Chapter 398: Return To Nexus

The first thing Kai heard was the sound of stone cracking. A second later, the underground passage shook violently, and dust rained down from the ceiling.

Lily grabbed the nearest wall. “Is this supposed to happen?”

Aren stumbled as the floor shifted under him. “No.”

Lily looked at him. “That was a very confident no.”

“I’ve explored thirty-two ruins. They usually don’t shake this much.”

“Excellent.”

Sera caught Lily before she fell. “Maybe stop touching ancient things.”

Lily frowned. “I didn’t touch anything.”

Sera looked at Kai. “He did.”

Kai shrugged. “I barely touched it.”

Gabriel looked back down the passage they had just escaped. Distant rumbling filled the darkness behind them as the ancient city shut down, or perhaps changed. “We need to move.”

Nobody argued. They kept climbing, and with every step, the world around them grew newer. Ancient stone gave way to old roads buried under modern foundations, and old walls turned into concrete supports, with ancient pipes running beside electrical cables. Eventually, the ancient world disappeared completely, replaced by concrete, steel, wiring, and emergency lights. Nexus.

Kai reached the last staircase and pushed open a heavy maintenance door, and light poured in. For a moment, none of them moved. Then Kai stepped outside, and he stopped.

It wasn’t the Nexus they had left a few hours ago. Another ancient tower now stood between two modern buildings, not the one that had risen days earlier, but a second, hundreds of meters tall and made of dark stone. Symbols pulsed slowly across its surface as blue light climbed through it, and a low hum filled the air.

Lily’s eyes went wide. “Oh.”

Sera looked at her. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know that look.”

Lily pointed. “That’s an ancient energy tower.”

Sera sighed. “Of course it is.”

Kai looked around. Several blocks away, an enormous circular platform had pushed up out of the ground, shoving buildings aside. Cars sat stalled on the roads around it, people stood frozen on the sidewalks, and emergency vehicles and sirens filled the streets. A giant billboard flickered black, then came back on and showed strange symbols for three seconds before they vanished. The traffic lights had gone haywire, one turning green, then red, and then every single one of them turned blue.

A driver leaned out his window. “What the hell is happening?”

“Are we under attack?” someone else shouted.

A Hunter sprinted past. “Everyone stay inside!”

Kai frowned. “How long has this been going on?”

Gabriel checked her device. “About twenty minutes.”

“Since the gate?”

“Probably.”

Lily was looking at the sky, where lights hung between the skyscrapers. The swarm of stars from before had faded, leaving seven points, and as Sera, Lily, Gabriel, and Aren picked them out one by one, they counted the last one together. It was directly above the city center.

The seven lights formed the same pattern they had seen beneath the city, the pattern of the seven ruins and the gate.

“The whole continent is connected,” Lily whispered.

Kai nodded. “Looks like it.”

A loudspeaker crackled to life. “Attention! All civilians in the Central District are advised to remain indoors. This is not a monster attack. Repeat, this is not a monster attack.”

Sera looked at Kai. “That’s reassuring.”

A second announcement followed right after. “All Hunters above C-Rank are being mobilized to designated emergency zones.”

Kai looked at Gabriel. “How bad is it?”

“We don’t know,” Gabriel said, and then her device started vibrating, once, twice, and then without stopping. Her expression changed as she looked down. “The Hunter Association.”

She answered, and a voice came through immediately. “Archbishop Gabriel? We’ve been trying to reach you. We have multiple infrastructure failures across Nexus.”

“How many?”

“At least fourteen major incidents. Ancient structures are appearing all over the city, and several have activated. Three have opened underground access points.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”

The voice listed several locations, and Kai recognized two of them immediately. They connected directly to the ancient network.

“We need to see one,” Kai said.

There was a brief silence on the other end. “Is that Kai? The Mythal City Leader?”

Sera smiled. “Here we go.”

Kai sighed, and the representative nearly shouted. “You’re alive! We thought you were still underground!”

“We were.”

“What happened?”

Kai glanced at the tower. “Long story.”

“Is Nexus under attack?”

“No.”

“Are the ancient structures hostile?”

“We don’t know.”

Another pause. “Sir, can you come to the Association? Immediately?”

Kai looked at Gabriel, and she nodded. He sighed. “Fine.”

The streets were packed. People had poured out of the buildings to see what was happening, Hunters in combat gear helped civilians along, police blocked off roads, and emergency crews tried to redirect traffic. Everywhere Kai looked, people were staring at the sky.

At first, nobody recognized him. Then a young Hunter stopped short. “Wait. That’s him. The Mythal City Leader.”

His friend stared. “The Rank One?”

The whispers spread fast. People wondered whether he had really gone underground with the Archbishop, whether they had found something or fought something, and whether that was why the city was shaking. Phones came out, cameras turned toward him, and a few reporters pushed through the crowd.

Kai noticed immediately. “Oh no.”

Sera laughed. “Too late.”

“Kai!” a reporter shouted. “Did you find the ruins? Is Nexus in danger?”

Kai kept walking.

“Was the underground structure connected to the seven signals?” another called.

Kai stopped, and the crowd went quiet. Sera looked at him. He could have walked away, but instead he turned toward the reporters. “We found something.”

The crowd erupted, shouting over one another to ask what it was, whether it was dangerous, whether it was a weapon or another Disaster. Kai raised one hand, and the questions stopped.

“We’re still investigating,” he said.

“Did you find an ancient civilization?” a reporter shouted.

Kai paused. That was a dangerous question. He could lie, or he could say no, but instead he chose his words carefully. “We found evidence that Nexus is much older than we believed.”

The crowd went quiet, and a few people exchanged looks.

“How much older?” another reporter asked.

Kai looked at the ancient tower. “Older than the city.”

That was all he said, and the crowd erupted again, asking how old, whether a civilization had lived beneath Nexus, and whether the System was connected to it. Kai turned away, and Sera followed him.

“That went well,” she said.

Kai glanced at her. “I answered one question.”

“You created twenty more.”

“Probably.”

“Technically, at least thirty,” Lily said, falling into step beside them.

Kai looked at her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Aren chuckled. “You could have just said nothing.”

Kai shook his head. “Then they’d invent an answer.”

“He’s right,” Gabriel said, looking back at the crowd. “People are already frightened.”

“Then they need something real,” Kai said.

Sera looked at him. “You realize that makes you even more popular.”

“I don’t care.”

“You say that every time.”

“I still don’t.”

The Hunter Association building was impossible to miss. Hunters crowded the entrance, emergency teams moved in every direction, and large screens displayed maps of Nexus covered in red markers, with yellow ones spreading between them. At the center of the largest screen were seven blue points.

Kai stopped, and Lily stared. “Those are the ruins.”

“All seven,” Gabriel said.

The seven points formed the same massive pattern, with Nexus at its center.

An Association officer hurried over to them. “Archbishop.” Then he saw Kai, and his expression changed. He straightened. “City Leader Kai. Welcome back.”

Kai nodded at the map. “Tell me what happened.”

The officer brought up the display. “About twenty minutes ago, seven ancient sites activated at the same moment. No monsters, and only three minor injuries from structural collapse so far.”

“And the tower?”

“It appeared three minutes after the activation, along with the other structures.”

Lily leaned closer. “How many structures?”

The officer hesitated. “We’ve identified seventeen.”

Lily’s eyes widened. “Seventeen? How many haven’t been identified?”

“We don’t know.”

Lily smiled, and Sera immediately grabbed her shoulder. “No.”

“But…”

“No.”

“But this is…”

“No.”

Kai looked at Lily. “Don’t touch anything.”

Lily looked offended. “I don’t touch everything.”

Everyone stared at her, and she sighed. “Fine.”

Kai turned back to the map, because something bothered him. The seven ruins had activated and the city had changed, and ancient systems were waking up everywhere, but there had been no monsters, no Disaster, and no attack. There had only been activation. The ruins weren’t attacking Nexus. They were connecting to it.

He looked at the seven points, then at the city center. “How much do you know about what’s under Nexus?”

The officer blinked. “Under the Association?”

“No.” Kai pointed at the map. “Under Nexus.”

Gabriel’s expression changed, and the officer hesitated. “We have several underground infrastructure layers.”

“Modern ones?”

“Mostly.”

Kai shook his head. “I don’t mean the modern ones.”

Neither the officer nor anyone around him said a word.

Lily slowly turned to Kai. “You think there’s even more down there.”

Kai nodded. “Yes.”

A deep vibration passed through the building, and everyone froze. The lights flickered once, then twice, and the screens went black. The seven blue points disappeared, and in their place, a new symbol appeared. It was the broken circle, three sections and one empty, and the entire Association fell silent.

“That’s the same symbol,” Lily whispered.

The screen changed, and one line appeared after another.

NETWORK SYNCHRONIZATION: 7/7.

ANCIENT INFRASTRUCTURE: ACTIVE.

NEXT CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

Kai’s expression hardened.

Sera stepped beside him. “Connection to what?”

“I don’t know,” Kai said.

The lights came back and the symbol vanished, but the vibration beneath their feet didn’t stop. It came once, then again, deeper this time. Something far beneath Nexus had moved.

Kai looked down at the floor. The city hadn’t finished waking up. It had only just started.