The chamber pulsed with low, humming energy—an ancient heartbeat buried beneath the marble and obsidian of the throne room. Amon Virex sat reclined in his seat of command, bare chest catching the golden light from the floating orbs that circled him like moons. His cybernetic fingers drummed lightly on the armrest, each tap echoing like thunder in the silence.

He stared forward—not at anything, but into everything. A holo-display hovered before him, cycling through intercepted transmissions, planetary unrest, border tensions.

Noise.

Predictable. Manageable. Small.

He closed his hand into a fist. The display shattered like mist.

Amon stood, every movement a deliberate contrast to the stillness of the throne he’d carved from a fallen starship. He approached the edge of the room, where a single console stood—dusty, untouched for decades. He placed his organic hand on the crystal reader, and the floor beneath him split with a groan, revealing a spiral descent into the catacombs beneath his citadel.

Down there, no one followed.

The vault was his only sanctuary, the last place even his sentry-drones were forbidden. Walls lined with relics—fragments of lost civilizations, weapons older than memory, tomes that whispered in dead tongues. But tonight, Amon wasn’t here to study.

He was here because something had been taken.

A relic had gone missing. Not stolen—no alarms were triggered. Simply… gone. As if it had chosen to leave.

He approached the empty pedestal. His masked face reflected dimly on the glass casing, which now held only absence. The Eye of Iskar—a compass that never pointed north, only toward purpose. He’d hidden it long ago, fearing its influence on weak minds.

And now it was gone.

He whispered into the dark: “Who gave you the right?”

No answer. Just the low churn of the vault’s unseen machinery.

But then—a presence.

He turned, not because of a sound, but because something shifted. The room, the air, the very feel of gravity. A figure stood behind him, though they made no sound, left no footprint, cast no clear shadow.

They didn’t belong here—and yet they felt like they always had.

Amon’s hand hovered near the hilt of the dagger on his hip, not out of fear, but curiosity. “You don’t walk like a thief,” he said, his voice metallic yet smooth. “And I’ve never heard silence this loud.”