Jin Arashi stood alone beneath the arch of the Forbidden Vault.

He let the rain soak his hair, cooling the fever that had simmered under his skin since the first time he’d heard the stories—whispers of the Sovereign Circuit. A relic older than the Dynasty itself, sealed away in the dark when the last Sovereign perished.

Most said it was a myth.

A cautionary tale to frighten children into obedience.

But Jin knew the truth.

The vault was real.

And tonight, he would claim what none before him had dared to touch.

He took one measured breath. The iron doors loomed over him, carved with archaic sigils that seemed to squirm if he looked too long. He remembered standing here as a boy, watching the elders perform their hollow rites to honor ancestors none of them understood. They had warned him that opening the vault meant death.

But he had been dying by increments for years.

Ever since the day he first understood that no matter how he trained, how he bled, how he humbled himself, he would always be less than his half-brothers. He would always be the bastard son, the expendable shadow clinging to the edge of the Arashi name.

A slow death of small humiliations.

He would not die that way.

Jin rested his palms against the doors. Cold radiated through the thin leather of his gloves, and he felt the sigils stir beneath his skin.

Nothing happened. For a moment, he wondered if all the stories were lies after all.

Then the carvings flared—pale blue lines threading together like veins under old skin.

[Sovereign Circuit. Cognition initializing.]

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating in his bones. He nearly recoiled. But he forced himself to stay still as the doors began to shift, stone grating against stone.

An exhalation of stale air swept over him—air that had not tasted the world in centuries.

Jin stepped into the darkness.

His boots sank into a layer of dust. The chamber swallowed all sound. Even the storm beyond felt impossibly far away. Black stone curved up into a vaulted ceiling, shot through with thin veins of polished silver. In the center of the chamber, a pedestal rose from the floor like the trunk of a petrified tree.

And there, hovering in silence, was the Sphere.

It was smaller than he expected—no bigger than his own head. A perfect globe of gleaming metal, encircled by dozens of thin filaments that drifted through the air like strands of liquid lightning. As he watched, they shimmered and shifted, forming patterns he couldn’t quite focus on.

His breath caught.

All his life, he had imagined this moment. But standing here, he felt the truth of what he was about to do. This was no ritual. No ceremonial inheritance.

This was trespass.

A quiet voice in the back of his mind told him to turn away. To run before the Sphere woke fully and devoured him as it had devoured so many others.

He ignored it.

[Biometric resonance detected.]

The filaments twitched. A line of heat traced down his spine.

[Lineage compatibility: 98.7%.]

The number struck him harder than he expected. His father’s blood, diluted though it was, was still enough.

Enough to be recognized. Enough to claim it.

He drew a slow, unsteady breath. His heart beat so hard he felt it in his throat.

“I’m not afraid,” he said softly.

It was almost true.

[Integration sequence ready.]

Lightning flickered across the filaments—tiny sparks that cast stuttering shadows across the chamber walls.

“I accept,” he whispered.

The Sphere reacted instantly. Filaments shot outward, faster than thought. One pierced the center of his chest—just below the collarbone.

The pain was beyond anything he had imagined. A cold, blinding agony that seemed to drill through bone, through marrow, through his soul itself. His legs buckled. He fell to his knees, gasping, fingers scrabbling at the smooth stone.

He thought he heard something then—a chorus of voices layered into one.

[Integration: 2%.]

The pain did not stop. Each heartbeat sent new flares of cold fire through his body.

[Integration: 5%.]

He tried to scream, but the sound caught in his throat.

[Integration: 9%.]

The voices grew clearer, like an echo from somewhere impossibly distant.

[Integration: 12%.]

When the filament finally withdrew, the world snapped back into focus. He collapsed forward, bracing himself with trembling hands. His breath came ragged. Sweat dripped from his hair onto the floor.

He felt different. Sharper. As though some boundary inside him had been torn away.

Lightning danced over his fingertips—small, crackling arcs that vanished as quickly as they came.

Slowly, he pushed himself upright.

[Integration stable. Awaiting further input.]

He looked up at the Sphere.

And in that moment, he understood that nothing in his life would ever be the same.