The surface of the Moonwell suddenly began to boil, the silver-blue liquid churning as if stirred by an invisible hand. Droplets splashed into the air, freezing mid-flight into tiny ice crystals. Raine staggered back two steps, the crystal growths on his right arm emitting a sickening crack-crack sound. Newly formed sharp crystals burst through the skin of his shoulder, and blood trickled down the edges—only to vaporize into crimson mist the instant it touched the ground.
"The real version?" Ravenna's voice distorted from her mechanical heart overloading. She yanked open the leather strap at her collar, allowing her chest's cooling system to run at full capacity. "What the fuck are you even playing at?"
Yunice's mechanical fingers suddenly morphed, extending three hair-thin silver wires from her fingertips. They pierced precisely into the gaps between the crystals on Raine's right arm. The moment the wires pulled taut, Raine let out a muffled cry of pain, his knees slamming hard against the stone floor. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from where he fell.
"This isn't a game," Yunice's voice module shifted into a cold, mechanical tone. "It's a projection of whether he'll continue to exist in the future."
Her left eye's mechanical iris split into six concentric circles, projecting a series of flickering numbers—87%, 63%, 41%... finally locking at a blood-red 9.7%.
Ravenna's pupils contracted sharply. She recognized that prediction module too well—it belonged only to high-ranking members of the Abyssal Council: a Fate Simulation Unit.
"Who the hell are you really?" she rasped, her right hand slowly inching toward the rune dagger at her waist.
Yunice didn't answer.
Beneath Yunice's wheelchair, a complex alchemical array suddenly unfolded. Twelve magical crystals rose silently from hidden compartments, forming a perfect dodecahedral barrier around the three of them. Within each crystal flowed a faint golden liquid, pulsating with subtle magical resonance.
"Look carefully."
Yunice's mechanical spine extended with a soft whir, revealing an intricate network of gears—and at its center, encased in a transparent conduit, a tender green sprout: a Mother Tree Mark, found only in the royal bloodline of the Elves.
Raine's breath caught. The spread of the crystals on his arm slowed noticeably, as if subdued by the aura emitted from that fragile, living branch.
"Twenty years ago, the Elven village Silverdew didn't happen to lie at the intersection of multiple dimensions by accident," Yunice said, her mechanical fingers gently touching the branch. The air inside the barrier filled instantly with the fresh scent of a deep forest.
"Your parents—Aeryn, a High Knight of the Holy Covenant, and Yana, an Elven sorceress—deliberately stationed themselves there as guardians of the seal."
The projection on the crystal surface shifted again. This time, it no longer showed destruction but a radiant scene: a couple standing within a glowing sigil circle. The elven woman cradled a baby in her arms, her robes embroidered with starlit rose patterns.
"The dimensional fracture wasn't a natural occurrence," Yunice's voice trembled slightly—almost human. "It was the work of the Abyssal Council's Seventh Seat—The Dreamweaver. He sought to devour the foundational energies of three worlds."
In the image, the knight suddenly looked up, as though gazing across time directly at Raine. His lips moved, and the words he spoke froze Raine's blood:
"Your fate is already written."
Ravenna's mechanical heart shrieked a high-pitched alarm. She lunged forward and grabbed Raine's left arm.
"Don't listen to this bullshit!"
But Raine stood frozen, transfixed. Reflected in his eyes was the image of the glowing sphere hovering in his father's hand—composed of three swirling lights: green, violet, and gold—the very same forces currently warring inside his own body.
"Your parents sealed the Dreamweaver's power inside you with their lives," Yunice said as her wheelchair slid forward. She reached out and tapped the holographic projection of the infant's chest.
"The Holy Covenant's seal, Elven magic, and the Abyssal curse—these three forces were meant to remain in balance within you."
The magical crystals within the barrier suddenly pulsed violently. Yunice whipped her head toward Raine's right arm—
the crystal growths there were rapidly losing their green hue, transforming entirely into a deep, corrupted violet.
"Damn it…"
Her mechanical eye spun frantically.
"The Abyssal curse is consuming your power!"
Raine let out a howl—inhuman, raw, and agonized.
The crystal growths exploded outward, surging to engulf half of his body in an instant.
Ravenna was flung backward by an invisible force, slamming into the inner wall of the barrier. Her mechanical heart casing cracked open with a sickening snap, and glowing blue energy fluid seeped out like blood.
Yunice reacted with terrifying speed. Her wheelchair instantly disassembled and reconfigured into a miniature alchemical station.
Seven mechanical arms unfolded from her back, simultaneously operating dozens of instruments.
A crystal vial filled with silver-blue liquid was inserted with surgical precision into a gap in the crystals at Raine's neck.
The moment the fluid was injected, a blinding white light exploded within the barrier.
Raine's body lifted into the air, frozen mid-scream, the crystal growth and his voice suspended in a single, paralyzed instant.
"The Moonwell essence mixed with his original blood," Yunice's voice was nearly lost in the roaring surge of energy.
"It'll only hold for thirty minutes!"
Ravenna struggled upright, spitting out a mouthful of blood laced with electrical arcs.
"You had this ready all along?"
A rare flicker of exhaustion passed across Yunice's mechanical face.
"Ever since I discovered the uniqueness of his blood."
She nodded toward the Moonwell beyond the barrier.
"That well was reshaped with the magic of his mother and her kin."
Raine's body slowly descended, the crystals receding back to his elbow.
His breath came in ragged gasps. His left eye now glowed the same verdant green as the crystals—
but his right eye shimmered with a twisted, ominous violet.
"So my… birth,"
he whispered, voice distant, as if echoing from some far-off place,"was set on this path from the very beginning?"
Yunice severed her connection with the magical crystals, and the light within the barrier dimmed instantly.
She took out a memory crystal, hesitated briefly, then pressed it into the palm of Raine's uninjured left hand.
"This was left by your parents. It was supposed to remain with you, dormant, until the seal broke naturally…"
Her mechanical finger tapped the surface of the crystal lightly.
"But someone interfered. You were taken before that could happen."
The moment the crystal activated, a gentle woman's voice echoed within the barrier:
"My dear Raine, if you're hearing this message, the seal must be breaking. Don't be afraid—the power inside you was always a part of you…"
Suddenly, the message was interrupted by a sharp burst of interference.
The image flickered—and what Raine saw next froze his blood.
A younger Yunice stood beside his parents.
She still had a fully human body, and on her left shoulder gleamed the sun-shaped insignia of a Sanctum Priest of the Holy Covenant.
The memory crystal shattered without warning, one of the shards slashing Raine's cheek.
Ravenna reacted instantly, pulling him away, only to see that Yunice had already retracted all her mechanical arms and returned her chair to its usual form.
"You were a Sanctum Priest?" Ravenna snapped, eyes narrowed, her fingers tightening around the rune dagger at her waist.
Yunice's mechanical eye dimmed for a moment.
"I was. Now I'm just a half-living machine clinging to function."
She turned to Raine. "What matters now is this—you must choose."
Outside the barrier, the surface of the Moonwell suddenly roiled violently, as though some ancient presence was awakening below.
Runes etched into the well's base began lighting up, one after another, forming a vast interlocking tri-ring sigil.
Its light pulsed rhythmically—like a heartbeat.
Yunice rose abruptly, the joints in her mechanical limbs clicking faintly.
She gazed into the well, her expression cold and solemn under the flickering glow.
"The first option," Yunice slowly raised one mechanical finger, her tone calm as ever, "is that I freeze your mutation with alchemy. It will hold… for three months."
She paused briefly, then continued:"The second: travel to the Sanctum, seek a way to reinforce the seal. The path is long, but it's likely the safest."
Raine kept his head lowered, the crystal clusters across his body trembling faintly.
When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, like gravel scraping metal:
"And the third?"
For once, Yunice was silent.
In the cold gleam of her mechanical face, a flicker of hesitation passed—barely perceptible.
"...To accept the fate written for you," she finally said, her voice lowering. "To attempt the fusion of the three forces within you."
Her artificial eyes glowed faintly red.
"But... your chances of survival are close to zero."
The air grew heavy.
Suddenly, Ravenna rushed to the edge of the Moonwell, pointing at the runes glowing at the bottom.
"What is that? Why does it match the symbol on your parents' robes?" she shouted.
Yunice stood motionless, as if she hadn't heard.
But deep within her mechanical spine, an ancient elven rune—long sealed—suddenly pulsed with dim green light.
It was the exact same rune now burning at the bottom of the well, as though answering a call.
Raine forced himself upright.
The clusters on his body clicked softly as they shifted. He stepped toward the well, his expression growing solemn.
He stared at the glowing rune beneath the surface, brow furrowed.
A strange, unexplainable familiarity surged through him.
"I... I've seen this before..." he murmured, raising his right hand slowly—the one already crystallized, a fusion of metal and arcane glyphs.
The instant his fingertip touched the water, the entire well turned clear as air.
And from its depths, an ancient metallic box slowly began to rise into view.
The box was tightly bound in pitch-black chains, its surface etched with golden runes nearly identical to those embedded within Raine's own body. At that moment, they pulsed in unison—breathing, responding, as if summoned by an ancient call.
"Impossible…" Yunice suddenly wavered, her wheelchair jolting with a violent mechanical screech. Her body pitched forward uncontrollably, and only her mechanical arm kept her from collapsing entirely.
"That artifact… it was supposed to be sealed… forever…" Her audio system glitched violently, her words breaking apart into static—as though some unknown force was interfering with her, resonating.
Ravenna whipped around, eyes narrowing as she caught sight of the glowing elven rune embedded in Yunice's mechanical spine.
It was growing brighter by the second.
A chill shot through her—
An impossible suspicion was taking shape in her mind:
Yunice… was connected to that box. Deeply. Inextricably.
And then—
Raine's entire body lit up.
The crystalline growths erupting from his skin flared into a blinding gold, transforming him into a living conduit of some overwhelming, alien power.
He slowly lifted his head, golden light swirling in his gaze, and from deep within him, a voice emerged.
It was not his voice.
It was low, ancient, laced with authority that crushed resistance with its mere tone.
A language none of them understood—perhaps a curse, perhaps a pact—but the moment it was spoken, every soul present felt it.
A shiver beneath the skin.
A coldness rooted in the deepest parts of their being.
The air itself thickened under the weight of the unknown.
And then—
one by one, the runes on the surface of the metallic box began to glow, spreading outward in perfect rings, as if responding to that spine-chilling incantation that had just echoed from Raine's mouth.
The black chains binding the box started to shatter on their own, each link dissolving into golden dust the moment it hit the ground.
Behind Yunice, her mechanical spine shrieked with high-pitched alarms. A blurred silhouette behind her shimmered violently—then solidified into a form none of them recognized:
A silver-haired woman clad in the ceremonial robes of an elven high priestess.
"Lady Venessa?" Raine's voice came out layered, as if two voices were speaking at once—his own, and a second one… ancient, resonant, and unfamiliar.
Ravenna's mechanical eye zoomed and refocused wildly, pulling data from her internal archives. The match returned in mere seconds—
"A legendary grand archmage of the elven race… from the previous era?" Her voice cracked. "That's impossible—she should have died five thousand years ago!"
"Clever child," Venessa's voice rang out, now distant and echoing, her tone too ethereal for even a synthetic voice box to fully replicate.
"But I never truly died. I transferred my consciousness into this mechanical body… just as others did."
Suddenly, the Moonwell's surface fell still, transforming into a mirror-like sheet. But its reflection was not of the present—it showed a burning elven city, engulfed in crimson flames.
Raine's crystalline growths extended involuntarily toward the water, as if drawn to the vision, desperate to touch it.
"During the War of the Eras, we had no choice but to divide and seal… 'It'," Venessa said, gesturing toward the box now pulsing at the bottom of the well.
"Your father's bloodline was entrusted with the key. And I… became the last gatekeeper."
Ravenna's eyes widened, her voice tight with dread:
"Wait. If your parents were the keykeepers… then you—"
Before she could finish, a wave of bone-deep cold swept across the chamber.
The box's lid slowly creaked open—
Inside lay a mass of dark golden matter, shifting restlessly between liquid and gas, as if it refused to settle on a single form. At its core pulsed a rune—the same rune found in Raine's crystalline infection.
Identical. Alive.
And waiting.
"The third choice was never a gamble," Venessa's voice deepened, heavy with sorrow. "It is fate."
She paused, the synthetic timbre of her voice barely concealing a trace of hidden pain. "You carry the blood of the gatekeeper, Raine. From the moment you were born, this path was set. It is your—only path."
As her words fell, the crystalline clusters on Raine's body suddenly began to pulse—steady, undeniable rhythms echoing through his entire being.
At the same time, the dark golden mass resonated in response, its glow synchronizing with the energy surging within him.
An ancient, indescribable consciousness slowly seeped into his mind—not a violent intrusion, but a gentle summons, like a reunion long overdue.
Fragments of memories flickered before his eyes, racing past like a carousel:
—The dragon lore book his father never allowed him to touch in the next room;
—His mother's strange lullabies, softly sung whenever he ran a high fever;
—And the vision he had since childhood whenever the full moon rose: three nested rings of light spinning slowly in the void, and at their center, a blurred yet tender hand reaching out toward him.
"Is it you?" Raine's pupils trembled violently as he whispered. The light in the crystalline clusters all over his body suddenly flickered chaotically. "That night's experiment… you were there too. You weren't really researching a cure for the Crystal Cluster Disease—"
"No," Venessa interrupted him, a rare expression of pain crossing her mechanical face. "We were performing a ritual. To place a part of 'It'—the true core of the seal—inside your body. It was the only way to avoid detection by the Abyss Council."
Raine's breath quickened, his fingers trembling slightly in the air. He felt as if a part of himself was awakening, or rather… being replaced.
At the same time, Ravenna's mechanical heart rate surged sharply, the red alarms flashing uncontrollably. Cooling fluid seeped from her joints, pooling on the ground in shimmering silver-blue patches.
"So from the very beginning, Raine was—"
"A living seal container," Venessa said heavily, her voice like a death knell. "A perfect prison forged by bloodline and fate."
She paused, her tone suddenly deepening: "But now something has gone wrong. Someone—or rather, the Abyss Council—has implanted a second force inside him… a power that does not belong to 'It.'"
Her words were cut off by a tremor that shook the entire laboratory. Countless blood-red eyes appeared on the walls, and a chilling squirming sound echoed from the ventilation ducts.
"It's too late," Venessa's mechanical spine fully extended, revealing a miniature triple-ring device at its core. "They've arrived."
Raine, however, remained surprisingly calm. He stepped toward the now fully opened box, the crystalline clusters on his body trembling joyfully like hunting dogs welcoming their master home. As his fingers were about to touch the shifting mass, Venessa suddenly shouted:
"Remember! You are the host! Make it obey your will, not—"
Her words abruptly cut off. At the moment of contact, Raine's body arched sharply as a dazzling golden beam of light shot through the roof, piercing the clouds. Within the beam, three interlocking rings spun slowly, and a gradually forming shape emerged...
"A dragon's shadow?" Ravenna's sensors nearly overloaded as she caught sight of the colossal golden dragon silhouette made entirely of pure energy within the beam.
Her words suddenly cut off. The moment Raine made contact, his body arched violently as a dazzling golden beam shot through the roof, piercing the clouds. Within the beam, three interlocking rings spun, and a shape gradually took form...
"A dragon's shadow?" Ravenna's sensors nearly overloaded as she saw a massive golden dragon silhouette made entirely of pure energy within the beam.
The entire Holy City could see the light pillar. In the slums, an old beggar in a tattered cloak suddenly dropped his bottle, revealing eyes shining with a brilliant light; at the Abyss Council headquarters, all monitoring instruments simultaneously maxed out; and in the Holy Alliance Cathedral, the pope's staff suddenly cracked open by itself, revealing a golden crystal inside that shared the same origin as Raine's crystalline clusters.
The light pillar lasted a full thirteen seconds. When the glow faded, Raine was suspended above the well's opening, his body covered in flowing golden patterns. His eyes had turned into pure crystal, with no pupils visible—only an endless torrent of knowledge flickering within.
The most shocking sight was his back—two wings made of pure energy slowly unfurled, each flap leaving tiny golden sparks in the air.
"I understand now…" Raine's voice sounded like a chorus of thousands, "So this is the 'other power.'"
Venessa's mechanical body suddenly dropped to its knees, performing an ancient salute: "Welcome back, Lord Morain."
But Ravenna noticed one detail—Raine's right pinky finger still retained its human form, not fully crystallized. This discovery made her rush toward the slowly descending Raine.
"Raine! Look at me!" She grabbed his human finger. "Do you remember what you said when we first met?"
His golden eyes slightly shifted, gazing at the brave girl. After a long silence, Raine's lips curled into a familiar smile:
"You said, 'If you dare look into my eyes again, I'll gouge them out.'"
Ravenna's eyes welled up instantly, her mechanical heart beating irregularly.
Venessa stared at the scene in shock: "This is impossible… after fusion, it should have..."