Chapter 3: The Riftstorm
The world froze.
Kairo's heart thudded in his chest as the sky fractured like broken glass. Violet lightning cracked across the clouds, and dozens of black rifts tore open reality like it was a fragile simulation.
From each tear, monstrous figures began to emerge.
Some were towering, others crawled. Limbs that bent at impossible angles, glowing eyes with no pupils, metal fused with flesh. These weren't just monsters. They were breaches—living data leaks from the void, corrupted remnants of failed Protocols.
Veyra's voice snapped him back.
"Get up. If you stay down, you die."
Kairo forced himself to his feet. "What are those things?"
"Voidfiends," she said, already stepping in front of him, drawing a blade that shimmered with shifting code. "The Protocol you triggered… It called them."
The first wave hit.
A screech like static from hell ripped the air as one of the Voidfiends lunged. Veyra moved like a ghost, dodging under its blade-arm and slicing upward. Her weapon disintegrated the creature's chest in a burst of data particles.
Kairo turned just as another monster charged him.
His instincts kicked in. The Phasefire flared to life, wrapping around his arm. He punched forward, and the energy burst through the creature's core. The impact knocked him back ten feet.
"You're not controlling it yet," Veyra said, appearing beside him. "You're leaking too much power."
"I didn't ask for this!" Kairo yelled.
"You didn't have to. The Key chose you."
The battlefield was chaos now. Civilians screamed in the distance. Sirens began to wail. Drones buzzed overhead, scanning the anomaly. But nothing could stop the storm.
Kairo gritted his teeth. A fire had ignited inside him—a question that demanded answers.
"Why me?"
Veyra didn't answer immediately. She slashed through three more Voidfiends before she spoke. "You're the only compatible soul. The last God Key bearer died seventeen years ago. The Protocol has been dormant since. Until now."
Something stirred behind them.
A larger portal opened. And from it stepped a figure not like the others.
Humanoid. Tall. Masked. Black coat with red circuitry veins pulsing across it.
The figure raised its hand—and the Voidfiends stopped.
Kairo and Veyra stood frozen.
"Protocol Bearer 04," the figure said. Its voice was like corrupted audio. "Unauthorized activation confirmed. Extraction required."
"Who the hell are you?" Kairo demanded.
The figure stepped forward. "I am Syntax. Directive: Reformat. You are an anomaly. You must be reset."
Veyra stepped in front of Kairo. "He's not going anywhere."
Syntax ignored her. "Phasefire unstable. You are a danger to this timeline. The God Key will corrupt you. Come willingly… or be erased."
Kairo clenched his fists. The Phasefire flared again—more stable this time, swirling around him in radiant blue tendrils.
"I don't care what the Key chose," he said. "I'm not letting some glitched-out data freak decide my future."
Syntax moved.
So did Kairo.
They clashed mid-air.
Phasefire met red algorithmic energy. The force shattered windows, cracked pavement, and sent shockwaves through the city. Veyra joined the battle, moving with surgical precision to cut through incoming Voidfiends while Kairo and Syntax battled like gods in digital armor.
Blow after blow, Kairo felt his power evolving. The Phasefire was responding—not just to his rage, but to his will. He wasn't just defending anymore.
He was fighting back.
Syntax began to glitch. Its movements lagged. Sparks flew.
Kairo landed a final blast—an orb of compressed Phasefire that detonated on contact. Syntax exploded into fragments of data.
The Voidfiends shrieked—and fled into the remaining portals.
Silence fell.
Kairo dropped to one knee, exhausted. The fire faded.
Veyra walked up, blade still glowing.
"You held your own," she said. "But this was just the first wave."
He looked up. "There's more?"
She nodded. "Syntax was a scout. The real ones are coming. You need to train. You need to learn how to survive. Because next time, the God Key won't be enough."
Kairo stared at the wrecked skyline.
He had a million questions—but only one answer mattered right now:
He wasn't running anymore.
[End of Chapter 3]