Location: Ruins of the Monastery – Sublevel 7, Quarantine Vault
Yanis gripped her shoulder.
It was burning again—low, deep, beneath the skin. Every time she breathed, something flickered through her chest like an echo. Her right eye now shimmered faintly, red veins lacing across the iris.
Kael paced nearby, scanning relics, unaware.
> "This place is dead," he muttered. "The fragments moved on long ago."
Yanis didn't answer.
She was too focused on the sound.
The heartbeat.
Not hers.
Not Kael's.
A third.
It pulsed from within her like a second rhythm — ancient, curious, watching.
---
Later – Inner Chamber, Seed Light Testing Console
Kael finally turned to her.
> "You're quiet."
She opened her mouth to respond.
And screamed.
Her body arched back, red light pulsing from her fingertips. The Seed console around her flared to life — responding to her. Not Kael.
> [Warning: Secondary Host Reaction Detected]
[Seed Signature Syncing: ENTITY UNKNOWN]
[Labeling…]
[Codename Assigned: "Heretic Seed: Echo Twin"]
Kael rushed forward.
> "Yanis! Let it go—!"
But she was no longer screaming.
She was… speaking.
> "I remember the place of forgetting," she whispered. "The seed of the seed. I remember the before."
Kael froze.
Those weren't her words.
Those were the girl's.
Yanis slumped, breathing hard.
> "What the hell was that?" she panted.
Kael stepped back slowly.
> "You just triggered a core. And it… obeyed you."
> "Why?"
He didn't answer.
Because the Seed inside her wasn't just reacting.
It was responding. Actively.
Worse still—
> [Seed Instability Rising – 12% Contamination Shared]
[Prediction: If Sync Reaches 25%, Host "Yanis Drae" May Manifest A New Fragment Class – Unclassified]
Kael muttered under his breath:
> "You're becoming something new."
> "And that scares you?" Yanis asked.
> "It should scare both of us."
---
Meanwhile – Orbiting Choir Station
The Choir's sentinels observed from space.
One turned away from the console and bowed to the others.
> "She's waking up."
> "Who?" the eldest voice asked.
> "Not the Seed King."
> "Then what?"
> "His Echo."
They all turned.
A new order was given.
> "Send the Pale Knife. Kill the girl before she becomes something we cannot name."
---