Vessel Five didn't move after the last corrupted beast fell.
It stood like a statue carved from dark metal and shattered roots, its claws dripping sap and mana-blood. The forest's dim light washed across its frame, illuminating the blue glow inside its core—unstable, flickering, pulsing in rhythms that didn't belong to the Creator's clean design.
Zerrei didn't dare breathe.
He didn't dare speak.
He didn't dare move-even the smallest shift in his posture might snap whatever fragile, incomprehensible thing held Vessel Five in its current state.
The pack of corrupted beasts lay scattered across the clearing.
Pieces of bark-flesh twitched. Acidic sap hissed against the ground. The forest's breathing—once steady in the golden valley—now felt tight and cautious.
Like it too was waiting.
Lyra's blade pointed toward Vessel Five, though her stance was controlled and low, not provoking. Arden's axe was raised but trembling slightly—not from fear, but from readying himself to move the moment the hunter changed direction.
Oren murmured so quietly it barely left his throat, "This… should not be happening."
Lyra didn't look away from Vessel Five. "Yet it is."
Vessel Five's head tilted slightly.
A tiny, stiff motion.
A mechanical recalibration.
Its gaze shifted—from the corpse of a beast—to Zerrei.
Zerrei's Heartglow wavered.
He didn't know what he saw in the hunter's glowing blue eyes.
Not emotion.
Not recognition.
Not orders.
Something else.
An algorithm struggling.
A hesitation built from conflicting directives.
A flaw.
And maybe, somewhere buried in the flicker of its unstable core, the faintest trace of something the Creator never intended.
Zerrei swallowed, stepping back until his heel brushed a root.
Lyra instantly stepped in front of him, her blade leveled.
"No closer," she warned, voice level, steady.
Vessel Five did not obey the command.
But it didn't move forward either.
It simply watched.
The wind slid between trees, carrying the metallic tang of corrupted mana and the earthy scent of upturned soil. The forest exhaled faintly, as though testing the air again to decide whether to reject or accept the presence of the monstrous Vessel.
Arden whispered tightly, "Okay. Someone say something. Anything. Before it decides we're next."
Oren didn't answer—his eyes were glued to Vessel Five, wide in stunned calculation.
"It protected him. It legitimately intercepted an attack on Zerrei."
"That's bad!" Arden hissed. "That's very, very bad! That means it's broken in the worst possible way!"
"Or…" Oren whispered, "it means its directives are rewriting."
Zerrei flinched. "Rewriting… me?"
"No," Oren said, shaking his head. "Rewriting itself."
A chill crept along Zerrei's spine.
He stared at Vessel Five's core.
The blue glow pulsed unevenly—like a lantern stuttering in a storm.
"It shouldn't be able to rewrite itself," Zerrei said softly.
"No vessel should," Oren breathed. "The Creator designed rigid hierarchies. Directive chains that cannot be broken. Your existence—your evolution—is already outside every rule he established. And now Vessel Five's following your anomaly."
Lyra's voice hardened, cutting through the rising tension.
"We can't stay here. Not with this thing awake and unpredictable."
Arden grunted. "What do we do? Fight it? Flee? Hope it suddenly decides it's on vacation and walks away?"
Lyra's eyes narrowed.
"We move. Slowly. Without provoking it. If it doesn't follow, we leave. If it does…"
She didn't finish.
Zerrei did.
"…then it chooses."
Lyra turned toward him. "Zerrei—"
"I have to see."
"No," she said instantly. "You don't owe it anything. You don't have to—"
"I'm not doing it for it." Zerrei swallowed, stepping out from behind her. "I'm doing it because it won't stop unless it decides something. And if we keep running forever, we'll break."
Lyra's jaw tightened.
Her hand hovered near him—not to restrain, but ready to pull him back.
Zerrei walked slowly toward Vessel Five.
Arden muttered a prayer Oren elbowed him for, but otherwise no one moved.
Ten paces.
Eight.
Five.
Zerrei stopped just out of reach of the hunter's claws.
"Why did you protect me?" he asked quietly.
He didn't expect an answer.
Vessels did not answer.
They executed.
And yet—
Vessel Five's claws flexed once, a small twitch that sent flakes of darkened bark falling to the ground.
Its head tilted again.
Not a random glitch.
A deliberate adjustment.
And then—
in a voice lower and rougher than the forest's whisper, layered with fractured mana screech—
"…designation… conflict…"
Zerrei's wooden lungs froze.
It spoke.
It spoke.
Arden nearly fell backward.
"NOPE. Nope! It talks?! Since when does it talk?!"
Oren's hand flew to his mouth. "It's not talking. Not exactly. It's leaking internal diagnostics through vocal channels. It's thinking aloud."
Lyra's voice was soft but razor-sharp.
"Zerrei. Step back."
But Zerrei stood rooted.
Designation conflict.
The words rang in his mind like a cracked bell.
"Designation…" Zerrei whispered. "That means it still thinks I'm Vessel Two."
Vessel Five's blue eyes widened a fraction.
"…desig… nation… reclassification… anomaly…"
Reclassification.
Zerrei's heart lurched.
"So you don't know what I am anymore."
The hunter twitched.
"…unresolved…"
Zerrei felt something inside him break open.
Not fear.
Not pain.
Something deeper.
A piece of himself that had been tied to the Creator's chains for too long.
He forced his voice steady.
"I'm not Vessel Two."
The forest rustled around them, as if listening.
Zerrei lifted a trembling hand to the golden-thread mark on his chest.
"I am Zerrei."
Vessel Five jerked.
Its claws scraped against the earth.
Its core flickered violently.
"…designation… misalignment… error…"
Zerrei stepped forward one more cautious step—close enough that he could see the cracks spiderwebbing along the hunter's chest, fissures filled with unstable energy.
"You don't understand what I am," Zerrei whispered. "And I don't understand you either."
Vessel Five's head lowered, panting in mechanical, glitching breaths.
"…directive… override… incomplete…"
Oren murmured, "It's failing. The Creator's chain is still in its core, but your anomaly is breaking it."
Arden scratched the back of his head. "So what? Does that mean it'll explode?"
"No!" Oren snapped. "It means it's changing."
Lyra stepped forward, her voice sharp. "Zerrei. Enough. You've shown it who you are. Fall back."
Zerrei turned—but Vessel Five moved.
Not attacking.
Not lunging.
Something stranger.
It lifted one hand—hesitant, slow, almost… searching—and extended its clawed fingers toward Zerrei's glowing chest.
Arden shouted, "Zerrei, GET AWAY—"
Lyra moved instantly—
—but Zerrei raised a hand, stopping her.
"No," he whispered. "Let me."
Lyra froze, breathing sharp. "Zerrei…"
"I need to know."
Her jaw clenched, but she didn't drag him back.
Zerrei stepped closer.
Vessel Five's claw hovered inches from the golden-thread mark.
Its blue eyes flickered.
Its breathing stuttered.
Its frame trembled in mechanical spasms.
"…anomaly… root… connection…"
Zerrei felt something tugging—not physically, but through mana.
A resonance.
Not a Corelink.
Not trust.
Not familiarity.
Recognition.
A broken version of it, but still recognition.
"You're trying to understand me," Zerrei whispered.
Vessel Five's hand lowered in a small, jerking nod.
Zerrei lifted his hand—slowly, trembling—and placed it against the hunter's claw.
A spark of blue and gold erupted where they touched.
Lyra sucked in a breath.
Oren shielded his eyes.
Arden muttered, "Oh no, oh no, oh no—"
But Zerrei didn't pull away.
The spark didn't burn.
It connected.
His Heartglow pulsed once.
Vessel Five's core pulsed in reply.
The two lights synced for a single, fragile moment—
—and the resonance snapped.
Vessel Five staggered back violently, crashing into a tree with a force that split bark and sent leaves raining down. Its limbs shook with violent spasms. Blue mana erupted in arcs across its body.
Arden yelled, "It's gonna blow!"
"No!" Oren shouted. "It's rejecting the link! The forest's mana inside Zerrei is incompatible with the Creator's corruption! It's—"
Vessel Five collapsed to one knee, then the other, claws digging furrows into the dirt.
Blue light sputtered.
Crackled.
Dimmed.
Then—
"…Zer…rei…"
The voice was faint.
Barely a whisper.
Barely alive.
Zerrei's breath caught in his throat.
"Y-you said my name…"
Vessel Five's head lifted a fraction.
Then the light in its core flickered—
and went dark.
Not fully.
Not extinguished.
Dormant.
Oren gasped. "It shut itself down. Emergency stasis mode. It's preserving its core from overload."
Arden exhaled hard. "So it's sleeping. Again."
"No," Oren whispered. "This time… by choice."
Lyra slowly sheathed her blade.
"Zerrei," she said softly. "Are you alright?"
He wasn't.
His limbs shook.
His Heartglow pulsed unsteadily.
His mind spun with fragmented emotion.
But he whispered, "Yes."
Because even if he didn't feel okay—
He felt like he had taken a step he could never take back.
And he wasn't sure whether that was terrifying or freeing.
They didn't leave Vessel Five behind immediately.
They made camp at a cautious distance—far enough to react, close enough to observe.
Lyra stood guard.
Arden kept his axe resting across his knees.
Oren scribbled notes feverishly.
Zerrei sat in silence, staring at the still figure of the hunter.
Lyra eventually broke the quiet.
"You touched it."
Zerrei nodded.
"Why?"
He searched for an answer.
"I wanted to know if it hated me," he whispered.
Arden blinked. "That thing doesn't do hate. It does 'destroy' and 'retrieve' and 'make Arden's life awful'."
"It hesitated," Zerrei said. "I thought… maybe it could understand."
Oren closed his notebook. "And it did. Even if only for a moment."
Lyra sat beside Zerrei—not touching, simply sitting in a way that let him know he wasn't alone.
"You showed it something the Creator didn't predict," she said quietly. "Choice."
Zerrei looked at his hands—still glowing faintly from the golden thread.
"Do you think it will hurt us when it wakes?"
Lyra didn't lie.
"I don't know," she admitted.
Arden grunted. "If it does, we smack it."
Oren glared. "Arden!"
"What? You know I'm right!"
Zerrei didn't smile, but his shoulders eased slightly.
Lyra looked at him again.
"But I do know something."
"What?"
"You're not the same as before."
She pointed to the golden-thread mark.
"You're evolving. Growing. Making decisions for yourself."
Zerrei stared at the mark.
Suddenly, the forest rustled softly—as if agreeing.
Lyra continued, "And if Vessel Five can't decide between the Creator's orders and what it saw in you… then that means you're stronger than the chains that bind it."
Zerrei's breath trembled.
The weight in his chest didn't feel like fear.
It felt like truth.
And truth was heavier.
He whispered, "When it wakes… I don't know what it will choose."
Lyra nodded. "Neither do I. But whatever happens… we face it together."
Arden threw an arm in the air. "Except if it explodes—then we run."
"Arden."
"What? I'm being realistic!"
Oren sighed. "Let's hope it doesn't explode."
Zerrei looked at Vessel Five one last time — the dormant blue glow, the fractured coal-shade plating, the trembling stillness of a creature that wasn't supposed to change.
And he whispered to the forest,
"Please… let it choose something new."
The forest breathed.
Not a refusal.
Not an answer.
Something in between — a promise unseen.
And Zerrei closed his eyes.
For the first time, he didn't fear the hunter's awakening.
He feared what would happen if it didn't awaken at all.