[Sacrifice Starbreaker to awaken Lyra Voss?]
Adrian looked at the woman inside the capsule.
Starbreaker was the first class he had found. It had allowed him to obtain his license, destroy A-rank targets, survive against soldiers above his level, and create Starforged Body.
It was also a class he could obtain again.
The dead instructor no longer possessed another Class Soul, but the future was filled with corpses belonging to combatants who hadn’t been born yet. Adrian would find more classes.
There was only one Lyra Voss.
The capsule had enough energy to preserve her for only nineteen more days. He didn’t know how much time would pass in the future before his next visit or whether the system would return him to the same coordinates.
Waiting could mean returning to find a corpse behind the glass.
Adrian selected the option.
"Sacrifice."
The Starbreaker ring appeared around his arm.
For the first time since Adrian absorbed it, the class resisted.
The instructor’s memories awakened inside his mind. The child striking the post beneath the rain, the man fighting atop the walls, and sixty-three years of experience churned inside the archive.
Infinite Sovereign compressed them.
[Registered Class selected: Starbreaker.]
[Temporary foundation conversion initiated.]
[Combat Memory Archive sealed.]
[Starbreaker Fist unavailable.]
[Class synchronization terminated.]
The blue ring separated from his wrist.
Adrian felt something leave his muscles. His perception of vibrations disappeared, the instructor’s stance no longer felt natural, and the memory fragments sealed themselves behind a barrier.
The ring entered the capsule.
[Starbreaker converted into awakening energy.]
[Preservation system restored: 12%.]
[Release sequence initiated.]
The transparent liquid began to drain.
Energy traveled through the conduits in the floor and entered Lyra’s body. The golden lines across her armor lit up one after another.
Her heart beat.
Once.
Then again.
The pressure filling the chamber vanished for an instant before returning with enough force to drive all five soldiers to their knees.
Adrian remained standing thanks to Starforged Body.
[Legendary core restarting.]
[Warning: Subject has remained inactive for 9,134 years.]
[Original power cannot be restored.]
[Current recovery rate: 0.0004%.]
[Equivalent combat level after awakening: 18.]
The capsule’s glass split down the center.
Cold air escaped from within.
Lyra opened her eyes.
The combat copy’s eyes had been golden. The real woman’s eyes were darker, like metal heated just before turning white.
She looked at the ceiling.
Then at the soldiers.
Finally, she found Adrian.
Her hand moved.
He managed to see her fingers before feeling them close around his throat.
Lyra stepped out of the capsule, shoved him against the console, and squeezed. Even with almost all her power sealed, she was strong enough to partially lift his feet from the floor.
"Identify yourself."
Her voice was weaker than the copy’s, but no less dangerous.
Adrian gripped her wrist.
"Adrian Vale. The man who just woke you."
Lyra studied his face.
"I remember the trial."
"Then you also remember that I passed."
"You survived a limited copy."
"A limited copy that impaled me several times. You’re welcome."
Lyra’s fingers loosened.
Her legs immediately gave out.
Adrian caught her before she struck the floor. Restarting her core had restored her consciousness and a fraction of her strength, but her muscles still weren’t prepared to support her.
She tried to pull away.
"Release me."
"At the moment, you’re the one holding onto me."
Lyra looked at the hand she had closed around his shoulder.
She removed it.
Adrian helped her sit on the edge of the capsule. She tolerated his assistance for three seconds before recovering enough strength to remain upright on her own.
[Awakening stabilization in progress.]
[Current physical output restricted.]
[Estimated basic mobility recovery: 4 minutes.]
Lyra examined the chamber.
The copy had known Adrian’s condition and the trial’s parameters, but it didn’t appear to have shared all its information with the original body.
"How long was I sealed?"
Adrian didn’t soften the answer.
"Nine thousand one hundred and thirty-four years."
Lyra didn’t react.
"Repeat that number."
"Nine thousand one hundred and thirty-four."
She raised one hand. The console responded to her authority and projected the calendar.
[Preservation date confirmed.]
[Elapsed time: 9,134 years, 81 days.]
Lyra’s eyes moved across the numbers.
"That’s impossible. The capsule had enough energy for one hundred and twenty years."
"It found a way to last longer."
"Did the Council relocate the shelter?"
"I didn’t find any shelter."
"How many cities survived?"
Adrian remained silent for a moment.
"None that I could confirm."
Lyra stood.
This time, she didn’t fall.
She walked to the console and opened the communication channels. Thousands of frequencies appeared before her. Military, civilian, planetary, and off-world signals.
All of them displayed the same result.
[No active transmission detected.]
[Last confirmed human transmission: 9,137 years ago.]
Lyra changed the search. She attempted to connect to satellites, evacuation fleets, colonies, and networks Adrian didn’t recognize.
Nothing responded.
The chamber remained silent.
"The records say Meridian was the last human city," Adrian said. "The final transmission ended three years before you were sealed."
Lyra continued staring at the empty frequencies.
"They placed me here on the seventh day."
"I know."
"The city was still holding."
"Because of you."
"There were four hundred and three combatants at the beginning of the day. By the time I reached the chamber, seventeen remained."
Adrian remembered the record.
[Remaining active combatants: 1.]
The difference required no explanation.
"Who activated the capsule?" he asked.
"I did."
Lyra closed her hand.
"The creature leading the invasion couldn’t die while it retained a body within our timeline. I destroyed its physical form, but part of its core entered me. The seal was supposed to prevent its return while the Council found a way to eliminate it."
Adrian looked at the black lines covering the exterior of the chamber. None had managed to penetrate the seven barriers.
"Is it still inside you?"
"No."
Lyra placed a hand against her chest.
"I should be able to feel it."
"Nine thousand years seems long enough to kill something."
"Not that."
Her gaze returned to the communication records.
"If the corruption left my body before I awakened, it found another way out."
The black fortress at the center of Meridian entered Adrian’s mind.
The roots.
The red light.
The way the entire city appeared to be connected to it.
"I think I know where it ended up."
Lyra looked at him.
"Show me."
Adrian projected the map obtained by his soldiers. The fortress appeared at the center of the city, surrounded by zones without information.
The golden lines across Lyra’s armor turned red.
"That structure didn’t exist."
"Now it covers several miles."
She attempted to step toward the exit.
Her knee failed.
Adrian caught her again.
"You’ll be able to walk in four minutes. Reaching the fortress will take longer."
"I don’t need you to carry me."
"Excellent. I hadn’t offered."
Lyra pulled away and remained standing on her own.
"How did you enter this timeline?"
"Infinite Sovereign projects me from ten thousand years in the past."
For the first time since awakening, Lyra’s expression completely changed.
"The past?"
"For me, Meridian still exists. The academy where I awakened my class was built over the facilities we just passed through."
Lyra approached him.
"How many years before the first invasion?"
"I don’t know when it began. Humanity disappears less than nine hundred years after my era."
She processed the information quickly.
"Then it can still be prevented."
"That was my conclusion."
"Can you transport information?"
"Yes."
"Weapons?"
Adrian pointed toward his soldiers.
"People too, under certain conditions."
Lyra looked at the five units. None had stood since her awakening.
"Those soldiers died during the outer defense."
"They belong to me now."
"They aren’t people. They only retain their combat patterns."
"For now."
"How many can you register?"
"Five soldiers and one general."
Lyra understood where the conversation was going.
"You want to register me."
"I want to get you out of a dead city before the corruption discovers you’ve awakened. In return, I need someone who knows the future, can train my units, and has experience fighting whatever destroyed humanity."
"You want my power."
"That too."
Lyra examined her own status. The window above her displayed the fraction of her former core currently available.
"I barely retain enough power to use basic techniques."
"That’s still more than anyone else I’ve found here possesses."
"You tried to strike my copy with an incomplete class."
"And it worked once."
"The Fracture layer lasted less than three seconds."
"Then I’ll have to hit faster."
Lyra looked at the empty frequencies again.
No one remained who could answer her. The chamber was dying, the city belonged to the corruption, and her only path to a humanity that was still alive was the young man she had tried to kill before asking his name.
"Show me the contract."
Infinite Sovereign reacted.
The crown appeared between them.
[General candidate consent detected.]
[Generating General Contract.]
The conditions unfolded.
[General: Lyra Voss.]
[Sovereign: Adrian Vale.]
[General retains identity, intelligence, and independent growth.]
[General receives access to Sovereign Territory.]
[General may command registered units.]
[General cannot deliberately harm the Sovereign.]
[Sovereign commands take priority during registered military operations.]
[Shared Objective required.]
Lyra pointed at the final line.
"Prevent humanity’s extinction."
The sentence appeared inside the window.
[Shared Objective registered: Identify and prevent the extinction of humanity.]
Adrian added another condition.
"Discover what happened during the nine thousand years after the fall."
[Secondary Objective registered.]
Lyra read the entire contract.
"If you attempt to use an order to control my mind, I’ll kill you before the system can stop me."
"That seems to contradict the part where you can’t harm me."
"I’ll find a way."
"Then I’ll try to keep you occupied with more useful objectives."
Lyra placed her hand against the crown.
"I accept."
Adrian did the same.
Infinite Sovereign’s rings closed around them both.
[General Contract established.]
[SSS-Rank General acquired: Lyra Voss.]
The central space within the General Archive lit up. Lyra’s silhouette appeared surrounded by a crown formed from seven spears.
[Original Rank: SSS.]
[Current power available: 0.0004%.]
[Current equivalent Level: 18.]
[Recovery conditions unlocked.]
[General capacity: 1/1.]
A golden current passed from Lyra into Adrian.
It wasn’t a complete class. It was a portion of the perception that had allowed one woman to fight for seven days without rest.
[General bond established.]
[Shared Ability acquired: War God’s Instinct.]
[War God’s Instinct]
[Level: 1.]
[Effect: Detect hostile intent, perceive changes in battlefield flow, and accelerate adaptation to observed combat patterns.]
[Effect scales with General synchronization.]
Adrian felt the five soldiers.
Before, he could only tell that they were active and check their integrity. Now he perceived their positions, fields of vision, available weapons, and possible attack routes as parts of a single map.
He also felt Lyra.
Not her thoughts.
Her presence.
It was like a spear planted in the center of an invisible battlefield.
Another surge of energy returned through the contract.
[Legendary core feedback detected.]
[Awakening energy requirement repaid by General Contract.]
[Reconstructing sacrificed class foundation.]
The dark blue ring emerged from Lyra’s chest and returned to Adrian’s arm.
The instructor’s memories opened.
The rain.
The wooden post.
Sixty-three years of strikes, injuries, and battles returned to their proper places.
[Starbreaker restored.]
[Combat Memory Archive restored.]
[Starbreaker Fist restored.]
[Previous mastery retained.]
Adrian closed his fist.
The vibration returned to his perception.
Lyra studied the ring.
"The class you sacrificed belonged to Elias Thorn."
Adrian remembered the instructor’s damaged identification plate. The name had been impossible to read.
"You knew him?"
"He was my unarmed-combat instructor for nine years."
"He almost killed me."
"Then he was in a good mood."
An alarm sounded outside the chamber.
The pressure holding the corpses in the corridor motionless had weakened after Lyra’s awakening. Thousands of corrupted bodies were beginning to rise.
[Mass hostile reactivation detected.]
[Temporal connection remaining: 00:43:12.]
Lyra walked toward the door.
Her steps were still unstable, but they improved with every movement. The five soldiers stood without waiting for an order and formed up behind them.
"We can’t fight all of them," Adrian said.
"We don’t have to."
Lyra moved her right foot forward.
Golden energy traveled down her leg. She performed a short movement, almost too simple to be considered a technique.
Her body crossed thirty-nine feet.
She didn’t run or disappear. She found the exact point where her weight, gravity, and the flow of mana could propel her with minimal effort.
[Technique observed.]
[Meridian War Step.]
Adrian felt the movement through War God’s Instinct. The position of the foot, the angle of the torso, and the instant Lyra released her mana became imprinted within his perception.
He tried it.
Energy gathered beneath his foot.
Adrian advanced.
He didn’t travel thirty-nine feet.
He managed sixteen before losing his balance and having to brace one hand against the wall.
Lyra stopped.
"What did you do?"
"Your step."
"You don’t know Meridian War Step."
"Now I know the first one."
"You saw it once."
"It would’ve been rude to make you repeat yourself."
Lyra returned to him. She examined the position of his feet and the mana distribution that remained within his muscles.
"The imitation was poor."
"I traveled sixteen feet."
"Your right ankle would’ve collapsed if you had used ten percent more mana."
"Then using less was a good decision."
"You didn’t know that."
"Now I do."
Lyra looked at him as though she had just encountered something more difficult to understand than humanity’s extinction.
"Do it again."
Adrian repeated the stance.
The second execution carried him twenty-three feet.
[Meridian War Step pattern partially acquired.]
[Current completion: 8%.]
Lyra appeared beside him and struck the back of his knee.
Adrian lost his balance.
"Your hips are too high."
"You could correct them without hitting me."
"I could."
The first corpses reached the entrance to the corridor.
Lyra turned toward them. The weakness disappeared from her posture.
"Recall the soldiers."
Adrian returned them to the Unit Archive.
"What about us?"
"Your projection will return to the past when the connection ends. My body can’t follow it on its own."
The General Archive opened.
Lyra’s silhouette waited inside the central space.
[Sovereign Territory available.]
[Living General may enter.]
[Registered General can cross temporal boundaries while stored inside Sovereign Territory.]
Adrian pointed toward the ring.
"That’s our way out."
Lyra studied the empty space behind the crown.
"You want me to voluntarily enter an authority you awakened two days ago?"
"The alternative is several thousand corpses."
A Level 83 creature appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Lyra looked at the enemy.
Then at Adrian.
"If this destroys my identity, I’ll find a way to hunt you from inside your class."
"That would be impressive."
She entered the General Archive.
Her body transformed into golden light and disappeared into the central ring.
[Lyra Voss stored in Sovereign Territory.]
[General transfer ready.]
The creature charged toward the chamber.
Adrian checked the remaining time.
More than forty minutes.
"I’m not waiting that long."
He opened the temporal connection.
[Early return available.]
[Returning to origin era.]
The creature’s claws reached his face.
The future disappeared.
Adrian opened his eyes in his bedroom.
The ceiling was intact. There were no corpses, capsules, or corrupted creatures. His communicator remained on the table, and only a few hours had passed since he went to bed.
He breathed.
There was no pain.
The punctures, broken ribs, and wounds inflicted by Lyra had disappeared with the projection.
Starbreaker remained inside his Class Archive.
His five soldiers were still registered.
The central space within the General Archive also remained occupied.
[Temporal return completed.]
[Registered General successfully transferred.]
[Deploy General?]
Adrian selected the option.
Golden light appeared beside him.
Not on the floor.
On the bed.
The mattress sank, and a mass of silver hair fell across his shoulder. Adrian turned his head.
Lyra Voss was lying beside him.