The lead centipede lunged, its multi-segmented body a blur of chitinous armor. Mandibles, large enough to snap a man's leg, clicked shut on empty air as Li Wei threw himself sideways.
Adrenaline, sharp and clean, burned through the strange fog in his mind. This was a language he understood. The language of the ruins: eat, or be eaten.
"The door! Barricade the door!" Old Man Huang shrieked, his voice cracking.
Too late. The beasts were already inside, their red eyes pinpricks of mindless hunger. They fanned out, surrounding them. Li Wei's back hit the cold metal of the pedestal. No way out.
The thrumming in his core—the Seed—pulsed again, a frantic rhythm that mirrored his own heartbeat. It wasn't just energy; it was a presence, a scared animal trapped inside him. And it was screaming.
The largest centipede focused on him, ignoring the cowering old man. It could smell the prize.
It charged again. This time, instinct took over. He swung the dull, heavy artifact like a club. It connected with the beast's head with a solid thunk.
The centipede recoiled, shaking its armored skull. Unharmed, but annoyed. Li Wei's arm vibrated from the impact. He was just provoking it.
The Seed pulsed again, a wave of heat flooding his arm. He felt a sudden, inexplicable pull—a desire to push that heat into the artifact.
It was madness. A dying fantasy.
The centipede coiled for a final strike.
Do it! a voice screamed in his head, not his own, but a raw, primal instinct from the knot of heat in his belly.
With a grunt, Li Wei didn't swing. He focused. He imagined the heat in his core, pictured it as a root, stretching down his arm and into the cold metal.
For a terrifying second, nothing.
Then, a faint, green line, like a vein of emerald, glowed along the artifact's etched symbol. The centipede struck.
Li Wei brought the artifact up in a clumsy block.
Instead of the sound of metal on chitin, there was a crackle of energy.
A silent, invisible shockwave erupted from the artifact. The air itself seemed to thicken and push back.
The centipede was thrown backward as if hit by a giant's fist, crashing into its brethren in a tangle of limbs and startled shrieks. The creatures hesitated, their simple minds confused.
Li Wei stared, breathless, at the artifact in his hand. The green vein was fading, but the metal was now warm.
"You… you channeled it!" Huang gasped, staring not at the beasts, but at Li Wei with religious terror. "The spirit energy! You wielded it!"
There was no time. The centipedes were regrouping. His arm felt numb, drained. Whatever he had done, he couldn't do it again.
"We need to go! Now!" Li Wei yelled, grabbing Huang's arm.
The entrance was blocked. The chamber had no other exit.
Click-click-click.
The skittering resumed. Closer.
The Seed inside him throbbed, a different sensation this time. Not a push, but a pull. A gentle, insistent tugging towards the back wall. A faint, almost-dead whisper of the same energy he now held within him.
"This way!" he shouted, dragging Huang toward the solid-looking wall.
"Are you mad? It's a dead end!"
"Trust me!"
It was an insane gamble. He ran his hands over the cold metal, the Seed's pull growing stronger near a seemingly seamless panel.
Here.
He slammed the artifact against the spot.
Nothing.
The centipedes advanced.
Please… He poured his desperation into the artifact, into the Seed. He wasn't pushing energy this time; he was begging.
The artifact's symbol flared once, a brief, brilliant flash of green.
With a groan of ancient machinery, a hidden seam appeared, and a section of the wall slid sideways, revealing a narrow, dark maintenance shaft. Stale air billowed out.
"Go!" Li Wei shoved the stunned old man into the opening. He turned, hurled the artifact at a pile of debris to distract the creatures, then scrambled into the shaft after Huang. He slammed his palm against an interior control panel. The door slid shut with a definitive thud, plunging them into absolute darkness and sealing the furious scratching on the other side.
Silence.
The only sounds were their ragged breathing and Li Wei's pounding heart. He slumped against the cold wall, trembling. The numbness receded, replaced by deep, bone-weary exhaustion. The heat in his core settled to a warm, steady glow, like a banked fire.
After a long moment, Huang's voice whispered in the dark, filled with a reverence that made Li Wei deeply uncomfortable.
"You are the Vessel. The stories spoke of a Vessel. The bearer of the Last Seed."
Li Wei didn't answer. He just sat in the dark, listening to the faint, inner hum of the thing living inside him. He had survived. But as he felt the Seed's gentle pulse, a deep and terrifying understanding settled over him.
The centipedes weren't the real threat. They were just the first, smallest predators drawn to the light.
Somewhere out there, in the vast, unimaginable darkness beyond the dead sky, something infinitely older and more powerful had just felt a flicker. A flicker of something that was supposed to be extinct.
A single, green leaf on a tree that had been barren for a million years.
And now, he had to run.