The emergency signal reached the capital before the skimmer broke the cloud line.
Seven spires flared at once.
In the central chamber beneath Aurelin, the Codices reacted violently—pages flipping on their own, sigils rewriting themselves as foreign data forced its way into the system.
Arion was on his feet before the alarm finished sounding.
"That's not a rift signature," Theal said, fingers already dancing through layered projections. "It's… structured. Deliberate."
Keal's gauntlet clenched. "Source?"
"Southern basin. Academy patrol sector," Jun replied, voice tight.
Mira's expression hardened. "That's a training zone."
Asha closed her eyes.
Then gasped.
"Something is screaming," she whispered. "Not in pain. In rejection."
The image stabilized.
The basin burned white.
Students were running—some wounded, some dragging others. Resonance flashes erupted as beasts surged, collapsing under fire only to reform, their cores unstable, violent.
And at the center—
A figure.
Still.
Untouched.
Arion felt it before he understood it.
That pressure.
That wrongness.
"That Resonance…" he said slowly. "It doesn't belong here."
Theal nodded, face pale. "Because it isn't drawing from the environment. It's imposing itself on it."
The screen shifted.
The skimmer came into view—damaged, smoking, barely holding together as it rose.
Then something struck it from below.
The feed jolted violently.
"Brace!" Darian Holt shouted over the channel.
A beast—half-formed, its body tearing itself apart just to move—latched onto the hull. A third-year striker leapt, blade glowing, severing it midair.
The core detonated.
The shockwave ripped through the skimmer.
Metal screamed.
A hand hit the floor.
Blood sprayed across the cabin wall.
Darian didn't even scream.
He bit down, grabbed the stump, and slammed a Resonance seal over it with his remaining hand, teeth bared in silent agony.
"Status?" Jun demanded.
"We're breached," Darian growled. "Multiple casualties."
A student sobbed. "Instructor—Liria's down!"
The camera swung.
Liria lay crumpled near the open ramp, her chest pierced clean through. Her eyes were open, unfocused. Blood pooled beneath her, dark against the metal.
She twitched once.
Then stilled.
The chamber went silent.
Mira inhaled sharply.
"No," she said. "No—she's fourth year. She knows how to—"
"She took a direct core rupture," Maren's voice came through, breaking. "There was nothing left to stabilize."
Arion's fists shook.
Keal spoke, low and lethal. "Deploy reinforcements. Now."
Theal's projections multiplied. "Already triangulating the beacon. It's broadcasting through a medium we don't fully understand."
"Meaning?" Asha asked.
"Meaning," Theal said grimly, "it's not just calling for troops. It's communicating with something… deeper."
The screen flickered again.
The humanoid figure raised its head.
Its gaze aligned directly with the Codices.
With the Seven.
Arion felt the contact like a knife sliding between his ribs.
The figure spoke.
"Your world resists because it remembers."
The signal cut.
Silence followed.