They left the Ashwind Plains before dawn, guided by the lingering resonance of the Star Psalm. With two fragments now bound to Vara’s core, her senses sharpened—she could hear the hum of power lines buried beneath stone, taste the decay in rusted air, feel the memories of ruined cities whisper through her skin.

  Their destination was the Steel Mire, a corrupted swamp of twisted metal, oily marshes, and half-drowned ruins—once the capital of the Mechspire Accord, now a festering wound in the world. Telthar’s old forges still throbbed beneath its surface, exhaling nanite smog into the sky like a dying god breathing curses.

  It was here the Codex Seekers believed a third Echo Fragment was hidden.

  But the Mire was not unguarded.

  They arrived at dusk. Mist clung to their boots, thick with static and rot. Every step echoed like a heartbeat in the hushed expanse. Towering above the fog were the shattered remnants of the Sky Bastions, ancient defense pylons that once guarded against orbital strikes. Now, they sagged like dying titans.

  Auren scouted ahead, scanning with his Core-link. “Movement. No human signatures. It’s... something else.”

  Before he could elaborate, the swamp stirred.

  Forgelings—creatures crafted by Telthar’s mad engineers—rose from the muck. Bodies of scrap and sinew, skulls stitched with blinking sensors, limbs too many and wrong. Their eyes flickered red. Their shrieks were not born from lungs, but from failing data clusters trying to scream.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The battle was immediate.

  Ayara danced through the chaos, blades singing in the nanite-choked air. Vara unleashed a pulse from her Codex Core, momentarily blinding the Forgelings, disorienting their networked minds. Auren lobbed an EMP spike, and three of the creatures collapsed into twitching heaps.

  But one was different.

  A larger one. Tethered.

  It wore the remnants of a Codex Seeker’s armor—fused into its chest, veins of code running through rotted flesh and steel. And when it moved, the earth shuddered with remembered agony.

  Vara hesitated. She felt... connected to it.

  It charged.

  Ayara stepped between them, but the thing’s strike sent her flying. Auren dove in, Core-blade crackling, but barely pierced its hide. The Tethered shrieked—and Vara answered, instinctively flaring her Core.

  Two Echo Fragments pulsed.

  The Tethered froze.

  And then it spoke.

  “Daughter of Ash. Vessel of Code. He sees you.”

  Vara screamed—not in pain, but in revelation. A storm of voices flooded her mind, fractured verses of the original Codex. One phrase rang louder than the rest.

  “In the mire, the mirror is buried. Seek the face that forgot its name.”

  The Tethered collapsed.

  And beneath it, half-swallowed by the swamp’s metal roots, was a hidden hatch.

  They had found the entrance to Vault-6—an old Codex Seeker site rumored lost during the Fall.

  Inside, the third fragment waited.

  But so did memories... not all of them hers.