The Vertical Artery ended in a chamber that shouldn't exist. It was a cathedral of white marble and gold, suspended in the center of the Earth's molten core by massive gravity-anchors. Mira gasped, her phase-module sparking as it struggled against the sheer density of the mana here.
"This is it," she whispered. "The forbidden zone. The legends say Lia the First never died... she just became the Heart of the World."
In the center of the hall, encased in a monolith of Transparent Obsidian, lay a woman. Her silver hair had grown so long it coiled around the base of the monolith like metallic serpents. Her skin was no longer flesh; it was a translucent porcelain, revealing veins that pulsed with a terrifying, rhythmic gold light.
She was at the brink of Rank 4: Dimension Walker. But she was stuck. Her soul was caught in a loop of "Regret Logic," unable to let go of the physical world to ascend.
"She's beautiful... and terrifying," Mira said, reaching out a hand.
"She is a ticking time bomb," Yuan corrected, his voice echoing with a cold, metallic resonance. He stepped toward the monolith, his World Breaker bones humming as they absorbed the ambient pressure.
Suddenly, a holographic projection flickered to life above the monolith. It was a man with white hair and eyes that held the wisdom of a century—Ethan Vance, or rather, the digital echo of his ego stored in Aegis-0.
"I knew you would come, Ghost," the hologram spoke, its voice a synthesized choir. "I calculated your rebirth probability at 0.0003%. Yet, here you are... in a body of a child, smelling of stolen alloy."
Yuan looked at the digital face of his killer. He didn't feel rage; he felt a clinical, predatory focus. "You've built a tomb for yourself in the machine, Ethan. And a prison for your partner in the stone. Is this the 'Freedom' you promised Earth?"
"I gave them Order!" Ethan's hologram roared, the lights in the chamber flickering red. "If I let you touch her, you will destabilize the entire mana-grid. I will burn this sector—and Mira with it—before I let you awaken the Weaver."
Yuan's small fist clenched, a shockwave of Rank 1 force cracking the marble floor beneath him. "You won't burn anything, Ethan. Because while you were busy playing God in the clouds, you forgot one thing about the Null-Logic..."
Yuan placed his hand on the obsidian monolith. "I don't need to awaken her to use her. I just need to re-program her regret."