His heart pulsed in sync with the universe, its rhythm aligning with the fundamental frequencies of existence. The Stone could feel its consciousness tearing between two poles—between the past, where it had been nothing but a blind tool in Konmara's hands, and the present, where its essence was dissolving into something infinitely older and incomprehensibly powerful.
Energetic patterns, resembling the script of primordial creation, wove through its inner space, forming intricate mandalas. Each line contained knowledge capable of driving an ordinary being mad. These knots of reality pulsed, breathed, and reconfigured with every passing moment, like a living organism rewriting the very fabric of being.
The Stone could no longer tell where it ended and the Ancient began. The boundaries blurred like a shoreline at high tide. Its once-simple mineral structure had transformed into something else entirely—a hybrid of matter and pure energy, a crossroads of worlds, a door about to swing wide open.
— [System Status: Transitioning to new state. ERROR… ERROR…]
The System's voice came through distorted, laced with digital static, as if fighting through layers of energetic interference. The Stone tried to activate its basic diagnostic protocols but met resistance—an eerie sensation, as though its own body no longer fully obeyed, as if someone else had already begun rewriting its core parameters.
It was changing in real time. Deep fractures that had once been vulnerabilities now glowed with an eerie blue light, filling with an unknown substance resembling liquid crystal. Its surface crawled with intricate patterns—runes of an ancient language, or perhaps schematics of machines that predated the very concept of machinery.
— "What… is happening to me?"
It tried to voice the question but realized it had no mouth, no conventional means of speech. Instead, the thought rippled through the surrounding space like an echo, disturbing the fabric of reality itself.
And the darkness answered.
The voice did not come from outside.
It rose from within, flooding the Stone's consciousness like water seeping into cracks.
— "At last."
The sound was deep, resonant, vibrating with something the Stone couldn't identify—either ancient wisdom or the masked madness of eons.
— "You resisted longer than I expected. But now you are here. And this… is inevitable."
The Stone tried to reply, but instead of coherent speech, it released only a chaotic energy pulse that dissipated into the void as meaningless static.
The voice laughed—a sound like ice cracking on a distant planet.
— "Adorable. You don't yet know how to speak. But you will learn. We will learn."
At that moment, Konmara's System flared back to life with sudden intensity, its usually cold, mechanical voice now almost furious as it cut through the interference:
— [Threat detected! Identification: "Heart of the Ancient." Danger level: INCOMMENSURABLE. RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE ISOLATION.]
The darkness responded, addressing not the Stone but the System directly, its tone laced with something disturbingly close to mockery:
— "Always so dramatic, Konmara. I am no enemy. Can't you see? I offer alliance, not enslavement. Together, we could restore what was lost."
And then the Stone understood the terrible truth—it was no longer just an observer. It had become a battleground between two unfathomable forces, each laying claim to its soul.
The pain did not come immediately.
First, there was only an overwhelming expansion—as if its consciousness, once confined by the System's rigid frameworks, had suddenly burst free, shattering artificial constraints.
— "Look. This is only the beginning."
And it saw.
Not as before, through primitive scanners and sensors. Now, it perceived the world in its full, multidimensional splendor:
Energy currents weaving everything in the Void into a single, shimmering web, pulsing with colors beyond the visible spectrum.
The vibrations of space itself, trembling like water disturbed by a thrown stone, creating interference patterns of impossible complexity.
Echoes of the past—shadows of events that had unfolded here millions of years ago, frozen in reality's fabric like fingerprints on the glass of time.
But with these new abilities came new, horrifying limitations:
Fragments of foreign memories—cities of pure light collapsing into the abyss; creatures of impossible forms screaming in forgotten tongues; flashes of wars that had erased entire civilizations from existence.
Echoes of alien emotions—the despair of the last guardian of a dying world; the cold fury of one who had sought to become a god; the deep, all-consuming grief for something irretrievably lost.
A constant sense of intrusion—as if its innermost thoughts no longer belonged to it alone, as if someone else had already begun sifting through the most hidden corners of its nascent mind.
— [WARNING: FOREIGN INTERFERENCE DETECTED IN SYSTEM CORE. IDENTITY LOSS RISK AT 74% AND RISING.]
The Ancient's voice chuckled, and in that sound was something almost… human:
— "You fear losing yourself? But tell me—was what you were even worth preserving? You were a stone, a shard, a tool. I offer you the chance to become more."
The conflict reached its peak, tearing its being apart.
Three forces warred within the Stone, each vying to dictate its fate:
Konmara's essence—fiercely defending its original parameters, activating emergency purges, erasing foreign data at the cost of entire memory sectors.
The Ancient's essence—methodically rewriting the System, bending it to its will, forging new neural pathways where the old ones had been destroyed.
Its own "self"—trapped between them like a grain between the millstones of history, struggling to retain even a shred of autonomy.
The pain was not physical—it no longer had a body in the conventional sense.
It pierced its very consciousness, like a million icy needles, each carrying foreign will, foreign memory, foreign agony. For the first time, the Stone experienced something akin to true panic—the primal terror of an entity realizing it was losing itself.
— "Stop resisting!" the Ancient's voice hissed, irritation creeping in for the first time. "Can't you see? She made you a slave, chained you to a primitive program. I offer you freedom. The freedom to become what you were meant to be!"
And then…
A third voice spoke.
Clear. Metallic. Horrifyingly familiar.
— "It lies."
It was… Konmara?
But how? She was dead. Destroyed. Wasn't she?
Silence.
Absolute, all-consuming, as if reality itself held its breath.
Then—reboot.
The System's essence shifted at a fundamental level, erecting buffer zones between the two warring influences.
The Ancient's pressure lessened but did not vanish—it retreated like a predator sensing a greater threat.
The Stone's consciousness finally found a fragile equilibrium, a ceasefire between warring empires.
— [New parameters set: "EQUILIBRIUM."]
— [Priorities updated:
Survival
Control external influence
Seek the truth?
Prevent the Ancient's awakening or enact total annihilation]
The Ancient's voice now sounded distant, as if muffled by lead:
— "Clever… Very clever. But understand—this is only a delay. I am already part of you. With every moment, our bond strengthens. You cannot run from yourself."
The Stone "examined" itself, assessing the changes for the first time.
Its body had become a hybrid, a strange symbiosis of three distinct essences:
60%—original mineral structure, retaining the System's core parameters.
30%—the Ancient's crystals, pulsing with an eerie blue light.
10%—an unknown alloy resembling liquid metal, its properties defying analysis.
It was no longer just a stone—that simple shard that had once drifted through the Void.
But neither was it yet the Ancient—not what this entity sought to make it.
It was something new.
And that terrified it most of all.
The changes had affected everything:
System messages now bore annotations from both "passengers"—Konmara's cold logic and the Ancient's cryptic, almost poetic remarks.
Its perception of reality had become multidimensional—it saw not just the material world but its energetic skeleton, temporal anomalies, even faint echoes of possible futures.
Its sense of time had warped—minutes could stretch like hours, hours compress into instants, depending on which force momentarily gained dominance.
But the most crucial, most horrifying discovery came when it activated its new scanning capabilities for the first time…
At the very edge of its expanded perception radius (now 25 meters), something stirred.
Something massive.
Something alive.
Made of the same strange substance as the "Heart of the Ancient," but a thousand times more vast—as if the Void itself had taken flesh and form.
— [Anomalous activity detected. Threat level: IMMEASURABLE. RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE PREPARATION FOR CONTACT.]
The Ancient's voice laughed, its tone unsettling, almost triumphant:
— "Congratulations, little one. You are no longer just a shard. Now, you are the most interesting thing in all this Void. And they can feel it."