Time Elapsed: 4 Hours since the Canal Incident.
Location: Silas's Laboratory, Sector 9.
"Stop wincing," Silas muttered, threading a needle made of polished bone. "It throws off my stitch-work. Do you want the graft to hold, or do you want your left arm to fall off next time you pick up a teacup?"
Dante gritted his teeth—or rather, he ground the metal plates of his jaw together. "I'm not wincing. My nervous system is trying to interpret why there is pig-flank attached to my rotator cuff."
"It's not pig," Silas corrected, snipping a thread. "It's cultured vat-muscle. High tensile strength. And I saturated it with a solution of lead and saline to help anchor your... condition."
Dante sat up on the metal slab, rolling his shoulder. The movement was stiff, but the gnawing emptiness—the sensation of his existence leaking out—had subsided. The graft was ugly, a patch of pinkish-grey meat amidst his pale skin, but it was solid.
"Mass stabilized at 72.5 kilograms," Dante noted, checking his internal sense of weight. "You're a wizard, Silas."
"I'm a scientist," Silas spat, wiping blood onto his pristine coat. "Wizards wave sticks and shout nonsense. I cut things open to see how they work. Speaking of which..."
Silas turned his attention to the center of the room.
The Resonance Core had been moved. It was no longer in the bucket of tar. It was now suspended in the center of a chaotic contraption Silas had built in the last three hours.
It looked like a torture device for a sphere.
A cage of brass ribs surrounded the Core, held in place by wires connected to a vat of bubbling green nutrient fluid. Electrodes were pasted directly onto the violet surface of the stone.
"I've hooked it up to a Bio-Neural Interface," Silas explained, tapping the glass of the tank. "The Core is semi-sentient, right? It responds to intent. So, I'm using a preserved brain from a psychic—don't ask where I got it—to 'talk' to the Core. I'm trying to convince it that it's home so it stops screaming."
Dante walked over, buttoning his shirt. "And? What is it saying?"
Silas adjusted his glasses. "It's not saying anything, Dante. It's singing."
Silas flipped a switch on a massive console. A stylus on a rotating drum of paper began to jerk violently, drawing jagged peaks and valleys.
"Look at the wave pattern," Silas pointed. "That's not random energy output. That's a sequence. It's binary code, but instead of ones and zeros, it's 'Existence' and 'Void'. It's a message written in the language of creation."
Dante leaned in, his eyes narrowing. "A message? From the Third Era?"
"No," Silas whispered. "It's a coordinate."
Silas grabbed a projector lens and jammed it into the side of the brass cage. "I managed to translate the audio frequency into visual data. Watch."
He cranked a lever.
The machine groaned. The psychic brain in the tank twitched. The Resonance Core flared with blinding violet light.
A hologram erupted into the air above them.
It was a map of New Babel. But it was wrong.
The map showed the Spire, the Industrial District, the Slums. But in the center of the city, right where the Great Foundry stood today, there was... nothing. A black hole in the map.
"The Blind Spot," Dante recognized it. "The District that doesn't exist. Old tales say the First Alchemists built their labs there, and then erased the streets from memory."
"It's not just erased from memory," Silas said, tracing the hologram with a trembling finger. "It's erased from reality. It's a pocket dimension. A fold in space. And look at the Core."
The hologram zoomed in. The Resonance Core wasn't just a battery. In the simulation, it acted as a key. It emitted a specific frequency that caused the black hole to open.
"It's a Key," Dante realized. "Vespera doesn't want the power. She wants to open the door to the Lost District."
"But here is the kicker," Silas said, turning to Dante with a manic grin. "Look at the frequency required to turn the key."
He pointed to the jagged line on the paper drum.
"High amplitude. Extremely volatile. Pure, unadulterated Entropy."
Dante stared at the paper. The realization hit him like a physical blow.
"Stasis cannot open the door," Dante whispered. "Vespera is the Aspirant of Stasis. Her power freezes things. Preserves them. If she touches the lock, she'll jam it forever. She needs decay to break the seal."
"She needs you," Silas finished.
Silence descended on the lab, broken only by the bubbling of the tanks.
Dante paced away from the machine. The pieces of the puzzle were clicking together, governed by the Law of Convergence.
"That's why she didn't kill me," Dante said, his voice rising. "That's why she let me escape. She knows I have the Key. She knows I'm an Entropy Aspirant. She's counting on me figuring this out."
"She's herding you," Silas agreed. "She wants you to go to the Blind Spot. She wants you to unlock the door. And then..."
"Then she steps in, kills me, and takes whatever is inside," Dante finished.
He looked at the map again. The Lost District. The place where the First Alchemists vanished. If there was any place in the world that held the secret to the Origin—the secret to fixing his broken existence—it was there.
"It's a trap," Silas said, taking a bite of his forgotten sandwich. "A very obvious, very deadly trap."
"It is," Dante agreed. The Silvergrin shifted into a crooked, sharp smile. "But it's also an invitation."
Dante walked back to the machine. He placed his gloved hand on the brass cage.
"If I don't go, I fade away eventually. If I go, I might die, but I might also find the cure."
He looked at Silas. "Can you detach the Core? I need to carry it."
"I can," Silas nodded. "But Dante, you need a way to fight her. You said she froze a shotgun blast? You can't punch Stasis. You need a counter-agent."
Silas ran to a cabinet and pulled out a heavy, lead-lined syringe. The liquid inside was pitch black and seemed to absorb the light around it.
"I've been saving this," Silas said solemnly. "Distilled Basilisk Venom. It triggers rapid necrosis. It's the closest biological equivalent to your entropy. If you inject this into your own blood stream..."
"It will kill me," Dante said.
"It will supercharge your decay," Silas corrected. "For about five minutes, you won't just dissolve matter. You'll dissolve concepts. You could rot a spell in mid-air. But yes, afterward, you'll likely turn into a puddle of goo unless you eat a tank."
Dante took the syringe. He slid it into his bandolier, right next to the mercury.
"Five minutes is all I need."
He turned to the door.
"Silas, pack up the lab. Go underground. When I open that door, the shockwave will alert every Aspirant in the city. Sector 9 won't be safe."
Silas began frantically unplugging wires. "Where are you going?"
Dante looked at the hologram of the Blind Spot.
"I'm going to take the Queen up on her offer. I'm going to the Great Foundry. It's time to break into history."
Location: The Great Foundry, Sector 3
Current Status: Operational.
The Foundry was the heart of the city's industry. A massive complex of blast furnaces and rolling mills, built directly over the "Blind Spot."
Dante stood on a catwalk high above the molten rivers of steel. The heat was intense, but he didn't sweat. He simply felt his skin drying out, becoming brittle.
He checked his pocket watch.
Midnight.
He held the Resonance Core in his hand. He had removed it from the Void-Tar. It was pulsing violently now, sensing its proximity to the lock.
"I know you're here," Dante called out over the roar of the furnaces.
The shadows at the end of the catwalk lengthened. They didn't move naturally. They stretched and solidified, forming a throne of darkness.
Lady Vespera sat there. She looked immaculate, untouched by the soot and heat.
"You are punctual," she said, her voice carrying effortlessly over the din. "And you brought the key. Good boy."
Behind her, the Grave-Walker emerged, and two other figures—knights in armor made of white porcelain. Stasis Guardians.
"I figured it out," Dante said, holding the Core up. "You can't open the door. You need an Entropy Aspirant to rot the seal."
"Clever," Vespera admitted. She stood up. "And now that you are here... be useful. Open the door, and I might let you live as a pet."
Dante looked at the Core, then at the massive, blank iron wall behind Vespera—the entrance to the Blind Spot, disguised as part of the factory.
He stepped forward.
"I'll open it," Dante said. "But not for you."
He slammed the Resonance Core against his own chest.
He didn't use it to open the door. He used Harvest.
He absorbed the Core.
Vespera's eyes widened. "Stop him!"
The Core dissolved into Dante's chest. The violet energy didn't open a door; it flooded his veins.
Dante screamed. It wasn't a scream of pain; it was the sound of a reactor going critical. His skin cracked, violet light leaking from the fissures. The Silvergrin melted and reformed into a maw of jagged, glowing spikes.
He wasn't holding the Key anymore. He was the Key.
"You want the door open?" Dante roared, his voice layered with the distortion of the Origin. "Then come and get me!"
He turned and jumped off the catwalk, diving straight toward the massive iron wall below.
He didn't hit it. He phased into it.
The wall rippled like water. Dante vanished inside the architecture.
Vespera ran to the railing, her composure shattering.
"He... he consumed the coordinate," she gasped. "He is inside the lock."
She turned to her Guardians.
"Tear this Foundry down! Find him! Before he rewrites the destination!"