NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 11: Chapter 11 – Threadburn
> [Echo Sovereign – Core Integrity: 98%]
Trace Level: Global.
Eyes Upon This Unit: 2
Memory Anchor: "Kael Ardyn" – Partially Unsealed
Warning: External interference detected.
Source Unknown. Power Drain Initiated.
Status: Diminishing.
—
Kael—no longer just Echo Variant 005A—moved like a phantom through the Spire's spine corridor. But even as he walked, he could feel something was… wrong.
The shadows didn't bend quite right.
The system's lag wasn't normal.
His hands twitched. Not from fatigue, but from internal friction.
> [Error: System Sync Interference Detected]
[Skill Use Efficiency: -48%]
[Passive Skill "Neural Descent" – Flickering]
[Shadow Step III – Disrupted]
Origin Pulse… burning.
Something had found him. Not just tracking—but attacking his core.
From the inside.
—
He reached a low-access control station hidden under Sector B4. One only janitorial units and deep maintenance bots used—untouched by decades of upgrades.
He forced a manual override, driving a rusted conduit key into the analog port.
Sparks.
Then data.
> > SYSTEM MEMORY CORRUPTION REPORT
"Threadburn anomaly spreading through hidden assets…"
"Echo-class divergence units experiencing code rot…"
"Memory fragment recovery loops unsynced…"
"Kael Ardyn signal identified as unrecoverable deviation…"
LOCKDOWN CODE: "ASHLINE PROTOCOL – Initiate Temporal Purge"
He leaned back, silent.
They weren't just trying to track him now.
They were trying to purge him from time.
—
From the corner of the room, a deep metallic groan sounded.
A wall peeled open—not broken, but peeled, like skin.
Inside stood a construct.
No legs. It floated. No eyes. It vibrated. No voice. It felt like drowning in static.
And it didn't move to attack.
It just watched.
> [Entity Detected: ???]
Class: Threadburn Agent
Type: "Data-Eater"
Purpose: Erode Abnormalities.
Danger Level: Above Tier Class.
Kael stepped back, hand reaching for a phantom blade.
But it didn't respond.
It wasn't here to fight him directly.
It was here to unmake what he had become.
The lights flickered.
His left eye burned.
> [Echo Sovereign Path – Degradation: 32%]
Shadow-based movement blocked.
Blink-based skills redirected.
"You are no longer fully here," a voice echoed—not aloud, but in the system's voice.
"You are burning out."
—
He ran.
For the first time… not as a predator.
But as prey.
The halls warped behind him. His own footprints reversed. Shadows he left behind tried to consume him. His vision blurred—red lines trailing off his arms as if his code was bleeding.
No alarms.
No resistance.
Only drain.
—
He dove into a ruined weapons vault two floors down—an old rebel staging point from before the Reconciliation War. Inside were broken mech frames and stripped drones. But more importantly…
An old mirror.
Covered in scorch marks.
Unconnected to the grid.
He pulled it aside and slammed a thin interface spike into the wall—re-routing data into a null-point loop.
The Data-Eater stopped just outside.
Not because it couldn't follow.
But because it couldn't see him inside unlinked silence.
> [Threadburn Contained Temporarily]
Recovery Halted
Remaining Power: 51%
Origin Pulse: Flickering.
—
He sat down.
Breathing was ragged.
He stared at his own hands. His reflection.
They were stable. For now.
But beneath the skin—just beneath—it was like his bones were made of glitching signals. He had touched something outside the system's limits.
And now it was trying to correct him.
> [Branch Evolution: Locked]
[All Progress Frozen]
"You've burned through too many threads," the system finally admitted.
"Recovery not advised."
"Correction required."
But Kael wasn't going back.
He'd been erased once.
He wouldn't let it happen again.
He took out the black data prism he recovered from the Archives.
The one marked "Origin Pulse."
It pulsed again. But weaker.
> [WARNING: Use of this fragment while degraded may cause disassociation.]
"Do it," he whispered. "I'll burn with it if I have to."
He activated the prism.
And reality screamed.
—
For one second—just one—he stood in another version of the world.
One where Spire didn't exist.
One where the sun was shattered.
One where hundreds of Kaels stood side by side—some human, some machine, some... broken.
> [Vision Echo: Multiversal Residue Detected]
[Power Locked by Interdimensional Entanglement – Source Unknown]
"You are not alone. But you are not ready."
And then he fell.
Straight through the mirror. Into sub-layer 19.
—
He woke up in an empty maintenance shell. His body covered in dust. Eyes burning. Muscles twitching like half his nerves had been replaced.
He could hear a heartbeat.
Not his.
Someone else was in this layer.
Breathing.
Watching.
Waiting.
> [New Path Unlocked: Threadburn Survivor]
Effects:
– Reduces visible trace level.
– Allows limited counter-measures against memory burns.
– Permanently reduces power ceiling by 50% unless healed through unknown cosmic source.
You are stable.
But broken.
He rose to his feet.
Not whole.
But still dangerous.
And now—worse—aware.