Death and Rebirth chapters 1–2 are Sylus's branch of the fifth main story arc, released May 19, 2026. The arc centres on the Zoion Hunt arena tournament and Dimitri (Lord of Charon) — both documented in the archive's sylus-dar-arc entry — but the full release adds a critical lore beat previously unconfirmed: Sylus and MC have a prior-world connection that predates the 2034 Catastrophe and the N109 present-day timeline. In a prior existence they were forced to fight Wanderers together; when Onychinus or the system pitted them against each other, Sylus took her hand and they escaped together. MC does not consciously remember this; fragments of the memory surface in the late chapters of his arc. This connects to the allegorical 'gladiator cage vow' established in the Timelock Key event's Shadowed Past sequence, suggesting that vow was not purely allegorical. The Gaia Research Center ruins scene (sylus-dar-gaia-ruins) is the on-screen trigger for this memory resurfacing.