[Boat — Open ocean — Day 40 — 11:20 PM]
The first lightning bolt did not come from the sky.
It came from the water.
Kira saw it from the crow's nest — a line of blue-white energy rising from the ocean floor toward the surface, with no cloud above, no storm visible yet. Just the water opening and something ancient emerging from it.
"Team." Kira's voice without urgency but with the weight of something requiring immediate attention. "Something is rising from the bottom."
Before anyone could respond, the second bolt struck twenty meters from the boat.
It wasn't electricity.
The impact's energy felt different — not the dry heat of a weather lightning bolt but something denser, more charged, as if the air within the impact radius temporarily became more real than it should be.
[F1 — passive response — Fragment energy detected]
[F1 Corruption: 97% → 97.4%]
Without Alex doing anything.
Just the bolt arriving and the Fragment responding.
