A dull red glow touched him without scorching skin. Not like Syndicate weapons, which melt flesh. Unlike the crushing pull old myths speak of. This light came slow from the pyramid shape, thin and quiet. Through cloth it moved, past bone, unconcerned by layers. Then - tightness - not felt in muscle but known deep - a thread tied tight around what keeps pumping.
Floating without sound, he hung inside a thick nothingness, cut off from the storm's roar and the cracked earth below. Not just killing him, the machine pulled apart every piece of his body and time, storing it all in a library too huge to understand.
Down went the beam, cold and sharp, trying to sort through damage done below the waist. Caught at once on the rebuilt right foot - forced together, not grown. Years lost slammed into view: fifteen gone, taken by Axiom to glue broken foot bones whole. That stolen stretch left the insides bare, bone scraping bone like shards underfoot after a window breaks. Harvesters' code reached in, meant to mute pain signals, yet the gap where time should be tore clean through neat programming - a flaw it couldn't file or fix.
Upward surged the crimson beam, skipping the lost years, swallowing his shredded left bicep whole. As it probed deeper, attempting to undo the rough electric sutures holding frayed muscles together, resistance flared instantly. From within came a violent backlash - the Parasitic Tether clamping down like live blades dragged across exposed tissue. Each tug mimicked burning metal teeth gnawing slowly through nerve and sinew. Then, wild current from Axiom leaked into the sterile glow, sparking jagged pulses of black interference. That chaos rode the beam backward, fouling the Harvester's precise flow with corrupted flickers.
Through the emptiness came a deep hum, metal shuddering like it was stuck. Something in the machine had slowed down.
[Warning: Biological host corrupted by unauthorized parasitic integration. Attempting localized purge.]
The moment the Harvester started cutting, the shadow-lynx still linked to Vance. Its beam touched the back of his head before the link broke. Connection held until the last fraction of a second.
A sharp chill bit deep where the creature's sign burned on his skin. From nowhere, an icy weight punched into the base of his skull, holding him still. Not pulled - held - by something older than breath or bone. Its grip refused surrender. Where red glow spread, shadow seeped in reply, tinted faint purple. No give. Just resistance, slow and silent.
A low buzz filled the air, the machine speaking without tone or shock, yet its tremor felt tighter this time, stretched thin.
[Warning: Host secured by hostile dimensional tether. Synthesis encountering severe resistance. Overriding.]
A sudden flare of red light pushed harder, trying to smash both the frozen mark and the buzzing invader at once. Inside the hollow space, the weight grew so thick it pressed against Vance's chest like a stone slab. Each breath vanished under the force.
Only after moving deeper did the scanner touch the middle of his chest.
A faint crimson glow brushed against the still, gilded mechanism locked inside his chest. Though once quiet when near its matching half, the shard of the Aethelgard Watcher suddenly sensed its true form vanishing into a break in time. Left alone, struck hard by the Harvester's pulse, the ancient device roared awake.
Out of nowhere, the golden gear started spinning - fast, wild, almost too bright to see. Not heat, not power, but something else poured out: thick resistance against time itself.
A sudden flood of golden words slammed into Vance's vision, his inner Astral Engine spitting out static like a broken signal. The pyramid's controls vanished behind it - shut down mid-command.
[CRITICAL ERROR: Time cannot be archived.]
Inside Vance, three broken powers crashed into the Harvester's cold, straight thinking. Backward spun a bright wheel of gears, tugging time like thread. Frozen at one spot, his position held down by ice-heavy force. Through the living wire, the creature shoved wild bursts of jagged noise.
A strange error appeared when The Harvester tried splitting something into zero parts.
Silence shattered when the controls froze solid. Out of nowhere, a metallic scream ripped through nothingness as the red beam spiraled into chaos. Glass-like fractures burst across the glow - sudden, sharp, irreversible.
[Fatal Exception: Subject architecture mutually destructive. Purging anomalous material.]
A crack tore through nothingness. Wild energy ripped the silence apart.
A sudden jolt snapped Vance back into place, like gravity had been waiting. He crashed down on something cold, slick metal under him. Air fled his chest at once, punched out by the fall. Up the rebuilt leg shot another sharp, cracking throb - bright and unrelenting.
Flinching sideways, he hacked up a storm while hauling sour, processed breaths into his raw lungs.
Axiom slammed down just steps away, the huge shadow-lynx puffing a low growl while black flickers dripped from its thick claws. Off to the side, Elian dropped hard - shoulder first - the teen prisoner crumpling there, shaking in a tight coil.
Vance blinked hard, fighting the sting in his eyes. What he thought would appear was the red-leafed valley stretching below. Instead of that, maybe the broken remains of Julian Thorne's fleet should have been scattered across the ground. Or perhaps those massive black mountains - jagged things rising from the Fracture - would loom into view.
Nothing lay on the ground. Above, an absence stretched where clouds should be.
Flat beneath them stretched a wide surface made of sharp-edged, dark metal that swallowed light. Up above, huge slabs of stone cut upward like frozen lightning, vanishing into gloom thick with machine-like haze. Nothing here looked worn by time - no grime, no peeling edges, nothing out of place. Faint crimson glow oozed through rigid cracks in the ground panels, drawing eerie lines down the endless open passage. Silence hung heavy between each breath.
Falling short of returning them to the valley, the Harvester held on. Without triggering collapse, the beam slipped them instead into the pyramid's sealed chamber deep within.
Overhead, shapes twisted like nothing he knew. "Where are we?" Elian said, voice low, lifting himself on stiff arms. His eyes locked onto the massive, strange forms above - sharp, wrong angles cutting into the dark. Soot streaked his cheeks. Fear sat deep in his stare.
Fumbling up onto one knee, Vance tightened his hold on the blade made of carbon steel. "Inside the machine," he said through gritted teeth.
From deep within the shadowed space among the towering columns came the slow beat of measured steps. Ears tight to its head, Axiom sank down, shutting off every spark it gave out when that known shape moved beneath the dim crimson glow.
There stood Elena Rostova.
A tattered hospital gown hung loose on the girl with pale hair - same one she'd fled the Vanguard facility in. Yet those six dark wings, stitched from shadow, were nowhere now, cut off flush at her shoulders. Even so, what stood out most was the absence of that sharp purple glow once spilling from her eyes.
A strange red shine filled her gaze, matching the cold pulse of the Harvester's scanner. That light - sharp, lifeless - now lived in her stare.
From a distance of ten feet, Elena came to a halt. Her head shifted sideways, smooth now - none of that stuttering time-jump nonsense from before. Everything about her glide felt too precise, like gears turning without effort.
That organic build process crashed, Elena said flatly, words empty of their old ghostly tune. Out came a sharp crimson tool made of solidified beam, pulled slow from behind her shoulder. The structure's deep hum carri
ed each syllable forward now instead. "Commencing manual disassembly."