Praven exhaled through his nose, then shifted his stance. “Inodius is waiting at the Archive. We have little time.” They left the armory without any hesitation. The smith watched them leave just as quickly as they had arrived.

  The streets of StreamWalk had changed since the morning.

  People were still moving, but movement now carried vector and purpose. Fighters clustered at junctions. Civilians were herded inward toward designated structures. Doors barred. Packs assembled. Those who had no place in the formation tried to make themselves smaller against walls and watch. Every face that turned toward Aethernus held the same layered reaction.

  Starting with traces of fear of the unknown, awe in what he suspected was their assumption that he was some type of Warden, flecks of resentment, and hope for the future.

  The mixture was common when a society recognized an entity that could either save them or kill them without effort.

  Aethernus Vhal did not indulge their emotions.

  He noted them down and moved on.

  Inodius waited at the Archive entrance the way a man waited for their time at the gallows. He looked pale, fidgetted in his spot, eyes snapping back and forth, and finally jumping in his spot when he noticed Aethernus Vhal. He was young and lean. A mop head of blonde hair and no armor to speak of. Just long robes that spoke of a scribe and not a warrior. A satchel hung at his side filled with scrolls and notes.

  His posture was careful, his distance measured. He kept himself outside optimal striking range with enough space to retreat if necessary.

  Aethernus Vhal measured it automatically.

  He has had training. Extensive training even though he does not seem like it.

  Inodius’ eyes flicked once toward Anna and tightened, irritation and discomfort flaring. Another note that Aethernus Vhal took down. He addressed Aethernus Vhal anyway, voice controlled. “Orientation protocols are not meant to be… spectated by the unintended.”

  “She stays,” Aethernus Vhal said.

  Inodius frowned and gave Praven a helpless look as if seeking support. Aethernus Vhal understood that this might be standard regulations and rules that would fall upon the young man’s head if they were broken. It made sense to see his reaction so, even if he did not like it much. Aethernus Vhal was not foolish enough to not understand duty and loyalty to code, no matter how foolish.

  Praven did not give him any support, choosing to look away. Praven’s loyalty was to the Warden’s directives, and the Warden had told him to not fight this.

  Inodius sighed in defeat, then pressed his palm to the runeplate embedded beside the seam of the door.

  The Archive’s doorways opened on silent hinges.

  A common theme Aethernus Vhal recognized within this town.

  Cold air spilled out. Clean and sterile. The scent of stone and crystal and something else, like charged metal.

  Aethernus stepped through first without hesitation. Anna followed in his wake.

  “I’ll be back,” Praven said to his back before vanishing.

  Leaving Inodius standing there outside the doorways all alone. He hesitated for half a beat before following, as if stepping into the chamber required more courage than he wanted to admit.

  The Archive was not a library.

  It was an intelligence vault powered by more of the foreign energy than he had seen even within the Warden.

  Crystalline pillars rose from the floor in regimented lines, each containing runic inscription and floating projections that responded to proximity. Thin channels cut into the floor pulsed with contained power. The walls carried carved symbol arrays that were not decoration. They had purpose with each line. The entire space felt like a machine built to sort and judge upon the masses.

  Aethernus Vhal's helm overlays flickered as his damaged systems attempted to interpret the rune language and failed repeatedly. Unknown schema and unknown energies flowing through them, The failures stacked, then stabilized into a single conclusion.

  A foreign system that had mature integrations that indicated it was ancient.

  “Tell me, Inodius. This energy that fills the world you live upon. What do you call it?” Aethernus Vhal asked.

  Inodius blinked at him for a second. “Y-You mean mana?”

  “Is that its title?” Aethernus Vhal moved his fingers through a projection that was made by said mana. He could feel the way it distorted around his touch. Reacting to him.

  “This is the Watcher Archive,” Inodius continued speaking quickly, as if speed could replace confidence. “It is where classifications are stored. Where threat profiles are registered by the Warden and others of similar power levels. Where Breach patterns are recorded and compared. The Bounded Reach, our lands, operate under parameters maintained by the Watchers and their strongest actors, the Wardens.”

  Aethernus Vhal’s head tilted slightly. “Parameters?”

  “Rules,” Inodius said. “Boundaries and role definitions. The Watchers don’t ask worship. They don’t demand tribute. They observe and then they enforce the law. The consequence of their absence is the annihilation of civilization and corruption of man by forces far greater than what we can deal with alone.”

  “Correct. You all would not survive,” Aethernus said with a flat tone.

  It was fact and they could not deny it.

  Hmm… their own protection against the Warp and its taint. Is that why they don’t have stellar access?

  Aethernus Vhal understood that without beings of his caliber or maybe a tier weaker that lead them, this cluster of humanity would die quicker that it had time to breathe as a spacefaring peoples. Whether it be other races, the Warp or Void as they call it, or any other of a dozen different reasons. Each one was enough to destroy them a thousand times over.

  Especially if their strongest members were the Wardens and not the Watchers.

  Inodius did not react to the repetition, though discomfort flickered across his face. He was delivering doctrine. He did not like the way Aethernus said the word, as if it carried a different history.

  Anna’s eyes moved across the crystalline pillars, wide with awe. She looked like someone who had lived her entire life beneath a ceiling and only now noticed the beams.

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  “This system that categorizes everything. Is that a function of the Watchers as well?” Aethernus Vhal asked as they continued.

  “No. They only regulate it from a distance. Otherwise we haven’t complete control over this natural phenomena. Many speculate that it is a remnant of an ancient civilization that empowered themselves for tens of thousands of years before they fell due to their own haughtiness and arrogance. A constant theme with the older civilizations we’ve discovered within the earth itself.” Inodius led them to a central dais where a taller crystalline column rose, thicker than the others, its interior runes layered and dense. He began to change the subject. “This is where classifications are resolved,” he said. “Provisional labels assigned and observation flags attached.”

  Aethernus Vhal stepped closer.

  The air pressure shifted subtly, like a sensor focusing. The runes in the column brightened.

  Aethernus Vhal felt the sensation of being examined, not by a human mind, but by a system that had processed millions of inputs and cared only about fit. It was that same pressure in the back of his mind when Mira had tried to [Analyze] him. Except far stronger and more capable.

  It reminded him of old Imperial machine spirits. Less emotional and far more absolute.

  Inodius’ voice tightened. “Don’t touch it.”

  Aethernus Vhal did not touch it.

  He did not need to.

  The column reacted anyway, runes rearranging rapidly as if attempting to form a box large enough to contain him. The crystal’s internal light sharpened, then stuttered. The sequences failed, recombined, failed again. Running through that same process over and over again as he watched. Curiosity stronger than the threat this world-system posed to someone like him.

  Inodius stepped back one pace despite himself.

  Anna did not.

  Aethernus Vhal watched the runes and noted the speed of recalibration. This was not a simple knowledgebase. This was an active classification engine.

  Then the air in front of him filled with text that scrolled endlessly. A system overlay that existed outside the crystal’s physical surface.

  Classification Protocol: Engaged

  Subject: Unclassified Entity

  Parameter Alignment: Failure

  Recalibrating…

  The sequences flickered and pulsed as it failed. It seemed to struggle even with him being so close and willing to participate in this tomfoolery just to see what it would do.

  Aethernus Vhal watched the failures stack.

  Attempt 7: Failed

  Recalibrating…

  Attempt 12: Failed

  Recalibrating…

  Attempt 19: Failed

  Recalibrating…

  Inodius’ face drained. “It shouldn’t do that. Not like, ” His words died because the doctrine did not include what happens when the system can’t label something.

  Aethernus Vhal’s focus remained steady. A system that could not classify would eventually choose one of two solutions.

  Containment or elimination.

  He had seen both before on some of the stranger worlds. Aethernus Vhal had destroyed them with a vengeance only reserved for the False Deities. Because that was what they tried to be. Fake gods that lorded fake power over people who knew not what the universe had to offer and what was out there. Attributing good and blessings to those that could not help themselves when true threats appeared.

  Threats like him.

  Aethernus Vhal would have started another crusade had the Watchers demanded worship. Would have wiped this planet clean.

  The overlay shifted again.

  Adaptive Protocols: Engaged

  Observation Continues

  Then, with a cold inevitability that reminded him of battlefield verdicts:

  Provisional Designation: Annihilator - Of the Endless War

  Parameters: Undefined

  Status: Active Observation

  Inodius stared at the word with shock. “That’s not a standard designation,” he whispered. “We don’t use that for people. That’s a title?”

  Aethernus Vhal did not deny it. “It is accurate.”

  On the other hand, Anna leaned in and tilted her head. “What does that mean?" She did not smile nor did she have any other discernible facial expression.

  “Some things are best left unsaid, child,” Aethernus Vhal said.

  Inodius forced himself to swallow and regain control of the conversation. “Breaches,” he said, voice strained but moving forward. “You need to understand what you’re walking into. Breaches are places where the fabric of reality weakens. Tears in the beyond the physical realm that the Void-born and demons come through. The Veil presses and something from outside pushes through. The Watchers can delay them, but not erase them. The Wardens lead the wars and kill the strongest among them, while the rest of the fighters and hunters hold the lines. And we, the Analysts and scribes record those battles for future reference.”

  Aethernus Vhal’s gaze remained on the projection map that flared near the dais that had appeared when he started speaking.

  It showed the defensive line, nodes connected like a chain. He recognized the structure immediately. A containment strategy spanning centuries.

  Seventeen generations, as the Warden had said.

  A world at war with something it could not kill, forced into an endless cycle of death by attrition that was constantly being refueled.

  It made no sense to Aethernus Vhal. These lands were ripe for the taking or destruction if the rift beings wanted it. Yet, they had not made any attempt at taking over. If anything, they seemed just as comfortable with this status quo as the Watchers and denizens of this world. Any race with a strong desire to live would have figured out how to destroy them by now if thousands of years had passed.

  “I’ve come to notice you never mentioned destroying the rifts? Delay? Hold? Your priorities seem skewed,” Aethernus Vhal said.

  Inodius’ mouth tightened. “We don’t. Not reliably at least. Sealing is the objective when a Breach opens. If you make an attempt at the tear from this side…” He hesitated. “You don’t come back. Or worse, you do and come back wrong.”

  Aethernus Vhal noted the information and filed it. They could not do it. That did not mean it could not be done.

  Just as he assumed, something strange was going on and all his senses were agreeing with that.

  He had stepped through hells before and returned from the victorious. He disliked the potential of politics on a world scale.

  Aethernus Vhal tended to put a bullet from his bolter through their chest when he got annoyed enough.

  Inodius glanced again at Anna, frustration flickering. “And she does not need to be hearing this.”

  Aethernus Vhal turned his helm slightly, but said nothing.

  Anna did not flinch at the words. She tightened her hands once at her sides and kept her posture controlled, borrowing confidence from Aethernus Vhal.

  Inodius sighed, but otherwise said nothing else about the matter. Instead, he lifted his tablet as if focusing on the rending of information to Aethernus Vhal could stabilize him. “The Watchers project this Breach will be much larger than recent breaks,” he said. “They send warnings. Right now, the main breach is still building in power and crescendo. They warn that there might be vanguard attempts unlike the usual tide..”

  His tablet flashed red for a second as though he spoke the warning into existence.

  Aethernus Vhal did not notice it as he looked up, staring beyond the stone and runes of the Archives.

  A point of Warp energy pulsed outside of the settlements perimeter. It was small and localized, nothing like the Breach, but it was enough.

  Breach Event Detected - Breach Spark

  Level - Minor Rupture

  Vector - Outer Farmland / Roadline

  Containment Failure - Projected Rapid

  Priority: High

  Inodius and Anna froze.

  He did not. Aethernus Vhal felt his blood begin to awaken and a smile graced his face.

  Finally. Something I am far more comfortable with than all this… talking.

  He turned toward the Archive exit without waiting for Inodius to regain composure. “Lead me out and away.”

  “W-Wait! Praven said he would–”

  “I don’t need weapons to deal with such common rabble. I will be more than fine.”

  Inodius cursed under his breath and ran after Aethernus Vhal. Anna followed closely to them in case something untoward happened.

  The Archive door opened as they approached, cold light spilling into the corridor like a judgment that had been temporarily postponed.

  Above them, StreamWalk’s preparation tightened into a different kind of readiness.

  Not the slow grind of a coming war.

  Aethernus Vhal on the other hand started to walk away from the settlement’s center and toward where he felt the Breach. Hunters, as they called them on this planet, were already stationed in that direction, but within settlement borders. They separated and created a path for him to walk through without anything in the way. He found no sight of Mira or the Warden.

  The Breach Spark was not visible from here.

  He would have to get closer to see what it looked like and then kill everything there–

  “Wait!”

  Aethernus Vhal turned around and found Praven with his promised weapon running toward him.