The crimson characters of [Operation Strawdoll] still burned behind Theon's eyelids even after he dismissed the ring's projection. His pulse refused to settle.
"This is absurd," he hissed through clenched teeth, pressing his palms hard against his closed eyelids until stars burst in the dark. "You're seeing patterns where there are none."
A deep breath. Then another. His breath came too fast.
'No—this isn't rational.' The realization struck him like cold water: 'The arrays are still in my head.'
He immediately dropped into a cross-legged position and with deliberate slowness, he guided his spiritual Lu through the most basic circulation pattern—the first exercise any novice learned. Not to grow stronger. Not to refine his power.
Just to cleanse.
The effect was immediate.
A shudder ran through him as something unclenched in his mind. His pulse steadied. The phantom pressure behind his temples eased, as if a hand he hadn't noticed was suddenly lifted from his skull. When he opened his eyes, the world seemed… sharper. The air lighter.
He exhaled, long and slow. The paranoia hadn't been his own. The mental arrays had left hooks in him, subtle as splinters—just enough to make him second-guess, to keep him chasing ghosts.
But now—
Now he could think clearly.
'Would they really fortify this bunker against a cataclysm, prepare it with priceless artifacts, hide the database separate in the bunker, and station elite guardians... just to maintain a red herring?' Theon's mind recoiled at the imbalance—no deceiver would waste such resources, the energy expenditure alone would be ludicrous.
Beside that there was an even smaller chance that they would reveal a "fake" [Operation Strawdoll]. Even though it could by small chance make the traveler let down their guard because they would think they unveiled the plot and got through it but ultimately, a master manipulator would not need such deep machinations, just something straightforward but potent would get the job done.
The only one manipulating Theon was his own mind.
With steady hands now, Theon navigated the holographic interface. Flickering projections cast blue shadows across his determined face as he pulled up the most recent logs.
He wanted to find out what had happened to Serenera.
He selected the earliest entry. The projection shimmered, resolving into the harrowed face of a Sylvan archivist, his ceremonial robes stained with soot.
[Day 1 | Nyxara War: "I mark this as Day 1, though in truth the war began long before we noticed. Like a parasite growing fat on our inattention. What we dismissed as border skirmishes now reveal their true pattern - each 'isolated incident' forming links in a chain now tightening around our throats. They've grown more aggressive and less cooperative as of recently, which is why I have found it necessary to start writing this journal as per protocol. This no longer seems like a disagreement but will most likely draw out into a war."]
The image dissolved, reforming into a gaunt version of the same man months later.
[Day 50 | Nyxara War: "Protocols X1 and X2 enacted today." A bitter laugh. "Our so-called 'containment measures' against a planet that shouldn't have been able to challenge a third-tier outpost, let alone the Sylvan heartworlds. Their forces move with... unnatural coordination."]
The next entry showed the archivist in what appeared to be an emergency bunker.
[Day 107 | Nyxara War: "Verdan has fallen." His voice cracked. "Our forward command now retreats to the lunar redoubt, but the defense matrices... they're adapting to our tactics before we can deploy them. It's as if Nyxara knows our every-"] The recording glitched violently.
The subsequent entries grew increasingly fragmented:
[Day 278 | Nyxara War: "-year since first engagement. The moons are silent. Our orbital mirrors shattered. They're herding us now, like game to the slaughter. The Council debates desperate measures-"]
[Day 292 | Nyxara War: "-all extranet connections severed. No reinforcements coming. Morale is broken. Only Project Ash remains-"]
The final clear recording showed the archivist in the very chamber where Theon now stood.
[Day 310 | Nyxara War: "Orion." He spat the word. "A name whispered by captured Nyxaran officers. No records in any database. Yet their technology... the way they anticipate our every move..." His hands trembled as he adjusted the controls. "The hibernation protocols are engaged. "]
The last entries were audio-only, the visual systems long dead.
Static hissed before the archivist's voice crackled through—hollow, resigned.
[Day 325 | Nyxara War: "The evacuation is complete. A handful remain—chosen to safeguard what little we have left. Our history. Our secrets. I stay behind to seal the final logs. Let Nyxara burn our cities. These vaults will keep our soul."
A pause. Then, quieter:
"May the Ash rise when the time comes."]
The recording dissolved into silence.
——
Half a day. That's how long it had taken Theon to go through all of the recording files and do the supplementary research to get a thorough understanding of the situation and yet, one mystery remained. [Project Ash]. It wasn't mentioned anywhere else in the database and this seemed to be the only proof of its existence.
'Another deception?' Theon's jaw tightened. The Empire had littered this bunker with false inheritances, but this—this felt different. It came from official records of the war that had ended their empire, all the other information supported it.
And if it wasn't a lie…
[Project Ash] was his only hope.
He had no other leads, and given the context of its mention, [Project Ash] seemed like something massive—a step in the right direction. Theon refused to believe this bunker was the last remnant of the Sylvain Empire. It contained only surface-level information, bare-minimum techniques that couldn't begin to compare to the [Momentus Flow Art]. There had to be more.
Yet there wasn't a single additional mention of it. Still, Theon was unrelenting. He was certain [Project Ash] was significant, and it was the only thread he had to pull.
As he delved deeper into the database, he encountered increasingly complex firewalls—all composed of formations built on the same foundational logic as those back on Spectra. Though Theon wasn't a formations expert, the database contained enough basic principles for him to learn on the fly.
Formations and arrays were two variations of the same art—methods of using materials and runes to resonate with the atmosphere and channel power. The difference lay in deployment. Formations required physical mediums like blood or paint, making them static but stable. Arrays, however, could be constructed entirely from Lu, allowing for battlefield flexibility at the cost of greater energy expenditure. Array masters were rare, prized for their combat utility, while formation masters typically served clans or sects in support roles.
After a day of scouring the database and brute-forcing his way through encrypted files, Theon found a discrepancy. The initial blueprints of the control center didn't match the final construction. Earlier versions showed a sprawling maze leading to a large clearing, an elevator structure—all far more expansive than what stood now. Each revision coincided with the war logs' first mentions of [Project Ash].
As he scrutinized each version of the blueprints, Theon noticed a recurring pattern—a series of concealed chambers and passages that diverged from the final structure. The intricate maze-like design seemed intentional, a deliberate effort to obscure the true nature of the control room. His intuition told him that these hidden areas held the key to understanding [Project Ash].
Days blurred together as he mapped the phantom corridors in his mind, cross-referencing each erased sector. Finally, he stood before the western wall, pressing his palm against the cold stone. He pushed his Lu outward, threads of energy seeping into the material, searching.
Theon's Lu control had grown exponentially from when he had first discovered it. After all, accessing the database required using his Lu and if his Lu contained lighting that was too strong he could have possibly fried the circuits. This worry led to him training and gaining an extremely intricate hold over his Lu.
The first pulse yielded nothing. The second, the third—still nothing. He drained his reserves dry, retreating to the control room with doubt gnawing at him. What if he was wrong?
He returned the next day. And the next.
On the third day, his Lu traveled farther than before—then abruptly dissipated. Not from natural decay, but because something was stopping it. A barrier.
Theon's lips curled into a grin. 'There you are.'
He dragged the corpses of the sentinels and drones he'd slain into the chamber, stripping them for parts. Sparks screamed as he rewired their systems, dismantling combat protocols to repurpose them into laser drills.
To amplify their firepower, Theon recalibrated their laser systems, fine-tuning each beam for precision. He intricately removed their battle functions and movement abilities, focusing solely on their capacity to generate destructive laser shots. Theon was able to create an impressive 13 laser rifles relentlessly shooting at the wall.
This was where the Sylvian Empire's gambit of stationing their hidden room with materials entirely focused on stealth came to fall short. The materials weren't strong enough to withstand the enhanced laser beams of their own weapons.
Day after day, lasers scorched the barrier. When the wall began to crumble, Theon shut the machines down. He couldn't risk damaging whatever lay beyond. Two more days of focused Lu pulses and a handheld laser finished the job.
The wall exploded inward.
Light—vibrant, blinding—flooded the chamber.
The chamber had finally exhaled its secret.