Prime System Champion [A Multi-System Apocalypse LitRPG]

Chapter 130: The Inheritance


The command center, once a space of cold, tactical silence, now hummed with the joyful, chaotic energy of a new age. The two portals, one a disciplined, shimmering gray and the other a wild, swirling vortex of ash and ember, stood on the sides of the room, twin gateways to our burgeoning secret empire. For the first time since I'd arrived on this strange new world, the feeling of oppressive, constant fear was gone, replaced by the giddy, intoxicating buzz of true, unadulterated hope.

"You're sure about this?" Lucas asked, his voice a low rumble of awe as he stood before the ashen vortex, the warm, ancient air of the Cradle washing over his face. He looked at the eight of us gathered. "Showing all of us… all of this? Eren, this is a secret that could get us all killed."

"No," I said, a confident, relaxed smile on my face. "It's a secret that will keep us all alive." I tapped a finger to my temple. "One of the… finer points of our 'alliance' with Vayne was a hint on how to get a full archival access and debriefing on the Prime System's protections for its assets. She thought she was just explaining our rights. It was so much data they thought it would be meaningless to us, Kasian and Jeeves eventually found the loopholes. The Edict of Confluence has a 'Sanctuary of Mind' protocol. As long as we're considered active participants in a sanctioned Prime System event — like our new cooperative venture — any attempt to forcibly extract information from our minds, whether by Kyorian tech or psionic assault, will trigger an automatic, targeted related memory wipe. They could crack your mind open, and all they'd find about this place is a blank, empty space."

A collective wave of relief washed over them. Silas actually let out a short, sharp laugh, a rare and startling sound. "So they gave us a get-out-of-jail-free card for our own secret conspiracy? The irony is delicious. It's good to know even all of that Imperial bureaucracy has a blind spot."

"A big one," I confirmed. "They built the cage, but they also handed us the key to a secret room inside it, not anticipating our high level Anima this early."

"Well then," Anna said, a predatory glint in her eyes as she peered into the swirling portal. She nudged my ribs with her elbow. "Finally found a place big enough to fit your ego, big brother? Looks impressive. For a dusty old cave." Her banter was a comforting, familiar song. "Are you going to stand there talking all day, or are you going to give us the grand tour?"

Stepping through the portal with them to an exciting surprise was an experience of pure, unadulterated joy, but it also brought back memories of my grandfather, solidifying my resolve to dedicate more time to search for him.

One moment we were in the cool, metallic confines of the Veiled Path; the next, we were in the vast, star-lit cavern of the Cradle, the warm, golden light of the ceiling crystals washing over us. The awe was instantaneous and absolute. Marcus just stood there, his mouth agape, staring up at the crystalline 'sky'. Eliza let out a sound that was half gasp, half squeal of delight and made a beeline for a nearby dormant runic conduit, her hands tracing its patterns as if she were reading a sacred text.

And then they saw Bennu.

He rose from his ash pile to greet us, no longer a majestic, sleeping myth, but a living, breathing sun. His feathers were fire, a slow, rolling inferno of liquid gold and ruby light that radiated a warmth that was more than just physical. It was a warmth that touched the soul, a feeling of boundless joy and benevolent, life-giving power.

"Welcome!" his thought-voice bloomed in all their minds, a chorus of a thousand joyous chimes. "Welcome, little embers! The Hearth is warm! Enki's friends are my friends! Come! Be warm!"

He was utterly magnificent. His presence was so overwhelmingly positive, so radiant and joyful, that it was impossible to be afraid. Lena, usually so quiet and reserved, giggled like a little girl. Lucas, the stoic commander, had a look of dumbstruck wonder on his face that I knew I would tease him about for years. Kaelen, who had padded through the portal with us, was utterly transfixed. He trotted forward and simply sat at the great bird's feet, looking up in pure adoration. Bennu lowered his head, a gesture of immense gentleness, and touched the tip of his beak to Kaelen's head. A single, golden ember dropped from his crest and dissolved into Kaelen's shadowy fur. My Glimpse felt a subtle but profound shift in my little companion's being, a dormant seed that had just been watered by the sun.

This wasn't the same excited, childish Bennu I had first met. In the heart of his master's home, bathed in the warmth of the nexus, he was a true sovereign in his own right, an ebullient, charismatic king of light and life.

"His personality matrix seems to be highly context-sensitive," Jeeves murmured from a projected mote of light near my shoulder. "His loyalty to you is absolute, Master Eren, but in all other social interactions, he defaults to the 'benevolent deity' persona he cultivated over millennia."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

It made a strange kind of sense. He had spent centuries as a god to the people of the ruins. The role was second nature to him now.

I spent the next several hours showing them everything. We walked the obsidian corridors, now brightly lit and humming with a quiet, confident power. I led them to the Chamber of Weaving, the great, silent forge. "According to Kasian," I explained, "this isn't just a forge. It convinces matter to take on new properties. But its primary power systems are still… harmonizing. The nexus here is awake, but its connection to me is new. Think of it as an engine that needs time to warm up."

"So, it works?" Eliza asked, practically vibrating.

"A little," I admitted. To demonstrate, I placed an iron ingot on the central pedestal and focused. A single, small fabrication arm hummed to life, bathing the ingot in a complex, multi-layered field of light and sound. The iron did not change shape, but its very nature did. It became lighter, stronger, and hummed with a faint, residual energy.

"That... that's trans-conceptual alchemy," Eliza stammered. "It violates at least three known laws of thaumaturgical engineering! The possibilities... Leoric, we need to study this. Now." Leoric, who had been sketching the runes on the wall, just nodded, his eyes wide.

We moved on to the crystal library. Here, the progress was more pronounced. I showed them how to access a crystal with a simple touch. Silas, a man of few words, spent a full ten minutes silently communing with a crystal that detailed the ambush tactics of a long-extinct race of shadow panthers, his expression growing more and more impressed. "Good tricks in here," was his simple, profound verdict. "Very… efficient."

"What Vayne offered us," Lucas said quietly, his voice a low, heavy thing, filled with a retroactive dread as his gaze swept the incredible chamber. "'Imperial technology.' She was offering us scraps from a table like this, claiming they were the finest meal in the universe. To think so many are considering it." He shook his head, a look of renewed, hardened resolve on his face. "The relief of knowing we didn't fall for that lie… it's overwhelming. We build our own strength. We owe it to our people, and to… them." He gestured to the crystals, to the memory of the first ones who came.

"We tell no one," Anna stated, her voice sharp as flint, locking eyes with her two teammates, Marcus and Lena, who both nodded in solemn agreement. Her gaze then swept to my team. "Not a word. To anyone. Ever. The Prime System's binding will ensure it'll never be a danger. Bennu's stories about the Long War… that wasn't a fairy tale. What we have here… this is a secret that could start another one if the Empire or anyone else found out. They didn't just purge a people; they purged an idea of power they couldn't control. We're now the keepers of that idea. We die with it before we ever speak of it."

"Again," I said, "this is just the surface. Kasian says the deeper archives, the ones detailing galactic history and Primordial Essence theory, are still locked. The nexus needs a stronger, more stable connection to my soul — it needs time — before it will grant me access to Enki's most profound secrets."

The tour ended, as it had for me, in the treasury. Their reactions were even more profound than my own. They walked through the mountains of quintessence crystals. They stared at the racks of legendary armor, at swords that had names, at shields that had souls. Silas ran a gloved hand over the [Umbral Thorn] dagger I'd set out for him, his touch surprisingly gentle. "A tool this clean," he murmured, almost to himself, "this final… it's an act of mercy, in a way. It doesn't leave a mess."

"And this is just the overflow," I said, a mischievous grin on my face. "Bennu and I still haven't managed to get into Enki's personal stronghold yet. Apparently, the locks on that are tied even more directly to the nexus' full power."

They were like children on the grandest holiday of their lives, full of joy and a renewed, ferocious sense of purpose. This wasn't just my inheritance anymore. It was theirs, too. It was the armory that would equip them, the library that would teach them, the fortress that would one day launch them out into the galaxy to reclaim their stolen legacy.

It was late in the day when we stumbled upon the last room. It was a cartography and strategic planning room. Most of the displays were dark, but one was still active, lit by its own faint, internal power. It was a table, much like my own command center's, but its surface was a living, breathing map, a slice of reality itself. I saw miniature clouds drifting over impossibly detailed mountain ranges, tiny rivers of real water flowing towards a miniature ocean.

And at the center of the map was an unexplored continent, one that wasn't even on my stone tablet map from Kasian. It was dominated by a vast, black jungle that seemed to actively writhe and shift on the map's surface. A single destination was marked near its heart with a pulsing, angry red rune. A detailed route was plotted to it, a path that would take us through treacherous canyons and swamplands, a journey that appeared to be at least a week long, at my maximum speed with [Domain of the Ashen Phoenix] flaring.

But it was the inscription, carved into the map's border in ancient, glowing runes, that made my blood run cold. Kasian's thought-voice provided the translation, his tone flatter, more serious than I had ever heard it.

<Tread not where the old gods dream.>

Beneath the inscription was a single, stark, universally understood symbol: a grinning human skull, its eye sockets filled with a swirling, malevolent darkness.

My [Predator's Gaze] focused on the rune, on the deep, seething knot of power it represented. The sense it gave back was not one of simple danger, like a powerful monster or a hostile army. It was a feeling of profound, primal, and deeply intelligent wrongness.

The joyous, celebratory atmosphere of the day evaporated in an instant, replaced by the cold, hard reality of the world we lived in. Our inheritance was vast, our potential limitless, but we were still just embers in a very old and very dark forest. And some things, even now, were still sleeping in the shadows, waiting for someone foolish enough to come knocking.

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