The countdown had begun.
30 days until the Spirit System rebuilt itself.
Not by consent—
But by force.
Jin didn't wait.
With Noctis and Arin at his side, he descended into the forgotten corners of Kaizen, beneath the oldest temple, past the classrooms, the catacombs, the crypts of failed spirit cores.
Until they found it.
A stone door.
No locks.
No wards.
Just seven symbols.
His old seals.
"This is where you built it," Noctis said, brushing his fingers along the glyphs. "The first altar. The real one."
Jin nodded slowly.
"Before I was sealed, before the system went public… this is where I made the first contract. Not with a spirit. Not with the world."
He pressed his palm to the center glyph.
"But with her."
The door opened with a deep hiss of breath.
Inside: silence. Cold. The smell of dust and lightning.
And a prison.
Hovering in the center of the room—bound in a halo of reversed light—was a woman. Ageless. Barefoot. Wearing a dress of living wind.
Eyes closed.
Breathing slowly.
The First Spirit.
The one Jin bound before the world even had a name for "rank."
Arin's voice trembled. "Is that…?"
Jin nodded. "She's the reason the Spirit System exists."
Noctis stared in awe. "She is the system."
Jin stepped forward.
"She was never meant to be caged. I just… didn't know how else to contain her power."
He paused. "I called her Eira."
Eira's eyes opened.
And the room froze.
Not temperature—time. Space. Logic.
Only Jin could move.
"Hello again," she said softly.
Jin swallowed. "I came to undo what I did."
Eira tilted her head. "You've changed."
"So have you," he said.
She nodded. "The world forgot me. That helped."
Jin knelt. "I don't want to control you. I want to ask."
Eira smiled faintly.
"That's new."
He looked up at her, heart steady. "Will you help me stop the reboot?"
She closed her eyes for a long moment.
Then reached forward—her bonds unraveling without resistance.
"If we're doing this," she said, voice now echoing like thunder, "we do it together."
The chains shattered.
The altar cracked.
And the world—
shuddered.
Because the First Spirit had just taken a side.
Back in the Spirit Archives, the Architect flinched.
Monitors around him began to distort. Glyphs unraveled.
"Unauthorized Override Detected."
He turned slowly, eyes flashing pure white.
"So… the Queen has awakened."