclans—reminds me of someone I know.
Someone who hides in plain sight.
Someone who watches from the shadows.
Someone who—
He stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
Behind the monitor's glow, Tyla watched him. She saw his hands tighten. She saw his jaw clench. She saw his eyes—dark, focused—stare at the screen as if it had just insulted him.
Is there something wrong with his head? she thought. Is it... broken?
"Elijah?"
"I'm fine."
"You were clenching your fists."
"Thinking."
"About?"
He turned.
His expression was calm. But something behind his eyes was not.
"About the game's creator," he said. "Iao Franklin. He's the firstborn child of Theodore Halvern. He built this game with Arael De Rose Rex—who is connected to Dr. Whar Rex—and Raphael Rowe. They're the funders, the investors."
He paused.
"But the actual creator is someone else. Sir Chrono. Of the Caquaruis enterprise. Located in Sovik."
"Sovik?"
"The Eastern bloc. The old empire."
"And Chrono?"
"No photo. No image. No family. Nothing on Knowsearch, Vtube, or Dankweb."
Tyla was quiet.
"That's... strange."
"Yes."
Elijah turned back to the monitor.
"It is."
---
The menu returned.
Story Mode. Exhibition. Multiplayer Challenge.
Elijah's fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"Sir Chrono," he said again.
The name echoed in the room.
And somewhere in the digital dark, a key waited.
---