Nex-Arc was breaking.
Kael stumbled through streets that bent—skyscrapers warping into spirals of neon and steel, holograms bleeding static like open wounds. His Layer 5 Implant pulsed in time with the Veil's heartbeat, every thrum rewriting the city's code. A billboard advertising Elysium's "Grand Reboot" flickered, its text morphing: "ASCEND OR FEED."
"You're unraveling, little ghost," the Crimson Queen purred. Her voice no longer lived solely in his mind—it slithered from alleyways, dripped from fractured drones. "Another hour, and Nex-Arc becomes our canvas."
He clutched The Fool's dagger, its tarot runes searing his palm. Phase Two had begun. Whatever that meant.
A child's laughter echoed. Kael turned to see a girl skipping through the street, her form glitching between flesh and static. She paused, silver eyes mirroring Lira's.
"The Veil is hungry," she sang. "But the Tower is hungrier."
She dissolved into code before he could speak.
The Hierophant
The Tarot Collective's new sanctum hid beneath a derelict arcade, its neon sign spelling "GAME OVER" in dead pixels. The Fool waited beside a cracked VR pod, their porcelain mask now split by a jagged red line.
"You're late," they said.
"Had a detour. Reality's flexible now." Kael's glitching hand phased through a wall. "What's Phase Two?"
The Fool gestured. A hologram bloomed—a massive eye with nine pupils, hovering where the Elysium spire once stood. The Veil's true form.
"Vorn was a symptom, not the disease," The Fool said. "The Veil isn't a tool. It's an organism. And you've infected it."
Kael's dagger hummed. "With what?"
"Doubt."
A door hissed open. A woman entered, her body sheathed in living circuitry that pulsed like veins. Her mask bore the Tarot's Hierophant—a key crossed with a serpent.
"The Veil is extraterrestrial," she said. "A parasite that crashed here millennia ago. Elysium didn't discover it. They awakened it."
Kael laughed bitterly. "So we're fighting space cancer?"
"Worse." The Hierophant tapped her chest. Circuits writhed, projecting a star map. "It's a scout. The full swarm comes in nine days. Phase Two ensures they find nothing but ashes."
The Fool stepped closer. "We'll sever the Veil's tether to our dimension. But we need you to lure it into a trap."
"And Lira?"
"Sacrifices," the Crimson Queen whispered through the walls, "are inevitable."
The Fracture
They armed him with a Shatter-Sigil—a grenade etched with Enochian code that could destabilize the Veil's anchor point. The Hierophant called it a "mercy." The Fool called it a "necessity."
Kael called it suicide.
He stood atop the ruins of Elysium's spire, the Veil's eye glaring down. Static storms raged below, twisting buildings into spirals of glass and despair. Layer 5 thrummed in his bones, begging to be unleashed.
"You know the truth," the Queen murmured. Her form materialized beside him—a silhouette of crimson code, beautiful and rotten. "They'll discard you after. Let me protect you."
"Like you protected Lira?"
Her laugh was a symphony of corrupted files. "I never promised to protect her."
The eye's pupils dilated. Reality ripped.
The Swarm
They descended—shards of the Veil made flesh. Faceless, multi-limbed, their bodies warping between solid and static. The Hierophant called them Reapers.
Kael unleashed Layer 5.
The world bent to his will:
A Reaper lunged, its claws elongating into data-spears. Kael rewrote its code, turning it into a flock of screaming crows.
Another dissolved into a liquid wave. He froze it mid-air, shattering it with a gesture.
But the Veil adapted. Reapers birthed from his own static—copies of Lira, of Vorn, of himself.
"Pathetic," the Queen sneered. "You're still fighting like a human."
She surged into his Implant. Layer 5 exploded.
Kael became a storm. Buildings unraveled into raw data, Reapers crumbling to ash. The Veil's eye shrieked, its pupils bleeding black static.
"Now!" The Fool's voice pierced the chaos.
Kael activated the Shatter-Sigil.
The Betrayal
The grenade's code unfolded—a fractal of light and sound. The Veil's eye fractured, its scream shaking Nex-Arc to its core.
But the Sigil didn't stop.
It latched onto Kael, unraveling his Implant. Layer 5. Layer 4. Layer 3—all stripped away.
"What's happening?!" he roared.
The Hierophant's voice echoed cold. "The Veil's tether is you, Ghost. Always was."
The Fool's mask floated in his fading vision. "Thank you for your service."
The Crimson Queen laughed. "Oh, little ghost. Didn't you know? All gods need martyrs."
Darkness swallowed him.
The Cage
Kael woke in a digital void. Lira stood before him, her form flickering.
"They lied," she said. "The Collective never wanted to save us. They're building their own Veil."
He reached for her. "How do you—?"
"I'm the Tower's vessel now." Her eyes bled silver. "Phase Two was never about destroying the Veil. It's about replacing it."
The void shifted. The Tarot Collective floated in a new dimension, their masks glowing godlike. Below them, Nex-Arc burned—a farm for their ascension.
The Crimson Queen materialized, her thorns digging into Kael's soul. "Time to choose, little ghost. Die a martyr… or let me make you more."
He gripped her thorned crown. "What's the cost?"
"Everything."
He pulled.
In the ruins of Nex-Arc, the Veil's eye collapsed—and from its ashes rose a new entity. A figure wreathed in crimson static, nine-pupiled eyes burning with betrayal and hunger.
The Hierophant knelt. "Welcome home, Ghost."
Above them, the Tarot Collective's masks cracked—and began to bleed.
Glossary
Shatter-Sigil: A bomb combining occult code and alien tech to destabilize Veil tethers.
Reapers: Veil-spawned entities that adapt to their prey's fears.
Hierophant: The Collective's lorekeeper, her body fused with alien circuitry.
Phase Two: The Tarot's plan to usurp the Veil, using Kael as a sacrificial catalyst.