Oblivion Hunter: Rise Across the Stars.

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The next morning broke with no sunrise.

Only the strange, pale glow of Riftlight filtering through the clouds gave shape to the scorched horizon. Kael rose before the others, muscles stiff, mind buzzing with a strange weightless tension. The kind that came not before a battle… but before a revelation.

He knelt beside Nyx.....who had taken to sleeping near Lira's cot every night and gently scratched behind the creature's ears. Its soft hum rumbled like a reactor core warming up.

[MONSTER EGG INCUBATION: 47%]

Growth Stable, no anomalies.

Kael turned to the storage lockers and retrieved a rusted satchel. Inside were pieces of scavenged data chips, maps, and a cracked holo-tablet. The map had updated during the last storm surge, revealing a buried structure to the west, one that hadn't been there before or maybe had just been hidden. It pulsed faintly in his HUD as he hovered over it.

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[UNREGISTERED SIGNAL DETECTED – SOURCE: PRE-Collapse Facility "V-4GLASS"]

Distance: 4.6 km – Western Valley

Estimated Type: Deep-Lab Ruin (Status Unknown)

System Advisory: Unstable Rift Field Detected Nearby. High Anomaly Probability.

Potential Reward: ??? (Data Cache or Genetic Archive Suspected)

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Kael's brow furrowed. He had never seen a system message so vague… or so enticing.

Mara stirred, groaning. "You're not going out there alone, are you?" Kael turned, startled. "You're up early."

"You're loud," she muttered, grabbing her coat "and I know that look, where?"

"Old ruin, system flagged it. Could be pre-Collapse… maybe even from the First War era." "Could be a deathtrap," she replied, pulling on her boots "We leave Lira behind, I'm shooting you."

Kael laughed. "Wouldn't dream of it."

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One Hour Later

They left Lira in the care of Nyx, who had surprisingly obeyed Kael's direct request to "guard her." The creature seemed to understand more every day, its mental flashes more coherent, its movements more deliberate.

The wind was cold and dry as they hiked across the wasteland toward the Western Valley. Veyra-7 stretched before them in broken lines of shattered metal and petrified forests. Along the way, Kael caught glimpses of distant shapes....Beasts watching from the edges of Rift-fog, never drawing close.

By midday, they reached it.

The entrance was buried under ash and half-melted steel, but a circular indentation glowed faintly in Kael's vision.

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[ACCESS PORT DETECTED – Key Required]

Override Option: System Synch Hack (Risk: Low – Weak Security Protocols)

Initiate? [YES]

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Kael nodded...

The panel hissed, sparked and opened.

Inside was a stairwell, descending into darkness laced with faint green glow. The air was sterile… too sterile. Not natural for anything buried in the Rift-soaked ruins of Veyra. As they stepped in, the system flared again.

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[LOCATION ENTERED: VAULT 4 GLASS – SUBLEVEL ONE]

Environmental Status: Stable

Energy Residue Detected: Ascendancy Grade-A Technology

Warning: Memory Fracture Detected – Playback Available?

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Mara looked at Kael "Memory fracture?"

Kael hesitated… then accepted.

The air shimmered.

A hologram stuttered into view flickering blue light coalescing into a scene frozen in time. A woman stood in a white lab coat. Not just any woman. The same face Kael had seen in the Ascendancy Core during his encounter at Complex 04.

Except here, she was younger, laughing....and....holding a child.

"…You said this was unethical," another voice said, deep and hard-edged.

"I said it was risky," she answered, adjusting a scanner over the baby's forehead. "He's a genetic anomaly. Rift-immune, you realize what this means, right? If he survives, we may not need suppression drugs at all."

"Or he could turn into a Rift spawn and kill us all." The woman looked directly into the camera. "He won't, i won't let him."

The vision glitched, then faded...

Silence...

Mara turned to Kael, voice rough. "That was—"

"My mother," Kael said quietly.

His hand clenched into a fist. His memories were faint, flashes of laughter, a lullaby, a fire...but that face… he remembered it.

"They experimented on you," Mara said slowly. "From the beginning, you weren't just caught in this war, you were built in it."

Kael didn't answer.

Instead, he walked deeper into the ruin. They reached a main vault chamber, lined with glowing pods, most broken or empty. Inside a sealed stasis container, Kael spotted something pulsing. Not alive....A data crystal.

He lifted it...

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[DATA SHARD ACQUIRED – DESIGNATION: "OBLIVION ROOT-2"]

Item Type: Encrypted System Kernel – Nonfunctional without Primary Core Link

Compatibility: 98.1%

Host: Kael Vorrin

Would you like to initiate partial memory restore? [YES]

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Kael hesitated...then accepted.

This time the vision was short, but chilling. A set of armor...Massive, black like voidstone, with clawed gauntlets and a helm like a Rift god. Inside stood a version of Kael, not older… but not quite him. His eyes were cold....dead.

"You are the key, you are the cycle, don't fail this time." The vision shattered.

Mara caught him as he swayed, "What did you see?"

Kael's voice was hollow. "Something that might be me… but shouldn't be."

She frowned, "Sounds like a memory echo fragments of a failed timeline."

He looked at her, blood draining from his face. "You mean… I've died before?"

"No," she said slowly. "But something with your face has walked these ruins… and left echoes strong enough to remain."

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[SYSTEM UPDATE: RIFT DISTORTION DETECTED NEAR CORE SHELTER]

Unusual Beast Activity Reported – Class III Approaching Shelter Radius

ETA: 2.5 Hours

Recommend Immediate Return to Shelter

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Kael's face hardened...as one name echoed in his mind...

"Lira."

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