The crater in the street was more than a warning. It was a signature. A beacon of defiance that would draw exactly the wrong kind of attention.
In the cramped room, the silence was heavy with understanding. The polite facade was gone. They had graduated from "anomaly" to "active threat."
"We have minutes, not hours," Nyx stated, his voice like chilled steel. "They will not send more guards. They will send a scalpel, not a hammer. An Authority-Class Hunter. A Stalker."
"The Shattered District," Fern said, the words final. "Its chaotic mana field is the only cloak thick enough to obscure a Sovereign's resonance. The Guild fears it. The Hunters' tracking protocols may fail in the dissonance."
Aeliana looked at Sai Ji, her fear for him warring with her understanding of necessity. "It's a den of monsters and mad magic."
"Then we'll fit right in," Sai Ji replied, tucking Sol securely against his chest. The egg pulsed warmly, as if in agreement. "Move."
They became ghosts in Frostfall's dying night. Over rooftops slick with frost, through alleys that smelled of rot and forgotten magic, they fled east. The city's orderly mana grid grew faint, then frayed, then shattered entirely as they crossed the invisible boundary.
The Shattered District didn't look destroyed. It looked wounded. Streets were canyons of tilted, glowing cobblestone. Buildings were frozen in mid-collapse, sheathed in crystalline growths that pulsed with violet light. The air itself vibrated with a chaotic hum, a chorus of a hundred broken leylines singing out of tune. It was a place where the rules had cracked.
They took refuge in the husk of a collapsed watchtower, its stones fused into glassy, surreal shapes. The chaotic mana washed over them, and Sai Ji felt the ever-present pressure of being watched—the Mark, the system's gaze—fuzz and static, like a signal jammed by interference.
"For now," Sal Vera murmured in his mind, "we are static in the noise. But they will send a signal strong enough to punch through."
They didn't have to wait long.
The dissonant hum of the district… changed. A single, pure, predatory frequency cut through it, clean and sharp as a scalpel. It approached with terrifying, silent speed, not navigating the ruins but moving in a straight, uncompromising line toward their tower.
Fern, from his perch, went rigid. "One signature. Authority-Class. Stalker variant. It has found us despite the interference."
A figure resolved from the gloom at the clearing's edge. It was humanoid, clad in armor of matte grey alloy that seemed to absorb the sickly light. No helmet revealed a face of sharp, ageless planes, skin pale as moonstone, and eyes that burned with a calm, amber light. It carried no visible weapons. It was a weapon.
Its synthetic voice projected across the space, devoid of inflection. "Entity: Sai Ji. Primordial Asset: Designation Sol. Directive: Secure for system reconciliation. You will comply."
Sai Ji stepped onto the broken ledge, the chaotic winds tugging at his clothes. "Your last invitation was declined. The answer hasn't changed."
The Stalker's amber eyes flickered, processing. "Acknowledged. Directive Two: Lethal Retrieval authorized. Host termination permitted. Asset salvage prioritized."
It moved.
There was no blur, no dramatic dash. It repositioned. One moment it was forty yards away; the next, it was twenty, having covered the distance in a single, impossible frame of motion that left afterimages on the retina. It was the universe skipping a beat.
Sai Ji's Sovereign instincts screamed a warning. This was different from the imposing, administrative Hunters. This was a purpose-built killer.
The Stalker's hand flicked. A spear of crystallized null-energy, humming with a sound that made teeth ache, manifested already in flight. But it wasn't aimed at Sai Ji's heart or head.
It was aimed, with surgical precision, at the Primordial egg clutched to his chest.
A calculated strike. Destroy the bond by destroying the other half.
Time didn't slow. Sai Ji's body reacted with a speed that wasn't his own, fueled by panic and a surging, protective rage. He twisted, putting his own body between the projectile and Sol, his free hand coming up as a silver sheen of will hardened the air.
The null-spear struck his conjured defense.
And pierced it like paper.
The Stalker's weapon was designed to unravel magic, to negate authority. Sai Ji's raw, unformed power was barely an obstacle.
No—!
In the fraction of a second before impact, a new heat blossomed against Sai Ji's sternum—not his own. It was a deep, furious, primordial heat from within Sol.
CRACK.
The sound was not loud, but it vibrated in the bones, in the ley lines beneath their feet. A flash of light, not the district's sickly violet, but a pure, annihilating gold, erupted from the egg.
The null-spear struck the corona of golden light.
And shattered.
The crystalline weapon exploded into harmless motes of dissolving energy. The shockwave of the impact, however, sent the Stalker skidding backward several feet, its first genuine expression—a flicker of systemic shock—registering on its impassive face.
The light receded, coiling back around the egg. But the damage was done. A prominent, glowing fracture now traced a jagged line across Sol's shell. The pulse within was no longer a gentle rhythm; it was a thrum, deep and powerful, like the heartbeat of a volcano.
The Stalker recovered instantly, its amber eyes analyzing, recalculating. "Asset exhibits unpredicted defensive evolution. Threat reassessment: Host elimination critical. Engaging full combat protocols."
Twin blades, curved and wickedly sharp, shimmered into existence in its hands. They weren't metal; they were solidified spatial fractures, edges that promised not cuts, but erasure.
Sal Vera's voice was a razor in his mind. "The shell is critically compromised! The attack has triggered a forced evolution! My King, you must end this NOW! The next surge of Primordial energy will be a beacon nothing can ignore!"
The Stalker blurred again, not in a straight line now, but in a series of discontinuous teleports, closing the final distance.
Sai Ji looked from the cracked, glowing shell against his heart to the advancing instrument of death. The fear, the calculation, the weariness—it all burned away in a cold, clear furnace of rage.
He carefully tucked the cracking egg inside his coat, against the furious drum of his own heart. The warmth of Sol seeped into him, not just heat, but a raw, untamed power that resonated with the deep, sleeping thing inside himself.
"You," Sai Ji said, his voice dropping into a register that stilled the chaotic winds and made the glowing stones underfoot darken. "You should have stuck with paperwork."
He didn't raise his hands. He didn't summon a spell. He simply unclenched.
The silver energy that erupted wasn't a wave or a blast. It was the environment itself accepting a new law. The very air in the clearing between them turned solid and heavy—not like his gravity well, but like consequence. The Stalker, mid-teleport, was wrenched violently back into full visibility, its form straining against the sudden, absolute pressure.
The silver light bled from Sai Ji's eyes, casting long, stark shadows. This was no longer a fragment, no longer a hesitant imitation. This was a sliver of true Sovereignty, awakened by threat to what was his.
The real fight, against the real enemy, had just begun.