You don't build a skyscraper unless you're ready for the ground to betray you.
Kian had said those words before. He'd lived by them.
He just didn't expect to die by them.
The explosion ripped through the fiftieth floor of the Dione International Arcology, a structure he helped design—one of the last mega-habitats meant to solve Earth's vertical overcrowding crisis. Dust choked the stairwell. Screams echoed like sonar across a metal tomb. Steel snapped above him like a spine breaking in slow motion.
He ran anyway.
Kian's boots thundered up the half-collapsed fire escape, past fallen signage, burst pipes, and emergency lights flickering uselessly. He had six people trapped on the top floor. A structural integrity algorithm had flagged Sector B-2 as red six minutes ago.
He was five minutes too late.
"Kian!" someone's voice crackled over the comm — Adira, the emergency ops lead. "You're at critical! Get out now, or you'll be part of the collapse!"
"I know," he muttered.
But he didn't slow down.
At floor fifty-two, the vibrations changed — not just a tremor, but a shear. A horizontal shift. Foundation-level failure.
No...
He had designed for compression failure. Predicted wind torsion. Accounted for resource cuts and a dozen political overrides in the engineering phase.
But he hadn't planned for sabotage.
Something else had taken this tower down.
The stairwell split above him as the main girder gave way. A sudden crash of steel. Falling cables. Concrete and glass rained like meteor shards. Kian dove forward, arms raised, but he wasn't fast enough.
All he saw was the ceiling, crashing down in one final betrayal.
No time for regrets.
And then there was nothing.
He expected pain.
Instead, there was... warmth.
And silence.
Kian opened his eyes.
The sky above him wasn't blackened concrete or collapsing metal. It was deep gray, tinged violet — a color that didn't belong in any atmospheric spectrum he knew. The air smelled of ash and something faintly metallic, like a forge gone cold.
He lay in a shallow crater, surrounded by burned grass and twisted soil.
And overhead floated a message, flickering faintly in the air like a transparent hologram:
[Initializing Interface...]
[System Detected: Architect Codex]
[System Detected: Predation Protocol]
[Error. Conflict. Dual Core Incompatibility.]
[Stabilizing... Manual Override Activated.]
Welcome, Kian Vale. You are... Unclassified.
Rebirth complete.
Kian sat up slowly. The ground beneath him was real. Cool. Damp. His body… wasn't his. Thinner. Younger. His hands were calloused in unfamiliar ways, but his reflexes were sharp.
A rebirth?
He stood on trembling legs, surveying the landscape. Broken ruins stretched beyond a burned tree line. Pillars of black smoke dotted the horizon. Towering stone bones of a dead civilization loomed in the distance, cracked and abandoned.
And just beyond the trees — something moved.
Crunching footsteps. Four limbs. Heavy breathing.
Not human.
Kian dropped to one knee, hiding behind a ridge. His instincts kicked in, memories from his short time in military engineering training flashing like blueprints across his mind.
He needed height. Cover. Information.
But then another interface flickered open in front of him, smaller, more aggressive:
[Predation Protocol: Threat Detected]
Target: Gnawbeast - Class D]
You are under-leveled.
Recommendation: Flee. Hide. Feed. Adapt.
Initiating Passive Scan...
Another ping.
A second window blinked on, sleeker, cleaner:
[Architect Codex: Terrain Analysis Complete]
You are standing on: Broken Manafield (Tier III, unstable).
Blueprint Suggestion: Pit Trap (Primitive) – Material Cost: 2 units stone, 1 sharp object.
Build Mode: Locked. Authority Level: 0.
Two systems. Two voices. And both already arguing.
He had no idea what the hell a "Gnawbeast" was, but he wasn't about to wait and find out. He backed up into the brush, keeping silent.
The creature passed close.
It was massive — canine-like, but mutated. Six eyes. Patches of molten bone for skin. Its breath hissed steam. Its teeth never stopped grinding, even when its head moved elsewhere. Kian held still as a statue.
[Predation Protocol: New Evolution Available – "Mimic Stillness"]
Accept Mutation? Y/N
He nearly laughed. It sounded insane. But the monster turned its back. Maybe it worked.
He exhaled only when the beast was gone.
Kian moved for hours.
Past dead farmland. Across a dried-out creek bed. Every step was foreign. His instincts fought his logic. The Codex wanted to analyze terrain, list build options, and unlock structures. The Predation Protocol kept feeding him thoughts like "rip out its tongue and learn how it smells."
He needed shelter. Time. A plan.
At dusk, he reached what remained of a ruin — the stone ribs of an old watchtower. One wall stood upright, the others had caved into rubble.
The moment he touched the wall, the Architect Codex reacted:
[Structure Scan Complete]
Possible Restoration Blueprint: Defensive Shelter Tier I.
Required Materials: Stone (6), Wood (2), Mana Core (1 - corrupted acceptable).
Warning: Current build authority – insufficient.
"I get it," Kian muttered. "You don't trust me yet."
Then came another ping — a third window, neutral in tone:
[Dual System Conflict Threshold Detected]
Stability at 41%
Tip: Excessive use of either system will weaken the other. Balance required.
Balance.
They were like fire and water in the same container.
The Architect wanted to preserve. The Predator wanted to adapt. And he was trapped between them.
Was he even human anymore?
He found a piece of bone near the edge of the ruin — cracked and half-fossilized. He examined it, then used it to wedge a loose stone from the base wall.
Six more stones. No core.
No wood.
But a fireless camp could work for now.
Night fell like a blanket soaked in ash.
The stars above shimmered purple and green — the sky itself seemed... wrong.
Kian sat in the half-shelter he'd built with stacked stones and a slab of slate. His body ached. He had no food, no answers, and two parasitic systems threatening to tear each other apart inside him.
But he was alive.
He remembered the fire. The building. The people he couldn't save.
And now?
Some other world had given him another chance.
Not as a chosen hero. Not as a summoning. No prophecy. No divine mission.
Just a collapsed structure, a broken body, and an error message in his soul.
Kian leaned back against the cold stone wall, staring into the strange sky.
"This time…" he said aloud, voice hoarse.
"I'll build it right."