Chapter 28: Ice Vault
Location: Arctic Expanse – Echo Site 07
The wind howled like a dying god.
Rayven stood at the edge of a broken cliff, staring into the yawning abyss of the Arctic crater. Below them, the cracked remains of an ancient facility shimmered beneath layers of ice and forgotten storms. Metal spires jutted out like frozen ribs, wrapped in ice so thick it sparkled like crystal.
Snow battered their team, five strong:
Rayven – the Echo Heir, pulsing with dormant power.
Nyra – his loyal shadow, armed with a high-caliber pulse rifle and cold fury.
Selene – the resistance enforcer, in new Echo-stabilized armor.
Jex – the techie, carrying a pack full of sensors and a mouth full of complaints.
Kael – a Seraphim defector, half-machine, half-redemption.
"Echo Vault Seven," Jex murmured, scanning the map. "Sealed since the Collapse Era. No known entries. No response to external signals."
"Then we'll knock the old-fashioned way," Rayven replied.
Nyra pulled out an explosive charge, eyes squinting through the blizzard.
"Permission to blow a hole in history?"
Rayven smirked. "Granted."
Cracking the Past
The blast tore through the upper shell of the vault, revealing a descending shaft rimmed with glowing glyphs. As the dust cleared, the lights blinked awake—first one, then all, forming a spiral that pulsed downward.
"Echo tech's responding to you again," Kael said, adjusting his visor. "That means it knows we're here. Or worse… someone else woke it up first."
They rappelled down into darkness.
At the bottom, they stepped into a corridor unlike anything Rayven had seen.
Smooth walls of obsidian-black alloy curved organically, glowing faint blue with Echo script. The air hummed, thick with static and memory.
"There's something… alive in here," Nyra whispered.
Selene unsheathed her blade.
"Let's hope it's friendly."
The Prison, Not the Vault
As they moved deeper, the temperature rose — unnaturally. Their visors fogged despite the gear.
Then, a sealed door appeared.
Jex activated his scanner.
"No. No, no, no. This isn't a vault. This is a containment unit. Everything in the design — failsafes, inhibitors, quantum dampeners. This place was never meant to be opened."
"Too late for that," Rayven muttered. The door pulsed once and opened on its own.
Inside was a massive chamber — circular, layered with concentric rings and hovering crystal shards. At its center: a translucent stasis cocoon, cracked open.
Empty.
"It got out," Kael said. "And it's still here."
First Contact: The Nullborn
The air shattered with a screech.
From above, it descended — like a shadow ripping through reality itself. Limbs like fractals. A body shifting between forms. A face — if it could be called one — of mirrored bone and glimmering void.
The Nullborn.
Its shriek froze Selene mid-motion. Her armor sparked as if hit by static from another universe. Nyra fired — plasma rounds — but they passed through the creature, as if it weren't entirely present.
"It's phasing," Jex yelled. "Half in this world, half somewhere else!"
Kael stepped forward, extending his Seraphim tech-lance.
"Echo tech won't touch it. But mine might."
He struck — and the Nullborn reeled.
But only for a second.
Then it screamed — and everything broke.
A Fractured Fight
The Nullborn's scream fractured space around them.
Jex was flung into a wall. Nyra's rifle melted in her hands. Selene stumbled, her visor cracking. Kael held on — barely — pumping his lance with overloaded energy.
Rayven stood still.
The Echo signals surged inside him, responding to the dimensional bleed. His skin lit with glyphs. The Vault recognized him again — not as an intruder, but as the warden.
"Protocol: Null Containment."
A voice whispered in his mind — the Vault itself.
"Energy type incompatible. Solution: Echo-Tethered Anchor."
Suddenly, Rayven understood.
He raised both hands.
The shards in the chamber flew into orbit around him, forming a sigil — a memory cage.
"Bind it," he whispered.
The light flared.
The Nullborn screeched — caught for a moment between worlds. Rayven stepped forward and slammed his palm into its core — forcing Echo energy through the rift in its body.
It screamed one final time — and collapsed into itself, vanishing in a burst of folded light.
The Warning
Silence returned. Smoke filled the air. The Vault dimmed, returning to a resting state.
Jex coughed, dragging himself up.
"Did… did we just win?"
Kael frowned. "No. That was just one of them."
Nyra knelt beside the shattered stasis pod.
"These things weren't soldiers. They were punishments. Sentences."
Rayven turned toward the wall, where a glowing sigil had appeared — a message, encoded in Echo script.
He reached out.
"They weren't guarding something here…"
The message resolved:
"Vault 07: Contained Subject 1 of 12. Breach detected. Eleven remain."
Everyone froze.
Selene's voice dropped.
"There's more of them."
Rayven's jaw tightened.
"Then we'd better find the rest… before Virel does."
Next Chapter: "The Twelfth Seal"
As Rayven's team races against time to locate the remaining containment sites, they discover that one of the Nullborn was never imprisoned at all… but walking free among the humans, waitin