The clock was ticking. Twenty-two days left.
Every tick of the clock in the archive felt like pain Jonah's head. While Seraph and Draven were out in the city hunting a ghost, he and Vanessa were here, chasing a ghost of their own.
They were trapped.
"It's of no use," Vanessa said, as she moved back from the holographic console. She ran her hands through her hair, her usual, neat bun now messy. "I've run the simulation a hundred and seventeen times. Every single time, the result is the same."
She pointed to the red warning that came up on the screen:
[CRITICAL CORE INSTABILITY].
"The essences are just too different," she explained. "The Void-Jelly, the Solar Moth, the Phase Spider... they're like oil, fire, and water. They refuse to mix. We're missing a key ingredient. A binder. An anchor. Something powerful enough to force them together and hold them in place."
