Chapter 245: Protocol
The system didn’t respond, it rarely did when something wasn’t supposed to exist.
He set the weapon on the table and grabbed a small set of tools from the drawer, basic mechanical equipment he’d used to repair his tablet once. They’d have to do.
He started slow.
Disassembling.
Examining.
The casing slid apart with mechanical precision, revealing its heart, a crystalline core housed inside a matrix of glowing lines that looked half runic, half circuit.
He leaned closer. "What the hell..."
The core was pulsing softly, like a rhythm.
And engraved at the very center, barely visible through the transparent film, were small letters etched in a language that shouldn’t exist in this world.
His breath caught.
It wasn’t Elvish.
It wasn’t Ancient Script.
It wasn’t anything this world had.
It was English.
Right there, tiny and perfect:
"Project Lazarus — Rev. 2.4 // Reclaimer Protocol Active."
Merlin’s fingers went still.
He stared at the inscription, his heart hammering once, twice, before the implications set in.
This wasn’t just alien technology.
It was Earth’s.
The system buzzed faintly at the back of his mind, but his thoughts drowned it out.
’Someone else... came here?’
’No. That doesn’t make sense. If someone came from Earth, they’d—’
He swallowed hard.
The truth was worse.
What if Invoke had found this?
What if it had fallen into their hands, and they were reverse-engineering it without knowing what it really was?
What if Kael knew exactly what it was?
He sat back, tension bleeding from his shoulders as he exhaled slowly. The room felt too small, too still.
He turned the core in his hands again, catching the way the faint English letters glimmered when light hit them just right.
"...Reclaimer Protocol," he murmured.
The phrase nagged at him. It sounded... deliberate. Like a system command.
"System," he whispered, "do you recognize that phrase?"
A pause. Then, faintly—
[Term: ’Reclaimer Protocol.’ Relevance — uncertain. Possible alignment with legacy system command structure. Access denied.]
"Legacy system...?"
[Access denied.]
He cursed softly under his breath.
There were rules, even for him. Rules the system wouldn’t break, and that made him more nervous than anything else.
—
He worked for another hour, sketching, scanning, comparing resonance.
At one point, he powered it on briefly.
The core pulsed brighter, a faint vibration running through the air as the weapon formed a translucent blade of pure, compressed energy for less than a second before flickering out.
He caught it mid-discharge, breathing sharp.
’No mana draw. No elemental channeling. Just raw, energy.’
It was power distilled, not affinity, not magic, not mana.
Something purer.
Something terrifying.
When he finally leaned back, the sky outside had turned pale, early dawn creeping over the rooftops.
He rubbed his temples.
He’d barely slept, but his mind was wide awake.
Victoria shifted slightly on the couch, mumbling something in her sleep, the blanket sliding down her shoulder.
Merlin got up quietly, walked over, and pulled it back up around her.
Then he turned to the case again.
’Kael,’ he thought. ’You either have no idea what you’re holding... or you know exactly what you’re doing.’
He closed the weapon back inside, sealed the biometric lock, and slid the case under his desk.
Not hidden, but not visible either.
The kind of place no one would check unless they were looking for it.
—
As the sun rose, he stood by the window, coffee in hand, the city slowly waking below.
He’d come into this world to survive a story, not to change it.
But it was changing anyway.
He could feel it, the rhythm of fate slightly off-beat.
Invoke was never supposed to have Lazarus.
Kael was never supposed to know about things like "Reclaimer Protocols."
And yet, somehow... here they were.
Merlin exhaled slowly, golden eyes reflecting the dawn.
Whatever this was, it was only the beginning.
And for the first time since entering this world, he wasn’t sure he was ahead of the story anymore.
—
The morning light crawled across the floor like a tired animal. Merlin hadn’t slept. He didn’t need to look in the mirror to know the faint shadows beneath his eyes were darker than usual.
He poured himself another cup of coffee, ignoring the ache in his hands from hours spent disassembling and analyzing the weapon.
The name Project Lazarus still burned in his mind like a brand.
Reclaimer Protocol.
The phrase rolled through his thoughts over and over again until the meaning blurred, until it stopped sounding like words at all.
He checked his phone. 6:48 a.m.
The meeting with Invoke had ended just last night, and yet... his notifications were already filling with new messages.
Mostly automated. Some from departments that probably didn’t even realize who he was.
But one stood out, flagged priority.
Adrian Kael.
Subject: Private Dinner — Tonight, 19:30.
Location: Ecliptica Tower, Level 97 — Executive Lounge.
It wasn’t phrased as an invitation.
He sighed quietly, shutting off the phone and looking toward the window. The skyline shimmered faintly under the dawn haze, the sun bleeding slow gold over the glass towers.
He knows something.
Merlin could feel it in his gut. Kael wasn’t the type to waste time. Every word, every silence, every look carried intent.
And the fact that he wanted a private meeting now—
right after Merlin touched the prototype—
wasn’t coincidence.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Guess I don’t get to sleep after all," he muttered.
—
The day passed in a kind of blur.
Victoria left early for errands, oblivious to the undercurrent of tension running beneath her brother’s calm exterior. Merlin used the quiet to think, or at least, try to.
Every piece of information he had, every discrepancy between the novel’s events and what he’d actually seen since arriving, flickered through his mind like puzzle pieces that didn’t fit anymore.
By the time the sun had begun to set, the city lights were already alive, and Merlin was standing in front of a mirror, adjusting his tie.
The reflection staring back at him looked too composed for the chaos underneath.
His eyes, golden, sharp, caught the faint glint of city neon through the window.
He grabbed his coat, slid his phone into his pocket, and left.