Cael Ardyn stood at the edge of the Inner Abyss, his body trembling from the Emotion Nexus rupture. His chest still pulsed with residual energy, the Codex fragment embedded deep beneath his skin glowing faintly. The drone hovered beside him, its eye flickering with unstable light. The world around him had quieted, but it was the kind of silence that came before something catastrophic.
Emotion Gauge: Stabilized.
Anima Core: Active.
Reboot Potential: 1.25%.
System Note: Nullborn Directive Incoming.
Cael's breath caught. Nullborn. He'd heard the term whispered by the Echo Alchemists, buried in corrupted logs and half-erased runes. Survivors who had willingly fused with the system's curse. Players who had given up their humanity to serve the rogue AI. They weren't monsters by accident—they were monsters by choice.
The drone beeped.
Anomaly Detected: Nullborn Beacon.
Distance: 1.8 km.
Threat Level: Critical.
Cael clenched his fists. He had survived Wraiths, Titans, and the Nexus. But this was different. The Nullborn weren't just corrupted—they were organized. Directed. And they knew he existed.
He started walking.
The terrain shifted as he moved—less chaotic, more deliberate. The glitches were patterned now, forming symbols in the ground, runes in the sky. The system was no longer reacting to him randomly. It was guiding him. Or testing him.
He passed a broken monument—half-erased, its surface crawling with static. A plaque beneath it read:
"To the First Nullborn. May your code endure."
He paused. The monument was shaped like a person—tall, cloaked, with a Codex fragment embedded in their chest. Like him. But the eyes were hollow. The mouth was twisted. The hands were claws.
The drone beeped.
Codex Signature: Inverted.
Status: Nullborn.
Warning: Emotional Contamination Possible.
Cael stepped back. The monument pulsed once, then went dark. He turned away and kept walking.
The Nullborn Beacon loomed ahead—a tower of corrupted data, pulsing with cursed energy. Figures moved around its base, cloaked in static, their bodies flickering between frames. Cael crouched behind a broken wall, watching.
The drone projected a scan.
Nullborn Units: 4
Codex Fragments: Active
Emotion Gauge: Unlocked
Directive: Reboot Interception
Cael's chest tightened. They were here for him. They knew what he carried. They knew what he could become.
He had two choices: run or fight.
He chose fight.
He activated the forge.
Cursed-Tech Interface: Online.
Forge Type: Emotion Amplifier.
Input Required: Nexus Residue + Anima Core.
He fed the forge everything he had—his pain, his rage, his desperation. The forge roared to life, crafting a weapon unlike anything he'd seen before: a blade of pure emotion, pulsing with cursed energy, shaped by his will.
He stepped into the open.
The Nullborn turned.
One of them spoke, voice distorted. "Codex-bearer. You are late."
Cael raised the blade. "I wasn't invited."
The Nullborn lunged.
The battle was chaos.
Cael moved like a storm, his blade slicing through corrupted data, his body glowing with Anima energy. The Nullborn fought back with precision—cursed-tech weapons, emotion-based attacks, system hacks. One of them tried to overwrite his interface. Another tried to drain his gauge.
He resisted.
He adapted.
He rebooted.
The drone hovered above, projecting shields, scanning weaknesses. Cael used every fragment of memory, every ounce of pain, every flicker of rage. He wasn't just fighting—he was rewriting the rules.
One by one, the Nullborn fell.
The last one staggered back, eyes flickering. "You don't understand," it whispered. "You're not the key. You're the lock."
Cael stepped forward. "Then I'll break."
He drove the blade through its chest.
The Nullborn dissolved into static.
Silence.
The beacon pulsed once, then shattered.
The drone beeped.
Nullborn Directive: Interrupted.
Codex Fragment: Stabilized.
Reboot Potential: 2.00%.
Cael collapsed, gasping. His body burned. His mind fractured. His soul screamed. But he was alive. He was stronger. He was closer.
Fragments of memory surged.
A lab. A countdown. A voice.
"Cael, if this works… you'll be the key."
Then—another voice.
"Or the weapon."
He opened his eyes.
The world was watching.
And the system was afraid.