Chapter 8 Gareth's Sin

Ren's hands were shaking.

Not from the cold. Not from exhaustion. But each page of Gareth’s journal he flipped through felt like a fist pounded into his ribs — one after another and without end.

Kael and Aela had backed off on their own. They sat on the other side of the underground chamber, allowing Ren the room he required but had not asked for. The silence was only filled by the sound of antiquated paper.

The ink in the journal was faded, but each word still cut.

"I am not an Awakener. I never was one. I worked as a researcher — one of seven people to study the remains of the civilization that came before the Collapse. We called ourselves Archivists."

Ren turned the page. His heart beat faster.

“I found Ashveil 30 years ago. Not by myself — with a small team. Four of us. One of them was a youth, the most brilliant among us. His name was Aldric Voss."

Ren stopped reading. He re-reread the sentence three times. Aldric Voss. Commander Voss.

He made himself flip to the next page.

“We discovered an artifact that detailed what the Void Core — Devour, really was. Not mere absorption. But the deconstruction of what is power, remade in this content with user as its own. Aldric saw military potential. I saw danger. We argued. Then we stop fighting — because our friendship no longer remains worth arguing over.”

“Aldric stole some of the data. He started what he called Project Rebirth. I went underground — not because I was afraid, but because I had something to protect. Someone."

「It was Gareth who did it, so I was sealed as a guide. 」

Lyra’s voice pierced the silence like glass breaking on stone. But something was different. Her tone — strange. So a mix of rage and something deeper. Something older.

…Longing?

「He enclosed a shard of me in your Core, as insurance. I'm not an AI, Ren. 」

A long pause.

「Koori gruzel don proz upy Fagra vazz do vi karbel. 」

Ren stared at the page in his hands, blank. Lyra’s words rang through his skull like a tuned gong smitten too soundly.

"A fragment," he repeated quietly. "So you’re … a cog in something.”

“Something much bigger than you can see right now. And Gareth — your grandfather — is the one who put me in here. Inside you. 」

Aela stood first.

Not out of anger. Her limbs were acting before her brain registered it. Her father’s name — scrawled in that journal with the same ink, on the same page, as part of the same story.

“So my father used to…” as her voice cracked mid-sentence. She swallowed. "…want to save people? Before he became this monster?"

Kael didn't answer right away. He looked up at the stone ceiling, as if hoping to find the right words in its cracks. Then, gently: “People don’t become monsters in one night. It's a process."

Ren closed the journal. His hands trembled still, but not from fear — from anger. On the previous page he’d read, a single sentence was scrawled in messier handwriting — as though written in haste:

"Ren is not my grandson. Ren is—"

The next page was gone.

Torn out. Not by time. Not by moisture. The tear was clean — intentional. Someone had obliterated that truth before it could be read. Maybe Gareth himself.

“No.” Ren clutched a cover of the journal. "No."

“Don’t fall apart now,” Lyra said, and for the first time her voice was soft. “When a page is missing, that means the information was something too dangerous to leave behind. Gareth was protecting you — even from the truth. 」

"I don't need protection." Ren regarded the journal like a grave. "I need answers."

But answers would have to wait. Because Ren's body couldn't.

Lyra cross-referenced the data in the journal with that of the hidden chamber and projected her findings out before Ren in pale blue holographic form.

“There’s a Void Resonance Chamber under Ashveil. An ancient machine — used by the pre-Collapse civilization to calibrate Cores with their user’s body. In using it, your body can be upgraded from Grade-E to Grade-D. 」

"Meaning?"

「Body strain decreases. Vessel capacity expands. You would be able to maintain a fourth Class without your body shredding itself from the inside. 」

"And the risk?"

Lyra fell silent for one second too many.

「The process is extremely painful. And you’ve got a 30 percent chance of not coming out the other side. 」

Aela stared at Ren as if he had just declared that he planned to throw himself off a cliff. "Thirty percent chance of dying? You're insane."

Ren was already heading down the corridor below. "Seventy percent chance of living. I've had worse odds."

Kael let out a long sigh. "…technically, he's right."

"Don't encourage him!"

But Ren was already in front of the chamber — an ancient cylindrical metal edifice stuck to the stone floor, like the heart of a god that had ceased beating thousands of years before. Lyra activated it. Blue light seeped along the seams in the metal, pulsing slow, like breath.

Ren stepped inside.

The process began without warning. Void energy shredded inward from all sides — not gently, not gradually. Ren screamed.

Outside, Kael made fists and turned his knuckles white. Every instinct in him was screaming to yank Ren out. But he restrained himself — because he understood this was not a conflict he could solve with a sword.

Aela raised both hands. An enchantment of containment had shrouded the chamber — not because Ren needed protection, but to ensnare the Void energy from rupturing outward and shredding the whole room apart.

Two minutes seemed like two hours.

Then —

“Grade Up Complete: E — D. Body strain reset to 31%. Vessel capacity expanded. 」

Ren climbed out on trembling legs, gasping like a man who had just been dragged from drowning. But it was denser. It was as if every movement had gotten sharper: the machine finally calibrated correctly.

"Still alive," he said. Half to them. Half to himself.

Kael slapped him on the shoulder once. Didn't say anything. Didn't need to.

Far away from Ashveil — at Sentinel Corps headquarters, rising like a steel fortress in the heart of the city — Commander Aldric Voss stared down at a holographic map of the Fractured Lands.

"Extraction Team is ready, sir."

Voss didn't turn. "Who's leading?"

"Lieutenant Mara Synn. Grade-A. Executor Class."

But Mara Synn stood silhouetted in the corner of the room, a shadow that had decided to be seen. Her eyes were flat. Her posture flawless.

Voss finally turned. "Bring Ren Ashford back alive. Kill whoever is blocking the road”.

"Understood."

"And Mara —" Voss paused. His jaw tightened. “If you catch my daughter with any of them… then bring her too. Alive, if possible."

Mara tilted her head slightly. A gentle gesture, that seemed more menacing than necessary.

"And if it's not possible?"

Voss didn't answer.

The room was silent. And in that silence, the unspoken answer loomed larger than any order ever could.