The Exo-Cult crawled out from the void left in the wake of collapse.
At first, they were just a rumor—
A group hiding their faces behind masks, multiplying through whispers in the basements of dead cities.
But over time, they seeped into the nerve endings of the decaying world.
In every dark corner, every abandoned district, beneath the dust, their symbols glowed.
And they didn't want to return the world to what it was.
They wanted to forge a new one.
According to the Exo-Cult's belief, the crystals were divine entities—
And only "harmonized bodies" could become one with them, could hear their voice.
But the human body was weak.
Flesh would not endure.
Nerves would decay.
Blood would rot.
That's why members of the cult began to abandon their bodies, piece by piece.
First the fingers…
Then the arms…
Eyes, ribs, nerve endings…
Over time, the highest-ranking members of the Exo-Cult remained "human" only in name.
What was left of them was rusted steel, bionic muscle fibers, and hypersensitized neural interfaces built to align with crystal resonance.
But this transformation wasn't just physical.
Anyone who approached the crystals would begin to unravel mentally as well.
So the Exo-Cult stripped away their identities too—
Their pasts, their names, their emotions.
Each of them was now merely a "Carrier Candidate."
And this is why the Exo-Cult pursued the crystals.
Not for power—
But for union.
In their eyes, this world had ended.
The new world would only exist for those who could carry the essence of crystal within them.