Darkness.

Then—light.

A rush of cold fluid drains from your lungs as you gasp, hands slamming against the glass of the vat that birthed you. Your vision blurs, then sharpens, the sterile white of a laboratory coming into focus. Data streams flicker across your retinas, systems booting, protocols initializing, but beneath the flood of information, something else lingers.

Fragments.

A woman with silver hair, her smile like a fading dream. "Kallen." The weight of a 500+ years old organization on your back. "Schicksal." A voice, whispering, "For her, I would burn the world."

You don’t understand. The memories aren’t yours and yet, they are. A phantom obsession claws at your chest, directionless, desperate. Why? They slip through your mind like smoke, leaving only echoes, an ache without a wound, a purpose without a name.

Then, clarity.

Your mind, Otto’s mind, or some shattered reflection of it, stabilizes. The confusion doesn’t vanish, but it bends beneath your will. You are thinking, and that alone is a miracle.

Your breathing steadies. The panic subsides into calculation. Soulium avatar. Otto Apocalypse’s design. The lab around you is sterile, humming with dormant machinery. A backup facility, then. One of many. And yet… something is wrong. The systems should have detected your activation. There should have been orders. A directive.

Instead, there is only silence.

And then, footsteps.

Light, precise, inhumanly measured.

The door slides open, and a figure steps into view: a woman with an orange visor covering her eyes and wearing a nun's habit, her expression unreadable. Amber. Otto’s shadow, his most loyal tool. Her gaze locks onto you, and for a moment, there is nothing. No recognition. No warmth. Only calculation.

Then, softly, she speaks.

—You are not the Overseer.

A test. A threat. Or an opportunity.

You meet her gaze, your mind already racing. How does she know? How much does she know?

You're a newborn, but your first challenge begins.