The golden twilight of Sector 115 had not faded. Three days had passed since the First Cinder was shattered, and the world remained locked in a breathless, unnatural stillness. The white ash no longer fell; it hung suspended in the air like frozen static.
Renji Sato sat on the edge of a collapsed skyscraper, staring at the palms of his hands. They were steady, but he felt like a ghost inhabiting a suit of skin.
[STATUS: SECTOR 115 — STASIS MODE] [SYSTEM REBOOT INHIBITED: 82%] [MEMORY INTEGRITY: 78.1%]
"You've been staring at that status bar for two hours," Lyra said, her voice cutting through the oppressive silence. She leaned against a rusted girder, her violet spear planted firmly in the ash. "Checking the numbers won't bring back the memories, Renji."
Renji looked up. "I can't remember the name of my mother's favorite flower. I know I used to know it. There's a hole where that data used to be."
"That's the price of being an Architect," Darius grunted, walking over with a heavy metal crate he'd salvaged from the ruins. He slammed it down, revealing a pile of flickering, green-lit components. "But look on the bright side. While you were losing flower names, I was scavenging the remains of that Arbiter you deleted. The System's 'garbage' is our new arsenal."
Renji stood up, his tattered business suit fluttering in a wind that didn't exist. "We can't stay here. The golden light is a cage as much as it is a shield. Eventually, the System will find a way to patch the hole I made."
"He's right," Lyra said, her expression darkening. "I've seen this before in other sectors. When a sector goes into Stasis, the System sends a Scrubbing Crew. They don't fight; they just 'format' the entire area until nothing—not even the buildings—remains."
Renji looked at the Rewritten Eye, the scout-drone he had hijacked during the final moments of the battle. It was hovering near the crate, its lens pulsing with a dull red light that matched Renji's own interface.
"The drone is still connected to the wider network," Renji said, kneeling beside it. He placed his hand on the cold metal chassis. "It's receiving a signal from the neighboring sector. Sector 116."
[WARNING: ATTEMPTING TO TRACE EXTERNAL UPLINK.] [SIGNAL SOURCE: NEO-SHINJUKU — INDUSTRIAL HUB.]
"Neo-Shinjuku?" Darius spat. "I've heard of that place. It's a 'Fattening Pen.' They keep the assets alive in a digital loop to maximize the soul-density. It's a high-yield zone."
"If we can jump the signal," Renji said, his eyes beginning to glow with a fierce, bleeding light, "we can get ahead of the Scrubbing Crew. We find the Cinder in 116, we shut down the refinery, and we keep moving."
"You're talking about invading an active Harvest zone," Lyra said, a small, dangerous smile playing on her lips. "The Silverwind Collective will be crawling all over a high-yield sector like that."
"Let them come," Renji replied. He channeled a spark of the First Cinder's energy into the drone. The air in front of them began to vibrate, tearing open to reveal a glimpse of a rain-slicked city lit by sickly neon green lights.
"I'm done waiting to be deleted. It's time we started editing the System ourselves."
[QUEST INITIATED: THE NEON LEAP] [OBJECTIVE: ENTER SECTOR 116 AND LOCATE THE REFINERY CORE.]