NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 58: Breach
Location: Safe Zone – Eastern Wall, Forest Edge
Time: July 23rd, 6:00 AM – 6:00 PM
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6:00 AM – Ripple
Kael woke before sunrise. Not from rest, but from instinct.
The glyph on his wrist was throbbing, not painfully—but persistently, like a second heartbeat. He flexed his fingers. The feeling didn't fade.
His mimic's voice stirred in his head, distorted but familiar.
"You're syncing. With something. Or someone."
Kael stood, dressed, and made his way to the east watchtower. From the top, he could see the edge of the forest. Still. Quiet. Too quiet.
Behind him, Elle's voice broke the silence. "You feel it too, don't you?"
He nodded. "Like the air's holding its breath."
The glyph pulsed again. This time, he wasn't the only one who noticed. Across the Safe Zone, others marked by the glyph began reporting symptoms: disorientation, memory lapses, and for one, temporary loss of speech.
Whatever this was—it was building.
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9:00 AM – The Crack
A low, vibrating hum spread across the Zone. Tools dropped. Lights flickered. Even the System interface glitched, showing corrupted lines of code.
Then came the sound—
Not an explosion.
More like the crack of thunder inside a cave.
The eastern wall vanished. Not collapsed. Not destroyed. Just… gone. A perfect circular section, fifty meters wide, erased clean through the concrete and steel.
The breach wasn't loud. It was clean. Deliberate.
Beyond the gap, mist rolled in. And from within it, something walked.
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10:00 AM – First Contact
The creature was tall. Vaguely humanoid. Its skin was like stone cracked open to reveal glowing veins. Its chest bore multiple glyphs—some unfinished, others identical to Kael's.
It did not attack.
It walked calmly to the edge of the Safe Zone, stopping just before the line of automated turrets.
Kael arrived seconds later with Elle and Dain. The other Marked followed close behind.
"It's not here to fight," Elle whispered.
"Not yet," Dain replied. "But it wants something."
Kael stepped forward.
The glyph on his wrist lit up. So did the one on the creature's arm.
"Do you hear it now?" his mimic asked in his head.
Kael ignored the voice. "What are you?" he asked aloud.
The creature tilted its head. Its mouth opened, but the voice that came out wasn't its own.
It was Kael's.
"I'm what happens next."
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12:00 PM – Fracture in the Ranks
The Council ordered full lockdown of the eastern sectors. No one in or out. But Kael and the Marked were caught in the middle.
Half the Safe Zone viewed them as weapons.
The other half? As liabilities.
Tensions rose. One of the Marked, a girl named Mira, lashed out at a soldier who called her a "walking infection." Her glyph activated. The soldier flew fifteen feet into a wall.
Kael intervened before worse could happen.
"Mira!" he barked. "Control it, or it will control you."
She fell to her knees, shaking. "I didn't mean to—"
Kael didn't yell. "That's not how we survive this. You don't get to panic."
His mimic's voice returned, low and smug:
"Now you lead monsters. Congratulations."
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2:00 PM – Signals
Elle finished analyzing the creature's presence.
"It's not outputting energy," she said. "It's absorbing it. Anything electronic, anything System-linked—it drains it."
"EMP-type?" Dain asked.
"More like digital silence. It's shutting off what makes us readable."
The System couldn't detect it. Couldn't catalog it. That's why the wall hadn't responded in time.
Kael stared at the creature through binoculars. It still hadn't moved. But it was watching everything.
Waiting.
Its glyph had changed shape. Slightly. New lines forming like cracks across stone.
And then Kael looked down at his own arm—
His glyph was changing, too.
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4:00 PM – The First Breach
Without warning, one of the newer Marked—Joran—ran toward the breach.
"Wait!" Kael shouted, but Joran didn't stop.
He crossed the invisible threshold.
And the creature moved.
Not to attack.
To welcome.
Joran collapsed mid-step. His body seized up, eyes rolling back. The glyph on his neck flared, then split into multiple fragments. A second later—his chest stopped moving.
Dead. Instant shutdown.
The creature stepped over him, looked at Kael… and spoke again.
"You're not ready."
Then it turned, and walked back into the mist.
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5:00 PM – The Fire Line
Command didn't hesitate.
"We're sealing the breach. Burn protocol," Caldra said. "Kael, get your people out."
"They're not 'my people,'" Kael snapped. "They're yours, same as the rest."
"They're glyph-bearers. You think that's normal? You saw what happened to Joran."
Kael stepped forward, defiant. "He didn't die because of the glyph. He died because he trusted the wrong thing."
"And you think you can tell the difference?"
His mimic whispered:
"She's not wrong. You can't."
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6:00 PM – Containment
The fire line was set.
Flamethrowers ignited the treeline. The mist didn't vanish—it resisted, curling and clinging like smoke that refused to rise.
Kael stood with Elle and Dain at the command overlook. The remaining Marked stood behind him.
Everyone was silent.
Then Kael's mimic, for the first time, spoke clearly.
"It's not the Eye that watches anymore, Kael."
Kael frowned. "Then what?"
The mimic's voice turned flat.
"It's waiting for you to blink."
Kael looked down at his glyph. It was no longer just a mark.
It had become a sigil.
And it was starting to glow.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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