The silence before dawn was torn apart by a shrill metallic screech. Raine's eyes snapped open, the mark on his chest blazing with searing crimson light, flooding the tent's interior as though he were drowning in a pool of blood. He seized Frostwhisper and rushed outside—only for his breath to falter at the sight before him.
The skies above the Elven Forest had become a colossal, gear-shaped vortex. Six blood-red beams of light shot down from different directions, converging above the Mother Tree's crown to form an inverted, mechanical bud. Along the forest's edge, dozens of ancient trees were turning to metal at a pace visible to the naked eye, their twisted branches hardening into razor-sharp blades that shredded fleeing Elven druids into pieces.
"The eastern defense line has collapsed!" Elondir's roar cracked through the comms crystal. "That's no ordinary fleet—it's the living fortress Gorgon! "
Through the haze of smoke, Raine's Emerald Sight pierced the chaos. What they had called "black ships" were no ships at all, but titanic, floating mechanical jellyfish. Beneath their translucent, blood-red domes dangled tens of thousands of tendrils, each capped with the mechanized head of a fallen Holy Alliance bishop. They spat not shells, but streams of silvery-white slime that hit the ground and instantly spawned grotesque war machines of every shape and form.
"Gamma! Are the spatial stabilizers ready?!" Ravenna materialized at Raine's side like a phantom, violet-gold energy weaving into light armor across her body. Her newly-forged wrist blades pulsed with an ominous black radiance.
From the direction of the alchemy workshop came a deafening explosion. Gamma burst forth, covered in soot, clutching a metal case that writhed and reshaped itself in her arms. "Almost finished—just one last calibration! But the transmission nodes are scrambled. Someone has to reach the Aurora Spire and manually ignite the anchor—"
Her words were drowned by a sudden quake. The ground split into a web of fissures, and silvery-white fluid surged upward like blood from the leylines, coagulating into countless humanoid constructs. They bore no faces—only pulsing light-cores in their chests, each glowing with a pattern eerily similar to the mark carved into Raine's flesh.
"Leyline Guardians…" Raine's Frostwhisper ignited with black-green flame. "The Council has linked the entire defense system to the continent's lifeblood itself!"
From the flank, Ironbeard's steamhammer came crashing down, pulverizing three constructs into scrap. "Boy! Your damned mechanical eye's about to pop out of your skull!"
Only then did Raine realize—his right eye had fully mechanized, its gear-like iris locking onto every weak point of every enemy in sight. More terrifying still, he could predict the constructs' movements, as though his mind had been wired directly into a vast tactical network.
"Brother Raine!" Gamma suddenly screamed. "The Mother Tree sapling!"
Following the direction of her trembling finger, Raine saw the most heartbreaking sight—twelve figures in white robes floated around the young sapling. They had shed their human disguises, revealing their true, fully mechanical forms. At their head was Silverbranch herself, her liquid-metal body frozen into a ritualistic stance, both hands driven deep into the sapling's trunk as she forced streams of silvery energy back into it.
"No!" Nysa's anguished cry came through the comms crystal. "They're corrupting the newborn Mother Tree!"
Raine's body moved before his mind could. Dragon blood roared in his veins, lending him speed beyond mortal limits. The strike of Frostwhisper was no longer the [Phoenix Rend]—instead, it birthed a new technique infused with black-and-gold energy: [Dragon Eclipse]. Wherever the sword aura passed, even space itself split with hairline cracks, leyline guardians falling like cut wheat.
But the distance was too great. Just as Silverbranch's infusion neared completion, a violet-gold comet streaked across the battlefield—Ravenna had triggered some forbidden device, transforming herself into a body of pure energy. She phased straight through the enemy lines, her wrist-blade driving for Silverbranch's back.
"Too slow, thief girl." Silverbranch's head twisted a full 180 degrees, her mouth tearing open to her ears. "The Speaker foresaw your every—"
Her taunt died mid-sentence. Ravenna's strike had been blocked by liquid metal, but the violet-gold energy abruptly shifted frequency, unraveling into countless filaments that pierced the space around the sapling. With a savage tug, she tore the veil away—the entire area peeled back like a stage curtain, revealing the hidden truth: the real Mother Tree sapling had long since been moved. What stood here was only a holographic projection!
"Surprised, tin whore?" Ravenna's bloody smile cut like a blade. "You think you're the only ones who can play at sleight of hand?"
For the first time, a crack appeared on Silverbranch's mechanical face. "Impossible! Our prophecy modules—"
"Were hacked." Raine finally cut his way through, Frostwhisper cleaving in a single stroke to bisect Silverbranch at the waist. "Did you forget who built Gamma's prosthetic eye?"
But Silverbranch did not die. Her upper body writhed like molten mercury, emitting a shrill electronic screech. "Futile resistance! When the Eclipse begins, the Weaver itself will reap your souls!"
The sky suddenly dimmed. Every head turned upward in unison—the Gear-Moon had slid perfectly into place before the sun, initiating an eclipse. Yet this was no natural phenomenon: the moon's edge sprouted twelve needle-like pointers, locking seamlessly into the solar corona, as though a key had been thrust into a colossal lock.
"Gamma! Now!" Raine roared.
The girl slammed her hand onto the metal case's switch. From the direction of the Aurora Spire, a column of silver-blue light erupted skyward, resonating with both the Mother Tree and the glowing mark on Raine's chest. Space itself shattered like glass, exposing the intricate labyrinth of gears within—Alfred's preset transmission channel had finally been opened!
"The passage will only hold for three minutes!" Gamma's prosthetic eye flared with a warning crimson glow. "And the Council is already launching a reverse incursion!"
Ironbeard's warhammer vented an overcharge of steam. "Dwarves will cover the retreat! Elf brats, buy me thirty seconds!"
The battlefield erupted into a white-hot frenzy. Elondir led the elven archers in unleashing [Emerald Arrowstorm], each shaft splitting into hundreds of energy needles midair; Ironbeard's demolition squad hurled specially-forged [Leyline Bombs], momentarily solidifying the flowing silver fluid; meanwhile, Nysa knelt beside the true Mother Tree sapling, weaving a protective dome of emerald energy around it.
Raine seized Ravenna's wrist. "Remember—no matter what happens, your priority is to destroy the core console!"
Her mechanical eye flickered with a strange light. "That sounded like a farewell."
There was no time to answer. Together, they hurled themselves into the spatial rift. Behind them, Gamma's voice faded into the roar of battle: "Coordinates locked! Remember—you only have twenty minutes, or else—"
The wrenching sensation of transit was far beyond expectation. Raine felt his body torn down into fundamental particles and reassembled countless times over. When his vision finally cleared, he stood in a space that defied human comprehension—the interior of the Gear-Moon. It was neither flesh nor machine, but some quantum state in between: walls that were at once liquid and solid, conduits writhing like living creatures yet meshing together with the precision of clockwork.
"Alfred's anchor point is here." Ravenna pointed to the platform beneath their feet, its center carved with the sigil of the Aurora Spire. "But the Council has restructured the surroundings... we could be anywhere inside."
Raine's mechanical right eye automatically scanned the chaos, parsing it into a three-dimensional map. "The core sector lies three hundred meters directly above... but the path..." His voice faltered. The map revealed the route was composed of twelve interlocking Möbius loops.
Ravenna's violet-gold energy condensed into a grappling hook. "Then we take the straight line."
The moment they left the platform, the entire space twisted and reshaped. Countless crimson eyes opened across the walls, broadcasting visions of catastrophe from every corner of the continent: the Elven Forest consumed by fire, the Dwarven Forge-Cities drowned in silver liquid, the ancestral totems of the orcs guttering out one by one...
"Ignore it!" Raine cleaved apart several of the eyes, his black-green energy forming a protective shroud. "It's the Council's psychic contamination!"
But the visions grew even more terrifying. They saw Gamma twisted into a mechanical puppet; Ironbeard's steam-heart infested by living metal; Nysa kneeling before the Council's throne to receive "purification." And most harrowing of all—a scene where Ravenna herself stood at the core console, driving her violet-gold dagger into Raine's back.
"Pathetic trickery." Ravenna suddenly drove her wrist-blade into her own left arm, the searing pain anchoring her mind. "Is that truly all the Speaker's imagination amounts to?"
The pain did indeed scatter the illusions, if only for a fleeting moment. Seizing the chance, the two pushed into the entrance of the first Möbius loop—only to be torn apart by a sudden torrent of chaotic energy.
Raine slammed hard against a semi-transparent conduit. Through its wall, a grotesque sight unfolded: rows upon rows of incubation pods, each containing figures eerily identical to him and Ravenna.
"Welcome home, Core Vessel." Silverbranch's voice echoed from every direction. "Do you see your brothers and sisters?"
Raine's mechanical eye, no longer under his command, scanned the nearest pod. Data flashed—the 'Raine' inside had already reached 90% genetic parity, lacking only the final consciousness upload.
"The Council never puts all its eggs in one basket." Silverbranch's projection flickered across the conduit wall. "You are merely Experiment Seventy-Two. Soon there will be Seventy-Three, Seventy-Four..."
Frostwhisper tore through the image, its black-green energy racing along the conduits. One incubation pod after another ruptured in fire and steam. Yet Raine knew in his heart—this could just as easily be another of the Council's illusions.
Ravenna's voice cut in through comms, jagged with urgency. "Deadweight! I've found the control chamber—but I need your imprint key!"
Following the trail of violet-gold energy markers, Raine pushed through the last segment of warped space and emerged into the core sector. The chamber resembled the Mother Tree's cavernous "Gate"—only magnified tenfold. Twelve mechanical thrones circled a central light pillar. Upon three of them sat vague, shadowed silhouettes: the Prime Councilors.
Ravenna was already locked in combat with some unseen force. Her violet-gold energy had shaped itself into a drill, boring at the pillar's defensive barrier, but her progress was negligible.
"Raine! Hurry!" Blood streaked from the corner of her mouth. "The eclipse is at sixty-seven percent!"
The moment Raine's chest-mark touched the pillar, the entire realm froze. One of the Prime Councilors rose, its shroud peeling away to reveal a face that struck both of them cold.
It was Raine—aged, eyes fully mechanical, skin etched with Sanctum sigils.
"At last we meet, my past self." The voice carried a harmonic distortion, no longer entirely human. "I often wondered—would you choose this path as well?"
Frostwhisper quivered in Raine's grip. "Fut...ure?"
"One possibility." The elder Raine approached the console and gestured. Within the pillar, a vast holo-projection unfolded—the continent itself.
"Behold, the world you strive to protect."
The image magnified, revealing a truth steeped in despair: all twelve leyline arteries had been mechanized, the Mother Tree wholly transmuted into metal, even the elves sprouting mechanical limbs. The only glimmer of light lay at the ruins of the Aurora Spire, where seven crystallized mages held aloft a fragile silver-blue barrier.
"This is the inevitable end of resistance." The elder Raine's mechanical gaze fixed on his younger self. "Join us, and at least you may retain a fragment of free will."
Suddenly, Ravenna's wrist-blade pressed against Raine's back. "Don't listen to him! He's—"
Her motion froze mid-gesture. The elder Raine sighed and raised his hand, revealing a violet-gold dagger hovering behind her—identical to the one from the Council's illusion.
"You see? Even she cannot escape her ordained trajectory." His tone dripped with twisted gentleness. "Fate has long been woven. We are but its threads."
Raine's mechanical eye whirred at full capacity, parsing every detail. Then, without warning, he laughed.
"There's a flaw."
And in a sudden motion, he drove Frostwhisper into his own chest.
"The real Ravenna never wields a dagger with her right hand."
The world shattered like a mirror.
The true control chamber revealed itself at last—Ravenna locked in combat against three mechanical hierophants, their bladed limbs tearing through the violet-gold arcs she conjured. And in the center of the chamber, suspended within the light pillar, there was no console at all—but a miniature version of the "Gate."
Its seam already gaped a finger's breadth, and from within, a many-jointed shadow writhed, pressing against the threshold.
"Eclipse at eighty-nine percent!" Gamma's voice tore through on a forced comm-link. "You have thirty seconds left!"
Raine hurled himself at the Gate. The brand upon his chest blazed, resonating with the runes etched into its cold surface. The instant his palm struck the door, a torrent of memories crashed into him—
—He saw the Twelve Old Gods sealing away the sin of Arrogance.
—The first Wardens forging the defensive system atop their sacrifice.
—And the Council, century by century, corrupting that system into a machine of conquest.
But above all, he saw—a solution.
"Ravenna!" His voice was suddenly calm, steady, as though the choice had been waiting for him all along. "Do you remember what Alfred said? About needing a locksmith?"
Her eyes widened. In an instant, she understood. "No! There has to be another way!"
"This is the other way." His right hand crystallized, merging seamlessly with the Gate's surface. "Not sealing. Not releasing. Reconstructing."
The crystalline growth spread rapidly, racing up his arm toward his shoulder. The gap in the Gate shuddered and began to shrink. The shadow within unleashed a shriek beyond mortal hearing, rattling the entire Gear-Moon to its core.
Ravenna poured every ounce of her violet-gold essence into him, reckless, desperate, as though sheer willpower could halt the crystallization. But her energy could only slow it, not stop it.
"Gamma!" she roared into the comm. "Initiate emergency recall—NOW!"
"Impossible! The spatial lattice is collapsing—forced transit will—"
"EXECUTE!"
The pull of the recall seized Raine, tearing him from the chamber. Just before the crystallization reached his heart, he lifted his gaze—and saw the expression on Councilor Raine's face.
Not fury. Not despair.
But a faint, almost tender smile—the smile of release.
"So this time… you chose a different thread..."
Then silver light consumed all.