Kael’s grip on Lyra’s arm was a lifeline, his fingers intertwining with hers, anchoring him in the swirling chaos. Varus was gone. Not a lingering image, not a glitched echo, but a definitive, terrifying absence. The silence left by his annihilation was more profound than any scream, a vacuum that sucked the air from Kael’s lungs, even in this digital world. The residual energy of the data fragment, Varus’s final desperate gift, pulsed faintly within his palm, a cold, insistent thrum that resonated deep in his core.
"He's gone," Lyra whispered, her voice raw with grief, her emerald eyes still fixed on the empty space where the Captain had stood. Tears traced clean paths down her data-rendered cheeks, shimmering in the faint, glitching light of Aethelgard. "Just… gone."
Kael closed his ey
