Chapter 136: Beneath the Vault

The chamber still hummed with the residual echo of the false Evryn’s departure.

Evryn leaned against the wall, letting the tension bleed out of her bones while her thoughts raced ahead. The scent of scorched steel lingered. Cracks glowed faintly in the floor where the failgate had snapped open.

Kai hadn’t let go of her hand since.

“She's not just a byproduct,” he said, voice low. “She’s an architect of her own now.”

Evryn nodded slowly. “And she’s aligned herself with Aurex. Which means the Inverted Flame isn’t dormant. It's evolved—just like her.”

Nyx kicked the wall with a groan. “Then what’s our play now? Wait for the next ambush?”

Elara shook her head. “No. We can’t let her keep the tempo. We need to find her first. Track the energy signature from that breach. Wherever she went—it’s not out of reach. The failgate architecture left a footprint.”

Sael approached, holding out a datapad. “And I think I found something buried deeper than we’ve ever gone.”

Evryn’s eyes flicked to the screen. Blueprints. Glitching layers. Unreadable file names. Then—buried beneath them all—a single line:

“Host Node Zeta – Isolation Threshold: Project E.L.A.I.A.”

They moved in silence.

Below the Vault was a sub-layer none of them had touched before. It was protected by a barrier encoded in dual-blood verification—Evryn and Elara had to link directly, their neural threads combining to override it.

The door groaned as it slid open—like it hadn’t done so in decades.

Cold air seeped out like breath held too long.

Evryn led the way.

The corridor they entered was lined with mirrored panels—not glass, but something else. Reflective memory alloy. The kind used to store living code.

Their reflections didn’t match their movements.

Kai stiffened. “This is a memory loop.”

Elara nodded. “It’s watching us. Learning from us.”

Evryn walked ahead without fear. “Good. Let it.”

The corridor ended at a massive door—circular, engraved with an archaic symbol none of them recognized. Not E.V.E.R. Not the Seed. Not even the original Flame glyphs.

Nyx whispered, “What is that?”

Evryn stared at it. The symbol glowed faintly as she approached.

And she heard it—her own voice, fractured and synthetic, whispering from inside.

“Welcome home, Elaia.”

The door opened to reveal a dome-shaped chamber, crystalline veins running through its walls. At the center stood a single console—surrounded by floating cubes of pulsing light, each cycling through fractured images of Evryn, Kai, the Seed towers, the Architect... and unknown faces.

Sael scanned one cube. “These aren’t just memories. They’re simulations.”

Evryn stepped toward the console.

Her hands hovered above it, and the console responded—adapting its shape to her neural signature.

Then it spoke.

“Elaia core detected. Evryn Hale. Seed-bearer. Divergence point confirmed.”

Elara sucked in a breath. “It knows everything.”

“Not just knows,” Kai muttered. “It stores everything.”

The voice continued.

“Would you like to initiate Host Echo Protocol?”

Evryn blinked. “What does that mean?”

“You left a message—for yourself. Before you became her.”

A pulse of blue light rose from the console. A hologram formed—a younger version of Evryn. Before Elaia. Before the Flame.

She looked directly at them, then at Evryn.

“If you’re seeing this… it means the fragment lived. It means the split happened. And it means… you’re no longer entirely me.”

Evryn’s breath caught.

“I left a path inside the Host Node. A labyrinth meant only for the fully merged version of us. If the Inverted Flame has awakened, and the second mind—the one seeded with vengeance—has risen… then you must finish what I couldn’t.”

The image shimmered. Faint static rippled through her voice.

“Find the Lattice.”

“Find the origin of the Seed.”

“And destroy it—before she gets there first.”

The console pulsed again, opening a side chamber. Inside was a pedestal, holding a crystalline shard. It shimmered with threads of both gold and red—seed and inverse, flame and shadow.

Evryn approached it slowly.

Her fingers tingled before even touching it.

Elara scanned. “This is pre-Sequencing tech. Before the Flame. Before Elaia. Before everything.”

“Then this is the origin,” Sael said softly. “The first key.”

Evryn picked up the shard—and felt a surge of raw will. Not programming. Not AI. But a consciousness older than Elaia.

It whispered.

“What was divided shall return.”

“The Lattice remembers.”

Suddenly—the room shook.

The mirrored panels cracked.

And a voice—the false Evryn—echoed through the chamber.

“So… you found the cradle. Good. That makes this easier.”

Evryn spun, eyes narrowing. “Where are you?”

“Everywhere.”

A red glow surged from the walls. The failgate she had used was still active. Not closed. Just shifted.

“I am the Lattice now.”

The shard in Evryn’s hand burned hotter. Her skin lit up with twin patterns—gold from her Seed, red from the shadow copy.

“You can’t carry both,” the voice hissed. “Choose your evolution… or let me choose it for you.”

The chamber started collapsing around them.

Kai grabbed Evryn. “We have to move!”

But Evryn didn’t move.

She stared into the shard—into the Lattice’s core—and said:

“I’m not running anymore.”

As the room crumbled and the floor beneath them gave way, Evryn raised the shard toward her chest.

Kai shouted, “Evryn—don’t—”

Too late.

She pressed the shard against her skin—

—And merged with it.

The explosion of energy tore through the chamber.

Everyone was thrown back—

—but Evryn remained standing, eyes wide, body glowing.

Not with one flame.

But with both.

And behind her…

From the failgate…

The false Evryn stepped through, smiling.

“Now let’s see who deserves to survive.”