Edenfall: Genesis of Eternal War

Chapter Four – Flame and Memory

Theta-9 – Subsector Ruins, Post-Dusk

The stars were gone.

Ash and smoke blotted out the sky above Human District Theta-9, where the broken bones of civilization jutted from the earth like the ribs of a slain god. Crumbling rails, shattered steel towers, and fractured conduits glowed with the dying embers of a failed defense. Somewhere in the distance, an emergency siren wailed—weak, flickering, forgotten.

Kael Arin ran.

Boots pounding against cracked ferrocrete, breath ragged, heartbeat loud enough to drown out the world. Behind him, streaks of golden plasma carved smoking trenches in the ground, each blast closer than the last. The light wasn’t warm. It was judgment. And it hunted him.

“Incoming fire—left flank!” Nova’s voice rang sharp in his mind.

Kael dropped to one knee just as a bolt of light sizzled past his shoulder, searing the edge of his cloak. The heat grazed him like a sunflare, and for a heartbeat, his vision blurred.

He rolled, came up behind a collapsed transport hauler, and slammed his palm into the rusted metal.

“Create: barrier—dense, wide, heat-resistant.”

The skill flared.

The rust and steel buckled, morphed, and rose into a crude wall of interlocked plates. Ugly. Uneven. But it held.

A second later, three Choir-Class drones broke into view—sleek constructs of white alloy and living light, shaped like elongated angels with blade-tipped wings. Their halos glowed with scanning glyphs.

> Target Designation: Human – Anomalous Skill Signature Detected

Initiate Capture Protocol Alpha.

Kael didn’t wait.

“Nova, mark escape vector—”

But then he felt it.

A hum. Deep in his chest. Not from the drones. From within.

The same hum he’d felt when he forged that first crude dagger.

He turned toward the wreckage. His eyes locked onto a shattered drone core embedded in the rubble—still glowing faintly. Still singing to him.

“New command,” he whispered. “Nova—record this.”

> “Kael, your sync rate is unstable—”

“I don’t care.”

Kael raised both hands. Energy surged.

“Create: spike cannon—use the core’s shell as anchor. Override heat sink limit.”

The Creation skill flared to life.

Metal folded. Runes glowed where none had existed. A weapon—part drone, part Kael’s instinct—rose from the wreckage like a spine from the ground. He grabbed it with both hands. It was hot—too hot—but it fit.

He pointed it at the drones.

And fired.

The first Choir unit detonated mid-dive, spiraling into the ground in a burst of light and molten alloy. The second dodged, fast—but the third took the hit square in the chest and shattered.

Kael panted, vision swimming. His side burned. Too much too fast.

But he wasn’t done.

“Rin!” he shouted.

A blur moved behind him.

Rin Valin burst from cover with dual daggers drawn, her cloak trailing like shadow, eyes blazing. She vaulted the wreckage and slashed across the second drone’s head before it could fire. It screeched—a sound of metal being ripped from reality—and crashed into the ground at her feet.

She didn’t stop moving.

The third drone, circling back, unleashed a cascade of judgment bolts.

Rin rolled, flipped onto the side of a broken tower, and launched herself off it—feet first. Her heel struck the drone’s halo and shattered it like glass. It fell. She landed atop it, blades buried in its throat.

Silence returned.

Kael dropped to one knee, body trembling.

Rin ran to his side, pulled his arm over her shoulders.

“You idiot,” she hissed. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m breathing,” he managed.

“Barely.”

They moved—slowly—toward the underground sector gates.

Above them, the ruined sky flickered as Seraph-class watchers turned their gaze toward Theta-9.

---

Elsewhere – The Celestial Throne

High Archon Seraphiel watched the battle play out through layered screens of golden glass. The boy’s creation shimmered in paused motion—raw, ugly, efficient. The drones fell in a blur of chaos and instinct. No training. No divine directive.

Only defiance.

“He’s growing faster than the sync model allowed,” said a sentinel beside him. “We recommend nullification.”

“No,” Seraphiel replied. “Mark him. Monitor. Do not touch.”

“But the anomaly—”

“He is not an anomaly,” Seraphiel whispered. “He is the first spark of a coming fire. And we would be fools to extinguish it without understanding its fuel.”

The sentinel hesitated.

Then nodded.

---

Theta-9 Tunnels – Emergency Shelter 17

Rin stitched Kael’s side in silence, her hands swift, movements practiced.

Kael grimaced. “You got faster at this.”

“You got slower at avoiding it.”

Nova hovered over them, projecting a low field of silence.

> “Trauma localized. Internal bleeding contained. Suggest three hours of stasis rest. Combat potential compromised by thirty-seven percent.”

Kael ignored the warning. His eyes were locked on the spike cannon lying beside him.

“I felt it,” he whispered. “The power core. The pieces wanted to fit.”

Nova responded slowly.

> “System-coded constructs resonate with your trait. It’s not compatibility. It’s control.”

Rin stopped mid-wrap.

“Kael… that’s not normal.”

“I know,” he said. “And neither am I.”

---

Later – Deeper in the Tunnels

Kael sat alone with Nova in a dead reactor chamber. Sparks still glowed from a few broken pylons. He pressed his hand to the concrete.

“Create: lamp.”

A tiny orb of light formed.

He placed it on the floor. Then another. And another. A trail of lights behind him. A reminder. A mark.

“Nova,” he said, voice soft, “do you think I can make something that lasts?”

> “You already did.”

Nova projected a memory—of the spike cannon, now faded, but still humming.

> “You made fear in weapons designed to create it. That’s how it begins.”

Kael stared at his hands.

“No,” he said.

“That’s how it ends.”

---

System Notification – User: Kael Arin

> Forgeheart Sync Level: 4.3%

Trait Instability: Moderate

System Override Potential: 0.007%

Warning: You are walking a path unrecognized by the Light.

> Message from High Authority Queued…

Access denied – insufficient clearance.