The tunnel was dark, narrow, and suffocating. Only Liana's heavy breathing, Raine's nearly unconscious, stumbling footsteps, and the distant, increasingly close, spine-chilling hunting cries behind them could be heard.
Liana dragged Raine forward with almost all her strength. The man's body was as heavy as if filled with lead, most of the weight pressing down on her shoulders. His body radiated an alarming heat; the red patterns on his crystalline right arm glowed like a searing iron, leaving brief visual afterimages in the absolute darkness. Each flicker illuminated his pale, sweat-soaked face and tightly furrowed brow. The Silent Mercury's suppression was on the verge of collapse under the combined impact of the Corrupted Heart and Raine's reckless outburst. Wild energy surged chaotically through his body, seeking a release.
"Hold on… almost there…" Liana's hoarse voice sounded less like encouragement for Raine and more like a mantra to keep herself going. She had no idea where this abandoned escape passage led; the map had long ceased to be valid. She was simply relying on instinct, moving away from that horrifying nest.
The path suddenly sloped steeply upward, revealing roughly hewn stone steps. A faint, musty air drifted down from above.
"An exit!" Hope gave Liana new strength. She half-dragged, half-lifted Raine up the steps.
At the top, a rotten wooden fence blocked the way. Liana summoned her last reserves of strength and kicked it open with several forceful blows.
Thud!
The two of them tumbled out of the opening, landing hard on the cold ground, strewn with dead leaves and branches. In the night sky, the twin moons' light barely penetrated the dense canopy, casting scattered patches of illumination. They had emerged on the far side of the mountain, in an unfamiliar, deathly silent coniferous forest. For now, they were safe.
Liana collapsed to the ground, her chest heaving violently, her lungs burning. She turned her head to look at Raine, and her heart sank immediately.
Raine was curled up, convulsing in pain. Veins beneath his skin bulged with an ominous dark red hue. He clenched his teeth, emitting a suppressed, beast-like growl from his throat. The glow of his crystalline right arm became increasingly unstable, sometimes blazing like molten lava, sometimes dim like embers. The red patterns on its surface wriggled as if alive.
Silent Mercury had failed.
He was like the center of a humanoid storm, chaotic energy radiating outward from him, frightening the few small creatures remaining in the forest into panicked flight.
"Damn it!" Liana struggled to stand and leapt to Raine's side. She knew that if she didn't stabilize him immediately, this energy fluctuation would soon act like a beacon, drawing pursuers from the mine—and perhaps even more distant threats.
She quickly rummaged through her backpack for a spare set of silver needles and several emergency potions. But conventional calming methods were utterly inadequate against such a raging torrent of energy.
"Listen, Raine!" She grabbed his scalding shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "Control it! Like you guided the energy to repair the sword before! Use your Life Seed to guide it! Don't let it go out of control!"
But Raine's consciousness seemed already drowned by pain and the roar of energy. His left eye's pupil was unfocused, while the gears in his right eye spun frantically, unable to concentrate.
Liana gritted her teeth, a flash of resolve in her eyes. She drew the special long needles, took a deep breath, and with hands as fast as lightning, stabbed them into several special acupoints near Raine's left chest, around his heart!
This was not healing—it was the extremely dangerous "Energy Diversion Needle Technique"! She was using her own body as a temporary bridge and buffer, forcibly guiding part of the raging energy out to relieve Raine's burden.
The instant the needles pierced, Liana felt as if struck by lightning! This was not pure energy, but a torrent mixing completely different properties, brimming with destructive and chaotic intent: the icy breath of the abyss, scorching dragon fire, rebellious mechanical will, and the life-devouring corruption force…
"Ugh!" she groaned, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her skin instantly turned crimson, and her meridians felt as if scraped by countless red-hot blades! But she gritted her teeth. Amber eyes shining with platinum light, she frantically activated her "Withered Healer" talent, absorbing, transforming, and suppressing the chaotic torrent flooding her body.
The process was excruciating, like waging a war within her own body. Yet the effect was clear.
Raine's convulsions eased noticeably. The sudden drop in external pressure gave his overwhelmed consciousness a chance to grasp a fleeting breath. His survival instinct, reinforced by Liana's words earlier, allowed him to begin struggling—slowly, but intentionally.
He no longer tried to "control" all the power—that was impossible. He concentrated all remaining willpower on the Life Seed mark on his left chest, activating its most fundamental properties of "order" and "growth." He imagined the emerald-colored energy as supple yet powerful vines, not resisting the torrent, but weaving and guiding it toward relatively open spaces or places that could withstand it—primarily his already-altered crystalline right arm, and… the Frost Whisper Sword behind him.
This was an incredibly delicate and dangerous operation—any single misstep could have caused the energy to explode inside his body. Yet, with Liana's reckless external assistance, he miraculously stabilized the situation.
The wild energy gradually became somewhat orderly. It still surged powerfully, but no longer in mindless destruction. The glow of his crystalline right arm steadied, and its temperature began to drop. The Frost Whisper Sword hummed softly in its sheath, absorbing the excess energy Raine guided toward it, and the cracks along its blade seemed to mend, imperceptibly but ever so slightly.
After a long moment, Raine's breathing finally steadied. He was still weak, but his gaze cleared. He looked at Liana, pale and drenched in sweat, still trembling slightly, and at the two long needles lodged in his chest—gradually darkening under immense pressure. In that instant, he understood exactly what she had done.
"…Why?" His voice was hoarse. This level of assistance went far beyond what an ally in a temporary alliance would offer—it was almost self-sacrifice.
Liana struggled to pull out the nearly shattering needles, staggering a step before leaning against a tree to steady herself. She swallowed a potion that rapidly replenished vitality and, gasping, replied with an unusually bright look in her eyes: "…The data… it's too valuable… and…" She paused, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. "…I invested in the 'Final Vessel'… it can't… just break like this…"
Her explanation was half-truth, half-pretension. Raine could sense that beneath the researcher's zeal lay something else, something far more complicated.
At that moment—perhaps the aftershock of the energy, perhaps the brush with life and death—a fragment of a deeply buried memory suddenly broke through the barriers, surfacing with startling clarity in Raine's mind.
It was no longer the mine. Instead, he found himself in a cavern filled with soft, emerald light. The massive roots of a World Tree coiled like pale, colossal serpents. A figure knelt with her back to him at the center of the roots. Silver hair cascaded like a waterfall, but the tips were stained with an ominous dark red. Her body trembled slightly, and on her bare back, the mechanical interfaces of the Holy Alliance flickered with an abnormal red glow, as if struggling against some dark force.
"γ…" A name slipped from his lips almost unconsciously, carrying a worry he hadn't realized he felt.
The figure shuddered violently and slowly turned her head. A delicate yet pale face came into view: her left eye was normal, a tearful sea-green, while her right was a mechanical eye, spinning madly and leaking dark red data. Her expression was pained, caught in struggle.
"Raine… Big Brother…" Her voice carried electronic distortion. "…Go… the protocol… has been overwritten… I can't control it…"
She suddenly raised her hands—not in attack, but in desperate resistance. The skin on her arms split open, revealing the mechanical structures beneath and the pulsing, ominous energy within.
"…Go find… Ravenna… tell her… the 'Cradle'… is a trap…"
Before she could finish, her right mechanical eye shot a red beam, and her entire aura instantly turned cold, ruthless, and inhuman.
The memory fragment abruptly ended.
Raine gasped sharply, his heart hammering. γ! That girl who had appeared briefly outside Ashfall Town and then vanished! She wasn't attacking him—she was warning him! She was resisting some kind of control! The "Cradle" is a trap? Does Ravenna know? That stab…
The clues began to connect, yet an even thicker fog of uncertainty descended.
"What's wrong with you?" Liana noticed his unusual demeanor.
"…Just remembering some things." Raine didn't elaborate. He struggled to sit up. Feeling his body, he noted that the effect of the Silent Mercury had completely vanished; his power flowed again, but the balance was dangerously fragile. He had to micro-manage it constantly with his will, or it could spiral out of control at any moment. Moreover, he could feel his connection to Akatsuki and that corrupted land growing clearer and… more perilous.
"We need to leave here as soon as possible." Raine looked at Liana. "My energy wave shielding is gone."
Liana nodded, forcing herself upright. "I know a place not far from here—an ancient observation post ruin I discovered on my way. There should be a residual isolation array we can temporarily shelter in." She pointed in a direction.
Supporting each other, they staggered into the depths of the forest.
Not long after they left, several twisted figures silently slipped out from the mine's exit. Leading them, the Deep-Sea Elder of the Cultists gazed in the direction Raine and Liana had departed with its massive crystal eye, emitting a low, yearning hiss.
"…The vessel… returns…"
It raised its bone staff, sending a pulse of dark red energy into the sky like a signal.
Far off, Akatsuki seemed to flare faintly in response.
Raine's days of peace were over. The Silent Mercury had shattered. Echoes of the past and the looming threats of the future surged toward him simultaneously. And the bond between him and the "Withering Physician"—forged through shared trials and the unique exchange of energy—grew even subtler, yet stronger.