The descent down the spiraling staircase felt like walking into a vacuum. With every step deeper into the bowels of the pyramid, the air grew heavy, almost gelatinous.
Haruto noticed the change in Daisy first. Her usually rigid, fluid movements became labored. She leaned against the cold metal railing, her breathing shallow and ragged. The sharp, mechanical arrogance she wore like armor was fraying.
"Daisy? You're struggling," Haruto said, stepping closer. "What's happening?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her hand clutched her chest, her knuckles turning white. As they reached the bottom and stepped onto a vast, metallic pathway, the overhead lights flickered to life, bathing the corridor in a harsh, clinical white. Daisy stumbled, hitting the wall with a heavy thud, sliding down until she was braced against it.
"I can't..." she gasped, her eyes darting around the hallway. "The aura... it's not being absorbed correctly."
Haruto looked around, his own senses heightened. He felt a faint pressure, but nothing overwhelming. "I'm fine, Daisy. I don't feel a thing. Are you okay?"
Daisy gripped his arm, her strength surprisingly weak. "This... this is an Aura-Core. It's the heart of the city's defense system. It's designed to siphon every single point of mana from the air so that no outside force can manifest magic or destroy the structure. It's an anti-magic vacuum."
She gritted her teeth, trying to force herself upright. "You're... you're immune? How?"
"I don't know," Haruto said, feeling a strange surge of energy. "Maybe because my core is built different."
Daisy swayed, her vision clearly blurring. "I... I have to keep moving. I'm a machine-based manifestor, but I'm still fueled by this environment. This core... it's draining my internal battery."
She pushed herself off the wall, her legs trembling. She took one step, then another, forcing her body to obey her iron will. Haruto moved to support her, but she shoved his hand away—not out of anger, but out of pride.
"I'm fine," she hissed, though her voice was barely a whisper.
They trudged forward for two agonizing minutes, the silence of the corridor broken only by the rhythmic click of Daisy's boots and her strained, whistling breath. Finally, they reached the end of the long hall. A massive, reinforced circular door stood before them, pulsating with a rhythmic, deep-red light.
As they neared it, the door began to slide open, revealing a room that looked like the control center for a dying star.
"We're here," Daisy whispered, her voice thick with exhaustion. "Welcome to the real reason this city exists, Haruto."
Haruto's jaw dropped as he stepped into the center of the vast chamber. Rising from the floor were three colossal pillars, humming with a sound that vibrated deep in his marrow. They were tethered to the ceiling and floor by thick, glowing conduits that seemed to feed energy into every corner of the city.
But it was a mess. Two of the pillars were dark and lifeless, their conduits shredded and sparking intermittently with dying embers. Only the central pillar pulsed with a steady, haunting violet energy.
"This is the core," Daisy said, her voice strained as she leaned against a terminal for support. "This city doesn't just run on technology; it runs on the life force of the three Founders. We provide the base energy. But as you can see... the other two Reincarnations have already pulled their 'embers' out."
Haruto squinted at the exposed wiring. "Embers? You mean the energy source?"
"Exactly," Daisy wheezed. "An 'Ember' is a custom device I designed. It acts as a pressurized vessel that seals our raw divinity inside, preventing it from leaking into the environment. When they left, they didn't just walk away; they ripped their souls out of this machine. That's why the city's power grid is failing."
Haruto walked toward the shattered conduits, his eyes tracing the complex, jagged tears in the metal. It looked like a catastrophe, but to him, the flow of energy was starting to make sense. "The conduits are snapped, but the base plates are still intact. Daisy, this isn't destroyed... it's just disconnected. Why haven't you repaired it?"
Daisy let out a bitter, exhausted laugh. "Repair it? I've tried for years. The energy output is too volatile. Every time I get close to the core, the feedback loop shreds my tools—and my nervous system. It's impossible, Haruto."
Haruto reached out, his hand hovering inches from the sparking violet wire. He closed his eyes, feeling the faint, familiar hum of his Void Reaper power—the ability to manipulate 'Nothingness' and structure. In his past life, he hadn't been a king or a god; he had been the guy who took the impossible, broken scraps of a dying world and forced them to work again.
He turned to Daisy, a smirk forming on his face despite the gravity of the situation. "You've been trying to force it back together with your logic, Daisy. You're overthinking the architecture."
"Haruto, stop!" she warned, her voice rising in alarm. "This is a God-Core! It's not a broken radio or a piece of scrap metal—it will incinerate you!"
Haruto chuckled, feeling the raw, dark energy of his power begin to knit the air around his fingertips. He looked back at her, his expression confident. "You're joking, right? You're telling me you're a genius who designed this whole city, but you're afraid of a little wiring work? Leave it to me. I've spent my entire life dealing with junk... and this is just the biggest piece of scrap I've ever seen."
He lunged toward the pillar, ignoring the searing heat radiating from the core, his hands moving with the practiced rhythm of a scavenger who had nothing left to lose.
As Haruto touched the vibrating metal of the core, a sharp, crystalline chime rang out in his mind, followed by a system interface flickering into his vision.
[NOTIFICATION: New Emotion Unlocked - "Constructive Obsession"][SKILL ACTIVATED: Tech-Repair Intuition]
Haruto blinked. The skill didn't just give him knowledge; it surged through his brain like a lightning strike. His processing speed spiked, and his perception of the world warped. The complex, tangled web of violet energy and shredded conduits in front of him suddenly dissolved into a readable schematic. He saw the "flow" of the broken power lines as if they were simple blueprints.
"What are you doing?" Daisy cried out, stumbling forward, her hand outstretched to pull him back. "Haruto, get away from there! You don't know the frequency—"
She stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes widened as she watched him.
Haruto's hands were moving with a blur of speed that shouldn't have been humanly possible. He wasn't just fixing wires; he was re-routing the energy output. To his new, heightened perception, the violent feedback loop of the core was just a simple knot to be untied. He plucked a loose circuit board from his own bag—a spare component he'd held onto—and slammed it into the central port.
He's not using a manual, Daisy thought, her heart hammering against her ribs. He's literally rewriting the core's logic on the fly.
The chamber began to groan. A deafening hum filled the room, but it wasn't the screeching, dying sound of a failing machine—it was the deep, harmonic resonance of a fully powered engine.
"Haruto, the feedback!" Daisy shouted. "The energy levels are spiking! It's going to blow!"
"It's not blowing, it's syncing!" Haruto laughed, his eyes glowing with the same violet hue as the core.
He gripped the main tether with both hands. The blue light from his eyes surged into the pillar, and with a grunt of effort, he locked the conduit into place. The sparking "embers" that had been leaking onto the floor suddenly zipped back into the pillar. The violet energy, once erratic and violent, smoothed out into a perfect, steady stream.
The room went deathly silent.
Daisy stood frozen, staring at the central pillar. For the first time in years, the core was glowing at 100% capacity. The massive energy drain that had been killing her was gone, replaced by a clean, stable hum that felt like a breath of fresh air.
Haruto stepped back, his chest heaving, his hands slightly singed but steady. He wiped a streak of grease from his forehead and looked at the system notification that was still hovering in his vision.
[SKILL PROGRESS: LEVEL UPGRADE AVILABLE]
He turned to Daisy, who was staring at him as if he were an alien. "See?" he said, his voice breathless but grinning. "Like I said. Just a piece of junk that needed a little love."
Haruto stood amidst the hum of the now-perfectly stabilized Core, his mind reeling as the system notifications cascaded before his eyes. He wasn't just tired; he felt a strange, hollow expansion within his core.
[LEVEL UP: Nothingness - Level 3]
Haruto breathed in, feeling the dark, void-like energy of Nothingness swirling in harmony with the newfound spark of Creation. He hadn't just fixed a machine; he had essentially rewritten the fundamental code of the city's heart.
Daisy stepped away from the pillar, her stance finally losing its rigid tension. She looked at the conduits, then back at Haruto, her gaze lingering on his hands. "You did it," she whispered, her voice tinged with genuine awe. "Brilliant. It seems I've drastically underestimated you, Haruto. You aren't just an anomaly... you're an architect."
Before Haruto could respond to her rare compliment, the air in the chamber grew heavy and distorted. The space directly above the central pillar rippled like a disturbed pond.
A massive, translucent holographic face materialized in the air—a projection so sharp it looked like a ghost standing in the room. It was an elderly man, his eyes glowing with an ancient, weary light. He opened his mouth and let out a long, slow yawn that seemed to stretch the very dimensions of the room.
Haruto froze. The presence was overwhelming.
The holographic face finally stopped yawning. Its eyes, ancient and weary, locked onto Daisy. It bowed its head deeply, a gesture of absolute servitude. "Master... it has been quite a long time since you stepped back into the core."
Daisy's posture softened, a flicker of genuine relief crossing her face.
"You're still here, Gampid. You're still alive."
"Indeed, Master," the hologram replied, its voice vibrating with a metallic resonance. "As long as you never fully drained your power from the core, this city—and I—remain tethered to existence."
Haruto stood frozen, his gaze shifting between the cold, stoic Commander he knew and the subservient AI. "Daisy... who is this? You control him?"
"I don't just control him," Daisy corrected, her voice low. "I created him. Gampid is a living magical AI, a construct that doesn't rely on any standard power source. He is the manifestation of this city's consciousness."
Gampid's projection swiveled, his golden eyes scanning Haruto with a precision that felt like it was peeling back his skin. The AI's expression shifted, his stiff demeanor breaking into a small, calculating smirk. "Master, you have acquired a companion?"
"He is," Daisy said simply.
"Hello, Haruto," Gampid greeted, his tone eerily polite.
"Hello," Haruto echoed, unsettled by the way the hologram seemed to be dissecting his very soul.
Daisy turned to Haruto, her expression uncharacteristically gentle. "You're safe, Haruto. It's rare for Gampid to acknowledge anyone outside of the Founders."
Haruto looked at the projection, his brow furrowing. "Why? What makes me different?"
Daisy exhaled, the weight of a hundred years pressing down on her shoulders. "Gampid is the living proof of our existence. He is the accumulation of us three Founders. To him, you are an anomaly because you possess the energy he was designed to hunt for."
Gampid laughed, a dry, static sound. "Master, the energy he carries... it is remarkable. Truly impressive."
Daisy nodded, her eyes hardening. "I know. He's a Reincarnator, just like us."
"Oh," Gampid whispered, the realization dawning on him. "That explains everything."
Haruto looked at Daisy, his curiosity reaching a breaking point. "Daisy, you said you were going to show me something. You mentioned a girl... someone I might recognize?"
Daisy stepped away from the core, the violet light casting long, sharp shadows across her face.
"The girl I was going to show you—the one who left—is the reason I'm the only Founder left. The other two didn't just walk away; they stole something, and they left me to hold up the sky alone."
She looked Haruto directly in the eyes, her voice cold as the void. "Listen carefully, because the history you've been fed is a lie. This city was built on a foundation of betrayal, and it's about to collapse because of who—and what—they took with them."