Location: The Ruins of White Horizon — Northern Crater Zone
Time: Three days after the Nomad incident
The land was dead.
Ash stretched to the horizon, endless and pale, where cities once stood. The air shimmered with heat ghosts optical echoes of a world that had burned and refused to fade.
Adrian stood at the ridge, cloak whipping in the wind. Below, half-buried in the sand, lay the remains of the facility that had ended the old world.
"White Horizon," Lira said quietly. "It doesn't even look real."
Adrian's jaw clenched. "It never was."
They descended into the crater, the ground littered with glass-like debris. Each shard reflected flickers of memory faces, flashes, screams.
The ghosts of data, trapped since the Cataclysm.
At the crater's center stood a structure that had survived the centuries: a black spire of alloy and bone, glowing faintly from within.
"That's it," Lira whispered. "The Genesis Vault."
Ava's voice echoed softly through her mind.
