Chapter 8 Gareth's Sin
Ren's hands were shaking.
Not from the cold. Not from exhaustion. But because every page of Gareth's journal he turned felt like a fist driven into his ribs — one after another, without pause.
Kael and Aela had pulled back without being asked. They sat on the far side of the underground chamber, giving Ren the space he needed but hadn't requested. Only the sound of old paper filled the silence.
The journal was written in faded ink, but the words were still sharp.
"I am not an Awakener. I never was one. I was a researcher — one of seven people who studied the remnants of the civilization that existed before the Collapse. We called ourselves Archivists."
Ren turned the page. His heart beat faster.
"Thirty years ago, I discovered Ashveil. Not alone — with a small team. Four of us. One of them was a young man, the most brilliant among us. His name was Aldric Voss."
Ren stopped reading. His eyes reread the sentence three times. Aldric Voss. Commander Voss.
He forced his hand to turn the next page.
"We found an artifact that explained the true nature of the Void Core — Devour. Not mere absorption. But the deconstruction of the essence of power, rebuilt as the user's own. Aldric saw military potential. I saw danger. We argued. Then we stopped arguing — because there was no friendship left between us worth arguing over."
"Aldric stole part of the data. Started something he called Project Rebirth. I disappeared — not out of cowardice, but because there was something I had to protect. Someone."
「I was sealed as a guide because Gareth was the one who did it.」
Lyra's voice broke the silence like glass shattering on stone. But something was different. Her tone — strange. A mix of anger and something deeper. Something older.
…Longing?
「He sealed a fragment of me into your Core as a safeguard. I'm not an AI, Ren.」
A long pause.
「I am a fragment of a whole Void entity.」
Ren stared blankly at the page in his hands. Lyra's words echoed through his skull like a gong struck too hard.
"A fragment," he repeated quietly. "So you're… a piece of something."
「Something far larger than you can imagine right now. And Gareth — your grandfather — is the one who placed me here. Inside you.」
Aela stood first.
Not out of anger. Her legs moved before her mind could catch up. Her father's name — written in that journal with the same ink, on the same page, as part of the same story.
"So my father used to…" Her voice cracked mid-sentence. She swallowed. "…want to save people? Before he became this monster?"
Kael didn't answer right away. He stared at the stone ceiling as though searching for the right words among its cracks. Then, softly: "People don't become monsters overnight. It's a process."
Ren closed the journal. His hands were still trembling, but not from fear anymore — from anger. On the last page he'd read, a single sentence was scrawled in messier handwriting, as if written in a rush:
"Ren is not my grandson. Ren is—"
The next page was gone.
Torn out. Not by time. Not by moisture. The tear was clean — deliberate. Someone had destroyed that truth before it could be read. Maybe Gareth himself.
"No." Ren gripped the journal's cover. "No."
「Don't break apart now,」 Lyra said, and for the first time her voice sounded gentle. 「A missing page means that information was too dangerous to leave behind. Gareth was protecting you — even from the truth.」
"I don't need protection." Ren looked at the journal the way someone looks at a grave. "I need answers."
But answers would have to wait. Because Ren's body couldn't.
Lyra analyzed the data from the journal and the hidden chamber simultaneously, then projected her findings before Ren as a pale blue holographic panel.
「There's a Void Resonance Chamber beneath Ashveil. An ancient machine — used by the pre-Collapse civilization to calibrate Cores with their user's body. If you use it, your body can be upgraded from Grade-E to Grade-D.」
"Meaning?"
「Body strain decreases. Vessel capacity expands. You'd be able to hold a fourth Class without your body tearing itself apart from the inside.」
"And the risk?"
Lyra was quiet one second too long.
「The process is extremely painful. And there is a thirty percent chance your body won't survive it.」
Aela looked at Ren as though he'd just announced he was going to throw himself off a cliff. "Thirty percent chance of dying? You're insane."
Ren was already walking toward the lower corridor. "Seventy percent chance of living. I've had worse odds."
Kael let out a long sigh. "…technically, he's right."
"Don't encourage him!"
But Ren was already standing before the chamber — an ancient cylindrical metal structure, embedded in the stone floor like a heart that had stopped beating thousands of years ago. Lyra activated it. Blue light bled from the seams in the metal, pulsing slow, like breath.
Ren stepped inside.
The process began without warning. Void energy tore inward from every direction — not gentle, not gradual. Ren screamed.
Outside, Kael clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. Every instinct in him screamed to pull Ren out. But he held himself back — because he knew this wasn't a fight he could finish with a sword.
Aela raised both hands. A barrier enchantment wrapped around the chamber — not to protect Ren, but to contain the Void energy before it could rupture outward and tear the entire room apart.
Two minutes felt like two hours.
Then —
「Grade Up Complete: E → D. Body strain reset to 31%. Vessel capacity expanded.」
Ren stepped out on shaking knees, breathing like a man who'd just been pulled from drowning. But it was denser. Every movement felt more precise, like a machine that had finally been calibrated right.
"Still alive," he said. Half to them. Half to himself.
Kael clapped him on the shoulder once. Didn't say anything. Didn't need to.
Far from Ashveil — at Sentinel Corps headquarters, standing like a steel fortress in the heart of the city — Commander Aldric Voss stared at a holographic map of the Fractured Lands.
"Extraction Team is ready, sir."
Voss didn't turn. "Who's leading?"
"Lieutenant Mara Synn. Grade-A. Executor Class."
Mara Synn stood in the corner of the room like a shadow that had chosen to be seen. Her eyes were flat. Her posture flawless. There was no warmth in her face — only efficiency honed into a weapon.
Voss finally turned. "Bring Ren Ashford back alive. Kill anyone who gets in the way."
"Understood."
"And Mara —" Voss paused. His jaw tightened. "If you find my daughter with them… bring her too. Alive, if possible."
Mara tilted her head slightly. A small movement that felt more threatening than it should have.
"And if it's not possible?"
Voss didn't answer.
The room was silent. And in that silence, the answer left unspoken rang louder than any order ever could.