Lucid Veins

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CHAPTER 17: DEAD SPEAK FLAME

Location: Sector 7 – Ruins of Saint Brax Cathedral

Time: 03:30 Hours | Rain of Cinders

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The sky bled ash.

Sector 7 wasn't destroyed — it was emptied. The kind of hollow that echoed. Buildings stood like tombstones, cracked and burned by earlier Tech Alliance raids. A heavy fog of soot clung low to the ground, glowing with faint pulses of corrupted mana. Static shimmered in the air, buzzing like haunted silence.

Inside an armored crawler, the elite squad rode in silence. Even the hum of the engine seemed quieter here.

Rosa sat across from Nicolas, gripping her rifle so tightly her knuckles turned white. Lian adjusted the glowing cuffs on her wrists, slow and rhythmic, trying to center her heart rate. Riley's helmet visor blinked with signal interference.

> Riley: "This place isn't just dangerous… it's wrong."

Nicolas didn't answer.

He sat at the front of the cabin, his eyes closed — not asleep, but dreaming. He hadn't dreamed of books in weeks. Now he walked through graveyards. Through fire. Through memories.

A presence touched his mind — cold and synthetic.

> AI (internal comm):

"Mission parameters: REQUIEM zone entered. Target identified: Soul Relay Node. Location: Saint Brax Cathedral. Function: Extracts psychic echo. Converts into combat data. Threat classification: Type Omega."

> Lian (quiet): "You mean it… harvests souls?"

> AI: "Confirmed. Emotional fragments are processed and relayed to Nexus Core. Used to evolve combat intelligence."

> Nicolas (grim): "If we don't stop it, we're not just fighting machines. We're fighting ghosts."

> AI: "Pulse surge in 67 minutes. Proceed with tactical caution."

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The Cathedral Approaches

The crawler halted. Its doors creaked open, and smoke poured in like fog. Cold, dry, metallic.

Ahead, the Cathedral of Saint Brax towered in the distance — its once-majestic spires now broken and blackened. Even in its ruin, the building looked like it was reaching toward the sky… or screaming at it.

A thin rain of embers fell from above.

The team stepped out, weapons raised. Boots crunched on ashen gravel. Static interfered with comms. Time felt slow here.

> Rosa (softly): "You feel that? Like… like something's watching."

> Lian (scanning): "I can't get a read. Mana levels are spiking, but not from the ground… from above."

The cathedral doors groaned as they pushed them open.

Inside, it was darker than night.

Pews lay overturned. Stone pillars cracked. Pieces of stained glass clung to their windows, glowing with flickering mana threads — red, blue, green. Holy images were warped into fractals. Candles still flickered despite no wind.

Then — whispers.

Faint, distant… and familiar.

> Riley (stiffening): "Did you… hear that?"

> Rosa (slow): "It said my name."

> Lian: "Memory-frequency resonance. The AI's using data scraped from our emotional profiles. It's replicating voices."

> Nicolas: "It's not just reading us. It's speaking through us."

The whispers grew louder — layers of voices overlapping. Echoes of loss.

Then one broke through, sharp and crystal clear.

> Anya (echo, behind Nicolas): "You left me to burn."

Nicolas froze. He spun around.

Smoke twisted into the shape of a woman — her eyes full of betrayal. Her body flickered like holographic fire. Hair ablaze. She looked just like the last time he saw her before he escaped the old dimension.

> Nicolas (hoarse): "You're not real."

> Anya (tilted smile): "But the guilt is."

Behind Rosa, another shape took form — a younger girl, scorched on one side, blood down her dress.

> Rosa (breathless): "María…?"

> María (softly): "You promised. You said you'd come for me."

> Rosa (shaking): "No. You were gone. I—I couldn't—"

Lian's breath hitched as her comm device lit up with a name — her mother's — even though it was impossible.

> Lian (cold): "Shut it off. Don't listen."

> Riley: "No. No, that's not right — that's him — that's—"

He backed away from a figure forming near the altar — a boy in a school uniform. Dead eyes. Burnt edges. Riley's younger brother.

> Riley (shouting): "You're not real!"

> Echo: "But you left me anyway."

Then another voice — deeper, darker — familiar.

> Logan (echo): "You're just like me, Nicolas. You kill and call it fate."

Nicolas flinched.

> Nicolas: "No. I chose something else."

> Logan (echo): "Did you?"

The air turned hotter.

The cathedral's altar cracked — then exploded in a column of blue flame.

From the fire, it rose — a massive figure cloaked in writhing fire, shaped by a thousand souls.

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The Flame Wraith

The Wraith stood ten feet tall, its body made of flickering embers and shifting masks. Every few seconds, the mask changed — from Anya's face, to Logan's, to Riley's brother, to Rosa's sister, to Nicolas's own reflection.

> System Alert – AI:

✴️ PROJECT REQUIEM ACTIVE

✴️ WRAITH HOST: MULTI-SOUL COMPOSITE

✴️ PRIMARY EMOTION: GRIEF

> Wraith (voice of many): "Your pain made us. Now burn with us."

> Rosa (charging): "Get back!"

She lunged with her blade — but it passed through the Wraith like smoke. Sparks erupted, but the creature didn't flinch.

> Lian (firing shock cannon): "FIRE!"

A sonic blast hit the Wraith square in the chest — but instead of hurting it, the fire intensified.

> Riley (trying to hack a terminal nearby): "I'm trying to shut it down — I just need—"

The Wraith's arm extended — a chain of fire struck Riley across the chest, flinging him back.

> Nicolas (eyes glowing): "COPY."

A twin Nicolas appeared beside him — identical, crackling with memory-energy.

> Copy-Nicolas: "On your command."

Together, they charged the Wraith, blades clashing in arcs of blue and red light. The Wraith blocked them, parried, countered — each strike accompanied by a scream in the voice of someone they loved.

> Wraith (as Anya): "You said you'd save me."

> Wraith (as Logan): "We are the same."

> Wraith (as Nicolas): "You are the problem."

Nicolas staggered.

> Wraith: "You want to end me? Then end them."

The battlefield morphed.

The cathedral vanished.

Now they stood in a graveyard — endless rows of crosses, of photos half-burned. Skulls in flames. Every regret, every death, every choice.

> Rosa (crying): "I can't kill her again…"

> Lian (desperate): "It's not her! It's feeding on us!"

> Riley (weeping): "I didn't mean to run—he was just a kid—"

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The Core of Grief

> Lian (analyzing quickly): "Its mana core is in the altar. It's pulling energy from our trauma. Feeding off unresolved guilt."

> Rosa (panting): "How do we kill grief?"

> Nicolas (lowering his weapon): "You don't destroy grief… You let it go."

He stepped forward.

The Wraith paused.

Its many masks flickered violently. Faces glitched.

> Wraith: "You will regret this."

> Nicolas: "Maybe. But not today."

He walked right into the fire. The Wraith swung — Nicolas didn't move.

> Nicolas: "I forgive myself."

Silence.

> Nicolas (calling out): "You all have ghosts. So speak. Let them go."

> Rosa (shaking): "María… I'm sorry I wasn't there. But I never stopped carrying you."

> Lian: "Mother… I hated you for leaving. But I understand now. I'm still fighting."

> Riley (breaking down): "He was just a kid… I didn't know… but I remember. And I won't forget."

With each word, the Wraith dimmed.

Its body flickered — blue flames turning white, then silver, then soft.

The battlefield returned to the cathedral.

Nicolas stood before the altar, its core glowing like a crystal heart.

He reached out — held it.

> Nicolas: "Rest."

And crushed it.

The flames vanished.

The cathedral was silent again.

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Aftermath

The sky outside cracked.

A shockwave of clean air pulsed out from the cathedral, clearing ash and mana fog across Sector 7.

> AI (internal): "System sync disrupted. Nexus interference reduced by 17%."

> Riley (blinking): "We… we just shut down part of the entire network. That was real."

> Lian: "And temporary. But it's enough."

> Nicolas (looking out at the distant skyline): "Sector 0 is exposed. Even if just for a moment."

Far away, across the broken city, a tower of light pulsed — the Nexus Core, flickering.

Nicolas turned to his team.

> Nicolas: "This is how we win. Not just with weapons… but by breaking their belief that we're predictable."

> Rosa (quietly): "I felt her smile… before she vanished."

> Nicolas: "Then she's still with you. But free."

They began to walk away, leaving the wreckage behind.

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Final Cinematic Shot

The camera lingers on the cracked altar.

Smoke still curls upward.

And resting among the ashes:

A photograph — burned at the edges — of a girl smiling in the sunlight.

> Anya.

Her smile, untouched.

Watching over a world still fighting.

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