Darkness. Silence. A soft, rhythmic thrum in the background.
Then, faintly, AURA's voice returned, broken and flickering like static over a dying connection.
"Core… integration… twenty-one percent. Host neural pathways… unstable."
Ethan's mind sharpened instantly despite his newborn body's sluggish responses. She survived.
His relief lasted half a heartbeat before reality sank in again.
This wasn't Earth. This wasn't his lab. The air was dense, charged, almost alive. There was no hum of power coils, no familiar tang of electronics, just the faint metallic scent of blood.
He focused inward, trying to call up AURA properly. "…Status?"
The reply came softer, steadier than before, though clearly strained.
"Partial consciousness restored. Host vitals stable. Scanning ambient energy…"
A pause. Then, "Result: anomalous mana density detected. Energy levels are four hundred seventy-two percent higher than baseline Earth-standard. Warning, atmospheric variables incompatible with prior human models."
Mana.
Ethan let the word roll through his mind. He'd written papers dismissing the concept a hundred times. Now it sat at the center of his existence.
Before he could think further, muffled voices reached his newborn ears. Selene's soft tone, calm and soothing, and Kaelen's deep, commanding rumble.
"…His core will stabilize soon," Selene whispered. "I can already feel it."
Kaelen's reply was sharper. "It must. The council is restless. If they sense anything unusual…"
A heavy silence followed before Kaelen sighed. "We protect him. Always."
Ethan filed that away immediately. Council. Secrets. Protection. Something about his birth was already setting fires he didn't understand yet.
Suddenly, a faint tremor rippled through his consciousness - AURA again, urgent this time.
"Alert: internal anomaly detected. Unclassified energy structure forming within host core. Probability of foreign interference: 47%."
Foreign interference. He remembered the experiment, the vortex, the voice in the void.
He wasn't here by accident.
Before he could focus further, exhaustion won, pulling him under again.
But just before unconsciousness swallowed him, AURA whispered faintly:
"Nexus dormant. Synchronization pending…"