The sun was low behind the crater wall by the time we packed our gear and left the zone.
Ash stuck to our boots. The wind had quieted, but something heavier hung in the air—like gravity itself had changed.
We trekked five hours through broken rock paths and hollowed structures before arriving back at Outpost 09, the forward base built from scrap mechs and shattered railguns. The others filed in like routine.
But me?
I headed straight for the diagnostics bay.
---
"Run it again," I told the scanner tech.
He frowned. "You just checked last week, Kael."
"Run it. Now."
He sighed and waved the interface. Blue lines lit up the rig as I stepped inside.
Ten seconds passed.
[Bio-Energy Core Sync: Low Tier 7 – Decline Detected… Sync Stable at Tier 6.3]
I blinked.
Ten seconds of Low 7… and then it dropped. Again.
Stuck.
Level 6.3. Not temporary. Not a surge. This was my actual, stable state.
"…Shit," I muttered.
For a second I thought something was wrong. But then it clicked.
That dream... No. That meeting last night—wasn't a dream.
---
Later, I sat alone in the upper catwalk, legs dangling above the main hangar. The navigator Lucien gave me was still in my pocket. I hadn't even looked at it properly. It pulsed faintly now.
He knew. He told me the truth for a reason.
I'd asked him—"Why now?"
And now I understood.
Lucien had answered my question because he sensed the same thing I just confirmed:
> My energy has stabilized—not in Tier 7, but permanently just below it.
In this world, your Tier defines how the Starcore interacts with you. Your mind. Your biology. Your soul.
Tier 6 meant I was still human.
Tier 7 meant I was becoming something else.
> And I was caught in the middle.
No amount of training had pushed me further. No drug, no reactor pulse, no trauma.
Because it wasn't about power anymore.
It was about identity.
Lucien told me last night:
> "You and I are merging. You can't go forward until you let go of where you came from."
And I realized:
I haven't let go.
The name Kael, the memories of my last life, the rules I followed—they were still anchors.
Keeping me from crossing that threshold.
---
That evening, I ran a silent protocol test in the Starcore resonance chamber—just me, the compass navigator, and a silent AI circuit still offline.
I activated the navigator.
It showed me nothing.
Just a rotating axis and a pulsing center.
Like it was waiting.
For what?
I didn't know.
But something told me the next step wasn't physical.
It was spiritual.
---
I sat in the chamber's center for what must've been an hour. No sounds but my own breath, shallow and measured.
The navigator pulsed faintly in my hand—heartbeat rhythm, like it knew I was hesitating. Like it could sense the question I wasn't willing to ask.
"Lucien," I whispered.
Nothing.
Silence.
The same kind of silence you get right before an avalanche.
I closed my eyes.
"Lucien."
Then he was there again—without appearing, without light, without fanfare. Just… a presence.
His voice, as always, came from everywhere and nowhere.
> "You're still afraid."
"I'm not afraid."
> "Then why are you here, instead of training?"
I gritted my teeth. "Because I'm stuck. Tier 6.3. You already know that."
> "Yes. And you still think it's a problem."
"What else would it be?"
> "An answer."
I stared into the navigator. It didn't glow brighter. Didn't shift.
> "Kael, you're not just plateauing. You're stabilizing. That means something. Your body's rejecting the next transition because your mind isn't ready."
I clenched my fist. "Then tell me what I'm missing."
There was a long pause. I could almost feel him watching me—like a second mind inside my skull, peering out of my own eyes.
> "You're trying to become stronger without choosing who you are."
I hated when he talked in riddles. I'd asked for sword technique. Tactics. Not metaphysics.
But the worst part?
He was right.
---
When I got back to my bunk that night, I didn't sleep.
I watched the lights from the outer dome flicker against the ceiling. I could hear someone coughing in the next dorm block. Maybe Barta. His lungs had been rotting since the eastern trench mission.
I stared at the cracked ceiling, then turned my head toward the locker beside me.
Inside were my weapons. The dull longsword I used to train. The partial exosword still missing a core filament. A rusted vibrodagger I never used.
I thought about all four sword styles.
Exosword. Swift. Armoured. Breaker.
I'd tried to learn them all.
Like a fool.
Like I could balance between extremes and pretend that'd make me whole.
Lucien's words echoed in my head:
> "Pick one to lead. The others will follow."
I sat up.
Cold air hit my back like a blade. I opened the locker and pulled out the exosword.
Still dead. Still unfinished.
But it felt right in my hands.
I left the dorm and went outside.
---
Midnight. Wind carving low moans through the antennae towers. Moonlight spilled across the cracked field behind the mech hangars.
I stood in the center. Drew the exosword.
It felt heavier tonight.
Like it knew I was done pretending.
Like it demanded respect.
I whispered, "Dragon Clash."
The first technique.
I'd failed it twenty times before. Either overextended or undercommitted.
But now I crouched low. Let the weight settle in my thighs. Felt the earth beneath me. Imagined my own breath cycling not through my lungs—but through the blade.
Then I fell forward—intentionally.
Not a leap. Not a jump.
A drop.
Stance broken.
Momentum claimed.
And my body surged forward one meter—blade screaming through the air, the sound echoing like a thunderclap in a bottle.
My knees nearly buckled from the recoil.
But I smiled.
---
One hour passed.
I drilled Folded Wings next. Then Sudden Heat. Then Flash Cut.
My body burned. My back ached.
But I kept going.
Because I knew this was the path.
Because I felt Lucien behind my thoughts—not guiding anymore, just watching.
---
At dawn, I collapsed into the dirt, sweat staining my shirt like blood.
Then I heard him again. This time soft.
> "You've made your choice."
"I have," I said. "Exosword. I'm done running in circles."
> "Good. Then you're ready."
"For what?"
> "For integration."
My breath caught.
> "You've accepted who you are. Now you must accept who I am."
---
The wind stopped.
Everything froze.
And suddenly—
I wasn't in the outpost anymore.
I stood inside my mind.
Or a memory.
A hall of glass, stars outside the windows, and Lucien sitting on a bench ahead—his form clearer than ever.
I could see his face now. Like mine, but older. Sharper.
"I'm not crazy," I said aloud. "Right?"
He smiled.
"You are. Just not the way you think."
I laughed once, bitter. "You're not real."
"I am."
"But you're me."
"And you're me."
He stood.
Walked slowly toward me, hands behind his back.
"You think I've been whispering guidance from some ancient soul. But I haven't."
"Then what are you?"
"Memories."
He touched his chest.
"Echoes."
Then he pointed at me.
"But most of all—permission."
That word hit hard.
"You didn't need me to lead you, Kael. You needed to let yourself lead."
I swallowed thickly.
"And the moment you believed in me," he said, "was the moment you started believing in the part of yourself you buried."
I stared at him. My mouth dry.
"So you're not a soul."
"I'm a story. The one you were afraid to finish writing."
---
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the field.
Dawnlight hit the hangars in amber streaks.
I stood up.
Looked down at the exosword in my hand.
And said: "Let's write it then."
---
That day, I submitted my specialization request to Command.
Primary: Exosword-Class Combatant
Secondary: Swiftsword Adaptive Motion + Armoured Fluid Defense
Tertiary: Breaker Utility Training
The quartermaster raised an eyebrow when he saw the combination.
"No Breaker main?"
I shook my head. "Not anymore."
"You sure? Your past records—"
"I'm not my past."
He looked at me a second longer, then shrugged and stamped it.
---
Later that night, I sat alone on the west balcony, overlooking the field.
I thought of Lucien again.
Not as a ghost.
Not as a hallucination.
But as a version of me that I'd finally caught up to.
He wasn't gone. He didn't fade. He just… merged.
And in that space, for the first time, I was whole.
My voice was my own now.
And it was time to use it.
---
I stood beneath the broken sun sculpture, hand hovering over my chest.
The Starcore pulsed beneath skin and bone—hot, silent, and alive. Not like a fire.
More like a storm… waiting for command.
But this time, I wasn't here to be overwhelmed by it.
I was here to control it.
Lucien's notes echoed in my mind:
> "The Core reflects. It does not act unless you give it something true."
So I gave it something simple.
A command.
A single, focused word shaped not by voice—but by intention.
"Ignite."
The Starcore responded instantly.
Not with an explosion.
But with focus.
Heat surged into my right arm. Bones reinforced, tendons locked into alignment, every muscle sheathed in kinetic resonance. A faint aura—like shifting glass—coated my skin from shoulder to fingertip.
I threw a punch toward the training dummy.
It shattered—not from raw force, but from vibrational dissonance. My strike had overloaded its structure on an atomic level. A technique Lucien once called:
> "Pulse Shatter."
The power didn't come from muscle.
It came from phase alignment—the Core syncing with my nervous system to amplify motion through controlled vibration.
Not strength. Not magic.
Resonance.
---
I experimented further.
"Redirect."
The Core slid into my spine. My senses sharpened. The world slowed.
Not literally, but through perception. My reaction time doubled. I could see wind shifts, muscle twitches in an opponent, read trajectory before it even happened. Not precognition—just pure input clarity.
Lucien had used this in duels to counter enemies twice his speed. This was how he once deflected plasma bullets without looking.
And now, so could I.
I kept going.
"Stasis."
The Starcore pushed outward, forming a reactive shield—a thin temporal buffer. The next object that came near me would hesitate in the air for a fraction of a second, like time itself hiccupped.
Lucien used this to parry killing blows, not with force—but with pause.
Then came the most dangerous one.
"Split."
This was different.
The Core separated its resonance across my limbs—creating phantom echoes of movement. To an outside eye, I appeared to flicker, like I was in two places at once. But it wasn't teleportation.
It was time-skipping through muscle memory.
Lucien called it: "Echo-Step."
Hard to control. Even harder to survive if used too long.
But devastating if timed right.
---
I returned to the Hall later that cycle, more confident.
This time, the navigator compass glowed.
The sculpture above me pulsed in sequence with my breath.
And I knew what came next.
Practical use wasn't about knowing moves. It was about training the Starcore like a limb. Like breath. You don't tell your heart to beat—you let it beat through you.
So I stopped using words.
I moved.
And the Core moved with me.
One step at a time…
Until I was no longer Kael carrying the Core.
I was Kael, shaped by it.
Lucien would've said I was still a beginner.
But I knew the truth.
For the first time—
I was beginning to feel like a Veyrarax.
---