"It's... it's talking..." Rex felt a deep chill.
"Not talking," Lia struggled to stabilize her systems. "Its energy field is directly affecting surrounding matter to vibrate and produce sound... It's expressing... its 'ideology'."
Kael forced himself to recover from the initial shock, his eyes quickly scanning the lab. He saw the non-human small spacecraft wreckage in the corner—half of it already consumed and assimilated by the crystal, the other half retaining its peculiar, smooth black material, but now veined with gray. This was the vessel, the coffin that brought the scourge here.
His gaze finally returned to the constantly shifting crystal.
At that moment, the dark core of the crystal seemed to... "focus." An indescribable feeling of being watched by a supreme consciousness instantly descended upon the three of them!
The distorted voice from Director Vance ceased abruptly.
Then, a clearer, colder, utterly emotionless voice, yet carrying an irresistible allure and pressure, sounded directly in their minds! It didn't come through their auditory organs, but acted directly on their consciousness!
**"You... have returned."**
The voice's target was Kael.
**"The previous samples... were flawed... could not withstand... the initial embrace."**
Memory fragments stung Kael again—his transformed comrades.
**"But you... are different. You resisted... you departed... you were... marked."**
**"Now... you bring... new samples... stronger... more... interesting..."**
The consciousness swept over Rex's heavy armor and Lia's synthetic structure.
**"Join... evolution... shed carbon fragility... silicon limitations... become... a higher existence... eternal... unified..."**
Along with this direct mental imposition, an immensely powerful transformative energy field erupted from the crystal, surging towards the three like an invisible tide!
The gray-white light intensified dramatically. The surrounding crystalline matrix writhed frenziedly, emitting excited rustling sounds! New, sharp crystals sprouted rapidly from the walls and floor, like living thorns, twisting and stabbing towards them!
"Resist it! Mentally resist it!" Kael roared, his powerful will forcefully fighting against the temptation and whispers invading his mind. His high-frequency combat blade snapped out again, slashing at the incoming crystalline thorns!
Rex let out a furious roar. His combat instincts and simpler thought processes granted him some immunity to the mental allure. His blaster roared once more, shattering large swathes of the growing crystals! "Shut up! You damned rock!"
Lia was in the worst state. As a being highly dependent on data processing, the direct mental invasion hit her the hardest. The data streams in her eyes descended into utter chaos. Her body stiffened, her face contorted in extreme pain and struggle, light flickering wildly beneath her synthetic skin. "...Error... logic conflict... cannot parse... forced directive..." she moaned intermittently.
"Lia!" Kael tried to move towards her while fending off the attacks.
In the center of the lab, the Pandora Stone's form shifted faster and faster, its glow growing brighter. The remnants of Director Vance's body abruptly raised an arm, pointing at them, the distorted voice from his mouth turning into a shriek:
**"Rejection... is imperfection... imperfection... must be... purified!"**
More crystalline aggregates began to "grow" from the surrounding matrix. Their forms were more ferocious than those in the corridors, faster, with powerful energy light flowing across their surfaces!
The heart of the laboratory was no longer the end of an investigation; it had become a living nightmare nest, actively launching its assault