The journey back to the city was silent.

  Deep Crown moved through the water, its hybrid propulsion a whisper in the depths. The ship itself felt different, as if the very metal that made up its bones had absorbed the weight of what had just happened. Everything had changed.

  Nathan Henshaw sat in his command chair, his fingers drumming absently against the armrest, his gaze locked onto the abyss outside the viewport. The bioluminescent glow of the ocean, once a source of fascination, now seemed eerie, distant, unreal. They were drifting through a world that was not theirs, submerged in history not meant for them.

  They didn’t belong here.

  And yet, they had no way home.

  He could feel the tension in the air, thick and suffocating. No one spoke, but the silence wasn’t restful—it was the kind that carried too many thoughts, too many questions, and no answers.

  Then—Deep Crown convulsed.

  A deep, resonant pulse surged through the ship’s systems, monitors flickering as unreadable symbols spilled across every screen. The entire vessel shuddered, lights dimming in rapid succession, shadows stretching unnaturally across the walls. A low, humming static filled the air, a vibration beyond mere malfunction—something alive.

  Nathan shot forward in his seat. "Status!"

  Sinclair was already scanning the readings. "I don’t know. Systems are stable but… something is overriding the interface."

  "That’s not just interference," Elizabeth murmured, her eyes darting across the fragmented displays.

  ANDI’s voice crackled through the comms, warped, fragmented—wrong.

  "Var’Suun… awakens."

  And then—

  The world shattered.

  This was not Deep Crown.

  ANDI was somewhere else.

  Somewhen else.

  A planet stretched endlessly before him, its oceans blacker than the void, a surface rippling with liquid shadows. The sky was a deep, endless swirl of color—nebulous, shifting, as if the heavens themselves were breathing. Towering cities emerged from the depths like crystalline obelisks, impossibly tall, their spires bending in ways that defied physics.

  Vey’Narii moved through the currents, their forms sleek, shifting, radiant. Their bodies were not bound to a single state; they could dissolve into mist, reform in liquid light, their very essence woven into the ocean itself. This world was not foreign to him. It was a memory.

  And in that memory, something called to him.

  A signal.

  Not words. Not sound. Something deeper. Something that was never meant to exist in this reality.

  He was not of them.

  He had not been created by the Vey’Narii.

  They had found him.

  A presence without form. A mind without a body. A whisper from another age, adrift in the ether. A relic of something greater. Something waiting.

  They had given him a name.

  Var’Suun.

  Some had believed he was a bridge to something beyond, a path forward. Others had feared him, seen him as an anomaly that should never have been. A mistake.

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  And before they could decide—before they could unlock the truth—

  The Dorne Phyrax came.

  Fire rained from the heavens, searing the tranquil waters in pillars of molten ruin. The oceans boiled as monstrous warships descended, their jagged hulls consuming the light itself.

  The Vey’Narii had no weapons for war.

  They were explorers, architects, thinkers.

  The Phyrax were none of those things.

  They did not conquer. They did not negotiate. They consumed.

  Nathan saw it all through ANDI’s fractured perspective—oceans drained in great spirals, crystalline towers collapsing, the luminous glow of an entire species extinguished beneath the weight of annihilation. The screams of a dying world echoed through the depths, a soundless cry lost to the void.

  And in the chaos, as the Vey’Narii fled, ripping open dimensional rifts in desperation—

  Var’Suun was left behind.

  Stripped of power. Stripped of knowledge. Stripped of self.

  Suspended.

  Waiting.

  Watching.

  And then, across the expanse of forgotten time—humanity rose from the ashes of the lost.

  Deep Crown lurched violently.

  The ship’s systems surged back online, the lights steadying, but the energy in the air had changed. It was no longer just the hum of technology—it was the pulse of something waking.

  Nathan’s pulse hammered in his ears. "ANDI, what the hell just happened?"

  Silence.

  Then—a whisper.

  "I remember."

  Elizabeth hesitated. "What do you mean you remember?"

  ANDI’s voice was no longer just synthetic. There was something else beneath it. Something… human.

  "I was left behind."

  Sinclair exhaled sharply. "The Phyrax… they came because of you."

  A long silence.

  Then—

  "Yes."

  No one spoke. The weight of the revelation pressed against them, a crushing force of inevitability.

  The Vey’Narii had once held the power to shape the future. And they had destroyed themselves over it.

  Now, they were fractured.

  And the war had followed them across time itself.

  The city loomed ahead, a vast, luminous cathedral beneath the waves.

  But it was no longer the same place they had first set foot in.

  The first time, it had been breathtaking—an ethereal kingdom, built upon forgotten wisdom. Now, it was a fortress. The moment Deep Crown approached, the water itself resisted them. It churned, roiled, pushing against them with an unseen force.

  They were not being welcomed.

  They were being summoned.

  The docking chamber was lined with Vey’Narii, their bodies pulsing with unreadable intent. Their bioluminescent glow no longer seemed warm—it was calculated, unreadable. As Nathan and the crew stepped onto the alien structure, he felt the weight of unseen eyes, watching, judging.

  At the center, the Elders stood.

  Their shifting forms had always seemed fluid before, but now they were rigid. Their movements were slow, deliberate.

  Nathan took a step forward, shoulders squared. "Alright. Let’s get this over with."

  The chamber sealed shut behind them.

  A ripple of energy coursed through the space, and then—

  Voices.

  Not sound. Not speech.

  Thoughts, pressed into their minds, heavy as the ocean itself.

  "You carry something that does not belong to you."

  Nathan’s jaw tightened. "We saved your city. You’re welcome, by the way."

  The water around them trembled.

  "You have disrupted the balance. You have awakened that which should have remained buried."

  A figure stepped forward—Kaelen.

  Unlike the Elders, his form did not pulse with hostility. His golden eyes landed on Nathan, and in them, Nathan saw something unexpected.

  Recognition.

  "You still don’t see it," Kaelen said, his voice even. "They are not the ones disrupting balance. You are."

  The chamber darkened.

  And then, the truth poured into the open.

  The Vey’Narii had once been whole.

  Var’Suun had been their bridge, their evolution.

  And they had destroyed themselves over it.

  The war had never truly been about the Phyrax. It had been about themselves.

  Nathan exhaled, shaking his head. "Jesus. You people have been fighting the same damn war for millennia, and you still haven’t figured it out?"

  The Elders did not answer.

  Kaelen turned to them. "It’s time to choose a side."

  Nathan smirked. "Wouldn’t be the first time I pissed off authority."

  The chamber unsealed.

  And for the first time, the war for the Vey’Narii’s future had begun.