The silence that descended was heavier than the collapsed roof. The acrid smell of ozone and burnt glass stung the back of the throat, a chemical ghost in the dead air. Where the Glass Weaver had been, a cloud of obsidian-black particles swirled, condensing not into dust, but into something else.
It wasn't a shimmering, ethereal wisp like the Echo of a Tier-1 beast. This was a core. A solid, fist-sized knot of midnight crystal, pulsing with a slow, malevolent orange light, like the banked embers of the furnace it had once been. It floated a foot above the cracked concrete, the air around it visibly warping. The raw, concentrated power radiating from it was a physical pressure, a promise of violence that made the hair on Kael's arms stand up. A Tier-2 Soul Echo.
Leo was whimpering, struggling against the crystalline threads pinning him to the wall. Maya, her face pale and her own Aethel Frame a faint, exhausted flicker, rushed to his side, her hands hesitating over the razor-sharp glass. But Zane wasn't looking at them. His eyes, wide and hungry, were fixed on the prize.
"I'll be damned," he breathed, his voice a low, reverent rumble. He took a step forward, the exhaustion from the fight forgotten, replaced by a raw, naked avarice. His Stonetusk Boar Echo, which had been a steady, earthy thrum, now flared with aggressive intent.
Kael's own senses, a hybrid of human anxiety and the Hound's predatory logic, screamed a single, blaring alarm: Danger. Not from the Echo. From Zane.
"Zane, don't," Kael said, his voice sharp.
Zane didn't even turn. "Stay out of this, Scuttler. I baited it. I took it down. The prize is mine."
"You didn't take it down," Kael shot back, stepping forward. He could feel Maya's attention shift to him, a silent plea for him not to do this. He couldn't stop. "We took it down. It was my plan."
That made Zane turn. The look on his face wasn't just anger; it was a profound, wounding insult. His authority, his very identity as the squad's hammer, had been questioned twice now, and the second time, it had been proven faulty. He saw Kael not as a teammate, but as a challenge to be crushed.
"Your plan?" he sneered. "Your plan was to hide in the back while the rest of us did the real work. I'm the one who faced it. I'm the strongest. That Echo belongs to the strongest."
"That's not how it works," Kael insisted, his technician's mind overriding his fear. He felt the weight of the data slate in his pouch, a cold secret that gave his words a certainty Zane couldn't understand. "Its data-stream is too dense. A Tier-2 Echo... it's not just more power, it's more complex. Our Frames aren't conditioned for it. It'll be like trying to run a forge through a handheld's power cell. It'll burn you out."
"Are you calling me weak?" Zane's voice dropped, the sneer replaced by a low, threatening growl. He took a step toward Kael, a walking wall of muscle and resentment. The air crackled with the pressure from his Frame.
"I'm calling you an idiot," Kael said, the words out before he could stop them. The Hound inside him felt the challenge and met it. "You're thinking like a hammer again. This isn't a wall to be smashed. It's a live wire. You grab it, and it will kill you."
"Maybe it'll kill a scavenger like you," Zane spat, jabbing a thick finger at Kael's chest. "Your Frame is built on a goddamn Scuttler. It's all about running away. Mine is a Boar. It's about strength. It can handle it."
"He's right, Zane." Maya's voice was small but firm. She had managed to crack one of the glass threads holding Leo, but her focus was on them. "It's too risky. We should report it, let Command handle it."
Zane laughed, a harsh, ugly sound that echoed in the tomb-like silence. "Let Command handle it? You mean let them take it, study it, and give it to some pampered User from a High-House? No. Power is for those who have the guts to take it."
He turned his back on them, his decision made. It wasn't about logic. It was about re-establishing the simple, brutal hierarchy he understood. He was the strong one. Kael was the weak one. This Echo would prove it, once and for all.
"Zane, no!" Kael's voice was desperate now. He saw the impending system failure with the clarity of a diagnostic scan. He saw the overload, the burnout, the catastrophic cascade.
But Zane wasn't listening. He reached out, his hand closing around the pulsing obsidian core.
The process wasn't an invasion. It was a detonation.
The moment Zane's fingers made contact, the Echo discharged its full, violent potential into his Aethel Frame. Kael, watching through the Hound's senses, saw it happen. He didn't see energy flow; he saw a dam break. A tidal wave of raw, complex data—the alien biology of the Weaver, its furnace-heart, its glass-spinning chemistry, its patient, venomous rage—slammed into the simple, direct framework of the Stonetusk Boar.
Zane's Aethel Frame, that dense, earthy hum, didn't just flicker. It shattered. Kael saw hairline cracks of chaotic orange light spiderweb across its stable structure. The Boar's simple, aggressive consciousness screamed as it was overwritten, consumed, and torn apart by a vastly more complex and hostile code.
Zane screamed, too.
It wasn't a roar of fury. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, high and thin and utterly broken. He fell to his knees, his body convulsing violently. The combat suit, designed to regulate Aethel Flow, sparked and smoked. Dark, obsidian lines, like veins of black glass, erupted across his skin, starting from his hand and racing up his arm. It was the Weaver's essence, not integrating, but colonizing. His body was trying to reject the incompatible Echo, and the Echo was trying to rewrite his body. The conflict was tearing him apart from the inside out.
He collapsed onto the floor, his back arching, his scream turning into a choked, wet gurgle. The smug confidence, the brute strength, the simmering rage—it was all gone, burned away by a power he had craved but fundamentally misunderstood.
Kael stood frozen, the ghost of his own warning hanging in the air. Maya stared in horror, her hands over her mouth. Even Leo, bleeding and in shock, was silent, his eyes wide with a terror that dwarfed his own pain.
The mighty Zane, the hammer of Squad Scion, lay twitching on the floor of the ancient tomb, a monument to his own arrogance. He had swung and found the one thing he couldn't break.
Himself.