The relic's projection faded, but the name lingered in Mike's mind like a burn: Vyre.
He barely slept. When morning came, he didn't wait for Talia or Lucas.
Instead, he packed a basic field kit, checked out under a different name, and caught a metroline heading into the industrial dead zones below Gravemarch.
No permissions. No backup. Just a name and a fire inside him that refused to go out.
The Old City Beneath Gravemarch
Abandoned rail tunnels, forgotten during Gravemarch's vertical expansion, twisted like a decaying skeleton beneath the city. The air was stale, thick with the scent of rust and ash. Flickering lights lined the narrow corridor ahead of him, left over from some old mining operation.
Mike held the relic like a compass. It pulsed stronger the deeper he went.
After an hour, the path opened into a collapsed storage yard. There, among twisted beams and half-buried steel, was something that didn't belong—a door of obsidian, smooth and flawless, etched with the same spiral-triangle symbol that had branded his skin.
"This is it…" he whispered.
As his fingers brushed the surface, the relic in his hand ignited, a radiant orange glow spilling into the dark like molten fire.
The door responded.
It opened without sound.
Inside was a chamber—ancient and untouched.
Its walls were lined with carvings, pictograms telling stories of cities burning, skies torn open, men made of flame and bone, standing against endless darkness. At the center of the room was a pedestal, and atop it—
A mirror.
Not glass. Something older. Living.
When Mike looked into it… he didn't see himself.
He saw Vyre.
And then everything broke.
Flash. A battlefield.
A man stood tall amidst chaos—hair singed, body wrapped in scorched armor. Vyre. His eyes glowed gold, mouth screaming orders as a black tide swallowed the sky.
Mike felt the heat in his chest, felt the fire pour through his veins like liquid steel. He was Vyre. No—he was seeing through him.
Then came the Hive.
A swarm of minds. Voices in unison. Too many. Too loud.
"We offer order. You offer pain. End your flame. Submit."
Vyre had refused. Chosen fire instead. Chosen sacrifice.
And then—
Mike collapsed.
His knees hit the chamber floor as the vision tore away. His breathing was ragged, skin burning. He clutched at his chest—
The same symbol now glowing through his shirt.
It wasn't a scar anymore.
It was awake.
But he wasn't alone.
From the darkness behind him, footsteps approached—soft, deliberate.
A voice echoed from the shadows.
"You shouldn't have come here."
Mike turned quickly, weapon drawn. But the man who stepped into the dim orange glow wasn't cult.
He was worse.
Wearing standard government black, with a face half-covered in cybernetic mesh, the man moved with the quiet precision of someone used to being forgotten.
"You triggered a fire node. There are only five left in the world, and now it knows you've touched it."
"Who are you?" Mike demanded.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he pulled something from his coat—a blade shaped like a shard of obsidian, crackling with faint red energy.
"The cult isn't your only threat, Mike."
"How do you know my name?"
"You carry the Flame. That means the Hive is watching."
Mike's grip tightened. "And what are you? Another agent?"
The man's head tilted. "No. I'm just... a warning."
He moved with blinding speed—blade slicing the air just inches from Mike's cheek before vanishing back into its sheath.
"Next time we meet, you'll understand."
And then he was gone.
Mike stood alone in the silence again, the chamber's walls pulsing with residual heat. The mirror had gone dark. The pedestal cracked open, revealing an old piece of parchment.
A single line, written in an ancient dialect—yet Mike understood it perfectly:
"Only through fire can blood be remembered."
As Mike stepped back into the tunnels, the Hive stirred in the back of his mind—no longer whispering, but watching.
And far above, in the slums of Gravemarch, a cult acolyte awoke with a scream—his dreams invaded by flames and a name he wasn't supposed to remember:
Vyre.