The crystal pulsed under Kael's palms, a cold rhythm resonating with the deep, unsettling thrum of the awakening Hollow King far below. Elara's psychic presence was a flickering candle flame against the growing void-storm. Fear radiated from her, sharp and childlike, but beneath it, a fragile trust.
*Hurt?* her thought brushed his mind, trembling.
"Maybe a little," Kael projected back, pouring reassurance he didn't fully feel into the link. "But I need to move you. To protect you. The big bad thing below… it's waking up. We need to go." He focused the Engine's power, not as a devouring maw, but as a surgeon's scalpel made of corrupted code and desperate will. **\[INITIATING PARTIAL CRYSTAL HARVEST: STABILIZATION NEXUS EXTRACTION.\]**
The Apotheosis Engine hummed, crimson light bleeding from Kael's chitin-plated fingers into the crystal lattice. He visualized the complex energy pathways the logs had hinted at – focusing on the nexus point responsible for containing the Seedling's rampant void-draw, the source of its detectable signature. This wasn't assimilation; it was delicate, dangerous surgery on an alien life-form fused with a child's soul.
The crystal resisted. A low groan vibrated through the chamber, shaking dust from the ceiling. The deep thrum of the Hollow King intensified, a sound felt in the bones more than heard. *Angry.*
**\[WARNING: SEEDLING RESISTANCE DETECTED. INSTINCTIVE DEFENSE MECHANISMS ENGAGING.\]**
**\[PSIONIC FEEDBACK LOOP DETECTED THROUGH ELARA ECHO. RISK OF PSYCHIC TRAUMA: HIGH.\]**
Elara whimpered in his mind. *Cold! Pulling! Don't let go!*
Kael gritted his teeth, pouring more focus, more *intent* into the Engine. *Not to take. To free. To protect.* He pushed the concept through the Synthesis link, sharing his desperation, his need to escape the deeper horror. He showed her fragmented images of sunlight (filtered through toxic clouds, but *light*), of open spaces, of *away* from the crushing dark and the ancient malice.
The Seedling's resistance faltered. Elara's fear didn't vanish, but it was joined by a spark of… longing? *Sun? Outside?* The concept, alien to her entombed existence, created a tiny fissure in the Seedling's instinctive defense.
The Engine seized the opening. With a sound like shattering diamond and tearing fabric, a section of the crystal structure – roughly the size of Kael's torso, glowing with internal purple light and containing the blurred impression of the shadow-child – separated from the main mass. The remaining crystal pulsed erratically, the deep thrum of the Seedling shifting to a confused, dissonant frequency. The ancient pulse from below surged, a wave of pure, predatory *awareness* washing over them. **\[HOLLOW KING STATUS: AWAKENING ACCELERATED.\]**
**[PARTIAL HARVEST COMPLETE.]**
**[STABILIZATION NEXUS SECURED WITHIN FRAGMENT.]**
**[ELARA ECHO INTEGRITY: STABLE (MINOR PSYCHIC SHOCK DETECTED).]**
**[WARNING: VOID-SEEDLING SIGNATURE REDUCED BY 60%. RESIDUAL SIGNATURE STILL DETECTABLE.]**
**[WARNING: HOLLOW KING SIGNATURE INTENSIFYING. ESTIMATED PURSUIT IMMINENT.]**
Kael scooped up the heavy crystal fragment. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, vibrating with contained power and Elara's fragile consciousness. He secured it against his chest using scavenged cabling, the Void-Chitin providing some insulation. *Hold on, Elara. We're moving.*
*Scared…* she sent, her voice faint. *But… outside…*
He didn't wait. He triggered **Shadow-Step**, phasing five meters down the tunnel towards the ruined Prometheus lab entrance. The world flickered grey, whispers of the void tugging at his mind. He reappeared, staggering slightly – the added mass of the crystal fragment strained the ability. **\[SHADOW-STEP COOLDOWN: 14 SECONDS.\]**
Behind him, the chamber containing the main Seedling structure *imploded*. Not with sound, but with a sudden, terrifying *absence* of pressure, followed by a roar of collapsing rock and a wave of pure, chilling void-energy that ripped through the tunnels. The Hollow King wasn't just pursuing; it was *consuming* the destabilized Seedling. **\[HOLLOW KING SIGNATURE: POWER SURGE DETECTED. THREAT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC (ESCALATING).\]**
Panic warred with the Engine's cold calculations. He ran, not just with Engine-enhanced speed, but with the primal terror of prey sensing the apex predator. His **Void-Sense**, extended to 120m, painted a horrifying picture behind him: a vast, amorphous shadow of pure entropy and ancient hunger, dissolving rock and metal as it surged upwards, drawn by the residual Seedling signature and the *new* anomaly – Kael and his stolen fragment.
The tunnels became a gauntlet. Collapsed sections forced detours. Strange, bioluminescent fungi recoiled from the Hollow King's approach, plunging areas into darkness. Kael navigated by Void-Sense and memory, Elara's fragment a heavy, pulsing weight against his chest. Her fear was a constant hum, but so was her dawning awareness of movement, of *escape*.
He used Shadow-Step sparingly, conserving energy, phasing past major blockages. Each use fed the whispers in his mind – fragmented visions of starless voids and crushing depths. The **Psionic Dampener** fragment helped, but it was a weak shield against the Hollow King's proximity. **\[WARNING: PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO HIGH-TIER VOID ENTITY CAUSING ENGINE INSTABILITY. CORRUPTION RISK: 12% AND RISING.\]**
He encountered remnants of the Void-Stalker pack he'd fought earlier – smaller, Level 4-5 scouts drawn by the chaos. They were fodder now. A desperate lunge, claws fueled by geothermal residue and Engine hunger, tore through shadow-stuff. Assimilation was swift, brutal, focused purely on biomass for repair and energy to fuel his flight. **\[ASSIMILATING: SHADOW-STEP EFFICIENCY FRAGMENT. VOID-SENSE RANGE +10m.\]** Each kill bought seconds, meters, but also fed the Engine's growing instability. The obsidian chitin on his arms seemed darker, thicker, the claws slightly longer, sharper.
*Kael… bad… behind…* Elara's warning was unnecessary. The pressure was immense. The tunnel walls shuddered. Dust rained continuously. The air grew colder, thinner, tasting of ozone and oblivion. He saw daylight ahead – the jagged hole he'd plunged into days (hours?) ago, now partially obscured by the rubble from the Enforcer's orbital cleanse. Freedom. And danger.
He burst out of the tunnel mouth, blinking against the harsh, ash-filtered daylight. The ruins of the city sprawled before him, changed. Fires still smoldered in the distance, but the immediate area was eerily quiet, scoured clean by the Enforcer's strike. The sky was a bruised purple, choked with strange, drifting spores released by mutated flora.
He didn't stop. He scrambled up the rubble pile, the Hollow King's presence a suffocating weight at his back. He felt its arrival in the tunnel mouth – not a physical form emerging, but the *darkness* deepening, the temperature plummeting, the very air screaming as it was devoured by the advancing edge of its form. **\[HOLLOW KING PROXIMITY: EXTREME. EVASION IMPERATIVE.\]**
He reached the top of the rubble pile. Below, the street was empty, scarred by energy blasts and littered with the glassy residue of the orbital cleanse. No Purifiers. No Enforcers. Just desolation.
Then, his **Void-Sense** pinged violently – not behind him, but *ahead* and *above*. Multiple signatures. Human. Armed. Organized. Watching.
From the skeletal upper floors of a half-collapsed office building, figures emerged onto unstable girders. Not Purifier sleekness. These wore patchwork armor – scavenged police vests, riot gear fused with chitin plates, pipes welded into crude weapons. Their faces were hard, scarred, eyes sharp with survivalist cunning. Above them, flitting between broken windows, were smaller figures with gliders made of tarp and bone – spotters. A name tag flickered briefly above one leader: **\[JORIS - LEAD SCAV Lvl. 8\]**. Faction tags appeared: **\[THE WRECKER CREW - TERRITORY: SECTOR 7 RUINS\]**.
Joris, a grizzled man with one cybernetic eye glowing red, leveled a heavy, mag-rail slugthrower scavenged from a pre-Integration security bot. His voice, amplified by a crude vox-caster, boomed across the silent street.
"Hold it, Glitch! That shiny rock you're huggin'? Belongs to the Crew. Drop it. Now. And maybe we let you crawl back into your hole before the big shadow eats you." His cyber-eye whirred, focusing on the crystal fragment and Kael's chitin-plated form. "Or maybe we take the rock *and* whatever fancy armor the void spat you out in."
Trapped. The Hollow King's chilling presence billowed from the tunnel mouth below, a wall of advancing entropy. Ahead, the Wrecker Crew blocked escape, weapons trained, eyes gleaming with avarice. Elara's fear spiked, a silent scream in his mind. The Engine pulsed, instability warnings flashing crimson. **\[CORRUPTION RISK: 15%\]** **\[MULTIPLE HOSTILE TARGETS.\]** **\[EVASION PROBABILITY: LOW.\]**
Kael bared his teeth, a grimace that stretched the chitin near his jawline. The whispers from the void grew louder, mingling with the Engine's demand for survival. He adjusted his grip on the warm crystal fragment holding Elara's echo. The grind had reached a new peak. He wasn't just fighting monsters or hunters anymore. He was fighting for a stolen ghost, against scavengers and an ancient horror, with the very power that sustained him threatening to unravel his mind.
He had seconds to choose: fight the Crew and risk the Hollow King, or face the Crew *with* the Hollow King as an unwitting, catastrophic ally.