The retrieval team touched down on Earth-X34 amidst a landscape shattered by void storms. Black lightning danced in the distance, fracturing gravity itself. Air shimmered with unstable quantum interference—silent reminders of the Firstbreaker's awakening.
Elara stepped through the scorched dust cloud, her boots crunching on crystallized sand. Ahead, Lira knelt beside the child—the echo of Kael—his eyes shut, his body humming with unstable energy. He looked human, but inside him, a war was raging.
"He's still in there," Lira said. "Kael's presence is strong."
Elara ran a scan. The readings showed dual resonance: the echo was being pulled in two directions. Kael's mind anchored it, but dark fragments of the Architect's seed code were rewriting core structures. Left unchecked, the echo would become a new vessel—either for the Architect's consciousness or the Firstbreaker's entropy.
"We need to isolate the Kael strand," Elara said. "Now."
Lira activated the Drift Beacon, a device built from Kael's own designs. It emitted a harmonic signature—Kael's signature. The child's body lifted gently, surrounded in glowing blue glyphs. A high-pitched whine began as reality twisted around them.
Suddenly, something screamed—inside the echo.
The boy's body convulsed. Dark tendrils shot from his chest and lashed out, forming a jagged, humanoid silhouette of corrupted code.
"Seed detected," the AI warned. "Hostile convergence imminent."
The shape pulsed and stabilized. Its form twisted—half Kael, half void, its face a cracked mask of light and shadow.
"You... will not save him," it snarled.
Lira stepped forward, raising her blade, now humming with pure drift energy. "You're not him."
The entity screamed and launched forward. Lira slashed, the blade cutting through the seed's structure, destabilizing its form. Elara reconfigured the beacon to amplify Kael's harmonic signal.
"Kael," she whispered, "come back."
The glyphs pulsed. The corrupted form shrieked as it fractured. Blue light poured from the boy's chest, driving the void out. A final scream echoed into the wind—and then silence.
The child collapsed.
Elara rushed forward. "Status?"
"Echo stabilized," the AI confirmed. "Seed fragment purged."
Lira caught her breath. "One down."
"But how many more to go?" Elara asked.
As they lifted off, far above, the void rippled. Something ancient had felt the seed die—and it was no longer content to whisper.
The Firstbreaker had noticed them.