Chapter 385: Something Answered

The blue light was still in the sky, and nobody said a word.

Kai stood at the edge of the ancient launch platform, staring at the distant point of light. It was almost too faint to see now, but he could still feel it. Something had answered, and it hadn’t come from the ruins or from anywhere else on the continent. It had come from somewhere beyond.

Lily’s scanner kept flashing warnings as she stared at the readings. "I’ve never seen energy behave like this."

Aren looked over her shoulder. "Can you identify the source?"

"No."

"Can you estimate the distance?"

"No."

"Can you..."

"No."

Aren paused. "You could have let me finish."

"I knew the question."

Sera laughed quietly. Even now, Lily was still Lily.

Gabriel wasn’t smiling, though. She was looking at the sky. "We need to contact the Church."

Kai nodded. "Now."

They returned to Nexus as quickly as they could, and Gabriel led them straight into the Astral Church’s research district. The building was usually busy, but today it was chaos. Researchers rushed between rooms with tablets and ancient documents, communication screens flashed warnings, and several senior researchers had gathered around a massive holographic map of the continent.

Kai noticed right away that several points on the map had gone dark. "What happened?"

"Observation stations," Gabriel said, walking to the map. She pointed to the western side of Nexus. "These three stopped responding." Then the northern region. "These two." Then the eastern coast. "And this one."

Kai frowned. "Six?"

Lily’s expression changed. "All at once?"

"Within thirty seconds," Gabriel said.

Aren stepped closer. "Are they damaged?"

"We don’t know." Gabriel turned to one of the researchers. "Any response?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Can we see the last transmission?"

"Yes."

A recording came up, static and distorted voices, then a burst of blue light, then silence.

Lily leaned closer. "Play it again." The researcher did, and her eyes narrowed. "That’s not interference. Look at the pattern."

Kai watched. The blue flash repeated at regular intervals, three short pulses, one long, then three short again.

"It’s the same pattern," Lily said.

Aren looked at her. "As the launch system?"

"Yes."

Gabriel’s expression turned serious. "So the stations didn’t go dark because they were attacked."

Lily shook her head. "They received the signal, and then they shut down."

Sera frowned. "Why?"

"I don’t know."

Kai studied the map. The six dark stations were scattered across Nexus, but they formed a rough arc, and it wasn’t random. Distortion stirred, and a faint pressure spread through his body. He closed his eyes as possibilities formed around the stations, the seven ruins, the launch system, and the signal, but he couldn’t see the whole path. Something was missing.

Then he felt it, and his eyes snapped open.

Someone was watching him. It wasn’t from inside the room or anywhere in the city. It was coming from somewhere impossibly far away, and his whole body went still.

Sera noticed immediately. "Kai?"

He didn’t answer, and her expression changed as she moved closer. "Kai."

His eyes stayed fixed on the window. The strangest part was that the feeling wasn’t hostile. There was no killing intent and no pressure, nothing trying to attack him. It was simply awareness. Something knew he was there, and it was looking at him. Distortion reacted again, not violently, but almost as if it was recognizing another possibility.

Sera stood beside him. "You felt it."

"Yes," Kai said at last.

"What was it?"

He stared into the distance. "I don’t know."

Sera studied his face. "You really don’t?"

"No."

For once, there was no hidden answer behind his words, and that seemed to bother Sera more than anything else. Kai usually had something, a plan or a possibility or at least a direction. This time, he had nothing.

"Guys," Lily called from beside a large relic console. "Come here."

They gathered around her. She had connected the Church’s ancient archive network to what was left of the launch system’s signal data, and something was forming on the screen. It wasn’t a map of Nexus, or even of the continent. It was a vast field of stars.

A single blue dot appeared far away, then another, and another.

Aren stared. "Those aren’t observation stations."

"No," Lily said. "They’re too far away."

"How far?" Gabriel asked.

"We can’t calculate it. We don’t know the reference point."

Lily zoomed out, and the map kept expanding until Nexus was only a tiny dot, then until the entire planet was a dot, and then until even that disappeared into the distance.

Nobody spoke.

"That’s..." Sera whispered.

"Yes," Lily said. "We’re looking at something outside our planet."

Aren slowly sat down. "So the ancient civilization really did leave."

"Maybe," Kai said.

Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"

"We don’t know if these signals came from them."

Aren looked at him. "Who else could it be?"

Kai didn’t answer, because that was the problem. They had assumed the civilization had left, and now they had proof that something existed beyond the planet. But they didn’t know what it was, or who, or whether the civilization had ever actually made it there. Something else might have been waiting for them.

An alarm went off, and a researcher shouted, "We have another signal!"

Lily rushed back to the console. "From where?"

"Not from outside." The researcher swallowed. "From inside Nexus."

Everyone froze.

Points began appearing on the continental map, one after another, until there were seven signals, one beneath each ancient ruin.

Lily went pale. "They’re synchronizing."

Gabriel looked at her. "What does that mean?"

"I don’t know."

The seven points pulsed together once, twice, three times, and then the entire ancient network came online. Lines of light connected all seven ruins to a single central location, Nexus City, and then a new line appeared. It didn’t lead to another ruin. It led straight up, past the continent and past the planet, toward the same distant blue point.

"They’re communicating," Kai said.

"Not exactly," Aren said, pointing at the map. "Look."

Kai looked again. The signal hadn’t started in the ruins. It had started outside, and the ruins were answering it.

Lily’s breathing quickened. "Why?"

Nobody knew.

The ancient console began to change, and a line of text appeared that none of the researchers could read. Lily tried her translation software, and it failed. She tried again, but the symbols kept shifting until the broken circle appeared, three sections dark and one lit. Beside it, another symbol formed, a single human silhouette.

Kai stared at it, and Distortion reacted hard. The whole room went silent.

"Kai..." Lily whispered.

"I see it."

The text finally settled, and Lily looked at the translation. Her face went pale.

"What does it say?" Sera asked.

Lily didn’t answer.

Gabriel stepped closer. "Lily."

Lily swallowed. "It’s not a warning. It’s an identification."

Kai’s eyes narrowed. "Of what?"

Lily turned the screen toward them, and a final line appeared beneath the broken circle. For several seconds, nobody moved. Then she read it aloud.

"The Candidate has returned."

Sera looked at Kai. "That’s what the forest ruin said."

"Not from the ruin this time," Kai said quietly. He looked at the line of light stretching past the planet. "From out there."

Aren stared at the message. "Then returned from where?"

Kai didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. But the message bothered him for another reason. It didn’t read like anything they had found in Aegis. Those messages had been instructions, judgments, and warnings. This was different. Whoever had sent it wasn’t asking whether Kai was the Candidate. They already believed they knew.

Then Kai felt the presence again, far beyond the sky and far beyond the planet, and it noticed him. This time, he felt something else as well. It was recognition, and it wasn’t coming from him.

It was coming from it.

Distortion trembled, and somewhere beyond the stars, something answered again.