The massive blast doors of Outpost 104 groaned in agonizing protest.
They were built from incredibly thick slabs of reinforced steel, but decades of acidic dust and harsh weather in the Whispering Canyon had eaten away at the gears. As the heavy chains pulled the doors open, the grinding noise echoed through the staging courtyard like the scream of a dying metal beast.
Ren stood in the staging area, adjusting the straps of his oversized, standard-issue tactical vest. He felt completely out of place.
Around him, elite Strikers were sharpening their high-frequency vibro-blades, the metal humming with a lethal, invisible vibration. Bastions were checking the hydraulic pressure in their massive tower shields. Everyone looked hardened, terrifying, and ready for war.
Then there was Squad 9.
Jax was leaning casually against a rusted transport truck. He was repeatedly punching his own open palm with his massive mechanical gauntlets. Every time the metal collided, the exhaust vents on his forearms hissed, releasing a small cloud of pressurized steam. He looked like a caged animal waiting for the lock to break.
Elara stood a few feet away, completely ignoring the chaos. She was meticulously cleaning the lens of her magnification goggles with a sterile white cloth. Her pristine medical coat stood out violently against the mud and grime of the courtyard. She looked bored.
"Listen up, Null," Jax grunted over the noise of the opening gates. He pointed a thick, metal-encased finger at Ren. "Once we are past those doors, we are in the Echo-Fog. The fog actively scrambles radio frequencies. If you get separated from the truck, you are dead. I am not turning around to look for you."
"I can track my own way back," Ren replied evenly. He tapped the side of his own head. "I do not need a radio."
Jax rolled his eyes, turning back to the open gates.
Ren closed his eyes for a brief moment. He let a microscopic breath escape his lips, triggering his [Echolocation]. The invisible soundwaves washed over the staging area, painting a perfectly clear, three-dimensional acoustic map in his mind. He could hear the rapid, adrenaline-fueled heartbeats of the elite soldiers. He could hear the slow, methodical ticking of Elara's pulse.
Then, he heard the outside.
Beyond the massive steel doors, the Whispering Canyon was not empty. A wall of grey, swirling static was rapidly rolling down the valley directly toward the Outpost. It was the Echo-Fog. But it was not just weather. The fog was completely alive with corrupted sound.
Ren's acoustic map suddenly flared with hundreds of erratic, aggressive acoustic signatures.
"We need to close the gates," Ren said sharply, his eyes flying open.
Jax scoffed, crossing his heavy arms. "Are you giving orders now, rookie? The transport convoy has to leave on schedule, or the Upper City docks our pay."
"Close the gates!" Ren shouted louder, stepping toward the nearest control console. "There is a horde in the fog!"
Before the guard at the console could even react to the shouting Null, the Outpost's automated proximity sensors finally caught up to Ren's Echolocation.
A deafening, shrill alarm klaxon ripped through the courtyard. The staging area bathed in a flashing, frantic crimson light.
"Static Storm approaching!" a synthetic voice blared over the loudspeakers. "Category Four! Multiple hostile signatures detected! Defensive formations, immediately!"
Panic erupted. The elite soldiers scrambled for the barricades. Heavy gunners, the Amplifiers of the Outpost, rushed to the top of the concrete walls and mounted massive, barrel-sized sonic cannons onto the rusted tripods.
The grey wall of Echo-Fog slammed into the open gates before they could reverse the massive chains.
A tide of mutated horrors spilled into the courtyard. There were dozens of Screamers, their glitching, hairless bodies phasing through the defensive crossfire. Behind them lumbered massive, heavily armored crustaceans that looked like oversized pillbugs made of concrete and static electricity.
"Stand your ground!" Instructor Krell's booming voice echoed from a balcony above. He was holding a half-eaten pastry in one hand and a heavy kinetic revolver in the other. "Turn them into paste!"
The Outpost erupted into a chaotic symphony of violence. The heavy gunners opened fire. The sonic cannons unleashed massive rings of compressed air that shattered the armor of the concrete bugs. Strikers engaged the Screamers in close combat, their high-frequency blades leaving trails of blue light in the grey fog.
Jax let out a massive roar of pure excitement. He slammed his gauntlets together, charging the pistons with his spiking heart rate, and charged directly into the fray. He threw a devastating right hook into the jaw of a leaping Screamer. The gauntlet released a localized shockwave on impact, blowing the monster's head cleanly off its shoulders.
Ren did not charge. He stayed near the transport truck, keeping himself firmly between the chaos and Elara. He kept his hands open, his muscles perfectly relaxed, waiting for a monster to break the defensive line.
The noise was agonizing. The roaring monsters, the discharging cannons, and the screaming soldiers created a wall of chaotic, painful dissonance. Ren could feel a migraine building behind his eyes. The frequency of the battlefield was completely, utterly wrong.
Then, everything changed.
The chaotic noise did not slowly fade away. It was violently, instantly deleted.
The roaring cannons went completely silent. The screaming monsters opened their jaws, but no sound came out. Even the howling wind of the Static Storm froze in mid-air. It felt as if the entire world had been plunged underwater.
Ren gasped, looking up at the sky. His Echolocation was screaming in absolute terror.
Descending slowly from the bruised violet clouds was a single figure.
It was a woman. She was walking downward, but there were no stairs. With every delicate step she took, the air itself solidified beneath her heels, creating microscopic ripples of visible pressure. She wore an elegant, flowing dress of pale blue and silver, completely unbothered by the apocalyptic weather.
In her right hand, she held a pristine white parasol, twirling it softly over her shoulder.
She looked deeply, profoundly sad. Her eyes were a pale, glowing silver, completely devoid of anger or malice. She simply looked exhausted by the violence happening below her.
[SYSTEM WARNING]
[MASSIVE ANOMALY DETECTED]
[THREAT LEVEL: REGIONAL SOVEREIGN]
[RESONANCE OUTPUT: INCALCULABLE]
"I apologize for the delay, Commander Krell," a voice whispered.
The woman was still a hundred feet in the air, but her voice echoed perfectly clearly in the mind of every single person in the courtyard. It was soft, melodic, and carried a melancholic weight that made Ren's chest ache.
The woman, Envoy Lyra, stopped walking. She looked down at the horde of monsters swarming the courtyard.
"The wind is far too loud today," she murmured.
Lyra gently closed her white parasol.
The moment the fabric snapped shut, the atmospheric pressure in the courtyard inverted. Ren felt his ears pop violently. The air around the horde of monsters suddenly twisted inward, creating dozens of localized, microscopic vacuums.
There was no explosion. There was no flashy blast of light.
The entire horde of Screamers and armored crustaceans simply collapsed inward, crushed into particles of grey dust by the absolute weight of the frozen air. Hundreds of monsters were erased from existence in less than a second.
The grey dust drifted harmlessly to the ground, mingling with the mud.
The silence held for a long, terrifying moment. The elite soldiers lowered their weapons, staring up at the descending Envoy in total awe. Even Jax stood perfectly still, his smoking gauntlets hanging limply at his sides.
Envoy Lyra floated down to the center of the courtyard, her silver shoes touching the blood-stained concrete without making a single sound. She opened her parasol again, resting the handle gently on her shoulder.
Krell leaped down from the balcony, landing heavily. His enthusiastic smile was completely gone, replaced by a look of rigid, nervous respect. He offered a sharp military salute.
"Envoy Lyra," Krell said, his loud voice sounding incredibly small in her presence. "We are honored by your visit to Outpost 104. We had the situation completely under control, of course."
"Of course you did, Instructor," Lyra replied softly. Her silver eyes drifted past Krell, scanning the exhausted soldiers. "I did not come to interfere with your borders. I came because the wind carried a very strange rumor to my capital."
Lyra began to walk slowly through the crowd of soldiers. They parted for her instinctively, terrified to even breathe near her.
She walked past the heavy gunners. She walked past Jax, completely ignoring his aggressive posture. She stopped directly in front of the rusted transport truck.
She stopped directly in front of Ren.
Ren held his ground. He did not salute. He did not bow. He looked directly into her glowing silver eyes.
When he looked at her, his Echolocation failed completely. Trying to map her acoustic signature was like trying to listen to a black hole. She absorbed all sound around her, projecting an aura of absolute, terrifying silence.
"A boy with no Resonance Core," Lyra whispered, tilting her head slightly. She studied his face with an intense, melancholic curiosity. "A boy who creates perfect counter-frequencies with his bare hands. The wind told me it was impossible."
She reached out slowly, her delicate fingers hovering just an inch away from his cheek.
"Who taught you how to play the silence, little bird?" she asked softly.
Ren felt a familiar, sharp pain stabbing at the base of his skull. The System window flickered in the corner of his eye, attempting to load a corrupted file, but it immediately crashed under the sheer pressure of her presence.
"I do not know," Ren answered truthfully. His voice was steady, refusing to waver. "I do not know who I am."
Lyra stared at him for a long time. Her sad expression did not change, but a subtle, chilling wind began to swirl around her feet, picking up the grey monster dust.
"An amnesiac," she finally murmured, withdrawing her hand. "How delightfully tragic. But the Whispering Canyon does not care for forgotten pasts. It only cares about utility."
Lyra turned away from him, looking back toward Instructor Krell.
"Instructor. The rumors of this Null's survival instincts are intriguing. I have a task that requires a highly expendable, yet resourceful unit."
"Anything you need, Envoy," Krell nodded rapidly.
"There is an old-world Metro Station buried three miles north of here, deep inside the heavy Echo-Fog," Lyra instructed calmly. "A very specific, ancient Resonance Core is located in the lowest maintenance level. My personal guard cannot enter. The high frequency of their weapons will awaken the slumbering Mimic guarding the vault."
Lyra looked back at Ren, her silver eyes glowing faintly in the dim courtyard light.
"Send Squad 9," Lyra commanded softly. "If they can retrieve the Core using low-frequency tactics, I will grant this Outpost a month's worth of pure rations. If they die in the dark, then the wind was wrong about you, little bird."
She did not wait for an answer. Lyra simply turned and began walking back up her invisible staircase of solidified air, ascending gracefully back into the violent purple clouds.
Ren watched her disappear. He could feel the heavy stares of the entire Outpost burning into his back.
He had just been noticed by a Regional Sovereign, and her immediate reaction was to send him on a suicide mission into the dark.
"Well," Jax grunted, breaking the heavy silence. He slapped Ren hard on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. "Congratulations, Null. You just got us promoted from janitors to grave robbers. Get in the truck."