[Opening Panel — Black Page]
Total darkness.
No city.
No sound.
Then—
A single breath.
Not Ryuto's.
Someone else's.
[Flashback Fragment — Unknown Time]
Ancient underground chamber.
Stone walls carved with spiral sigils.
The air is thick.
Not metaphorically.
Physically thick.
Pressure heavy enough to make lungs strain.
At the center—
A ritual circle carved into black stone.
Inside the circle—
A human woman.
Pregnant.
Restrained.
Eyes terrified.
Above her—
Five Válkrith elders standing in formation.
Blood dripping from their palms onto the sigil.
[Narration Box]
Null Genesis was never meant to create life.
It was meant to rewrite it.
The sigil glows.
Air in the chamber begins to rotate.
Not wind.
Compression.
The elders chant.
Their voices distort as pressure builds.
They are not summoning a demon.
They are attempting to force atmosphere itself into a living vessel.
Because air is everywhere.
Meaning—
If something can control it…
It can control everything.
One elder speaks:
"Bind the Doll before birth."
Another responds:
"Fuse essence to the core."
They are not creating a Válkrith.
They are embedding a Doll directly into a forming heart.
Unnatural.
Forbidden.
Dolls are meant to manifest after first kill.
Not before first breath.
The pregnant woman screams.
Blood vessels burst in her eyes.
The sigil carves itself into her abdomen.
Not with blade.
With pressure.
Internal compression tearing flesh open from within.
No incision.
Just forced rupture.
The chamber begins to crack.
One elder panics.
"Stability failing!"
Because the ritual isn't balancing.
The atmospheric pressure being drawn inward isn't dispersing.
It's concentrating.
The fetus inside—
Absorbing it.
Instead of being destroyed by pressure—
It's adapting.
The chanting stops.
One elder whispers:
"…It's regulating."
The fetus isn't rejecting the Doll.
It's synchronizing.
The sigil changes shape.
Incomplete.
Different.
Sudden collapse.
The ritual circle explodes outward.
Stone shatters.
Two elders are crushed instantly—
Their bodies implode from rapid decompression.
Blood splashes upward, suspended mid-air.
One final scream.
Then—
Silence.
[Flashback Cuts Abruptly]
Ryuto jolts awake on a rooftop.
Breathing slightly heavier than normal.
That wasn't a dream.
It was memory.
Not visual memory.
Pressure memory.
His body reacting to past atmospheric conditions.
His sigil pulses faintly.
[Mechanic Connection]
The reason Ryuto can regulate pressure differently—
Is because his body was exposed to extreme atmospheric compression before birth.
His lungs, blood vessels, and cellular membranes adapted during formation.
Normal Válkrith manipulate essence.
Ryuto manipulates pressure because he was created inside a pressure collapse event.
His Doll did not manifest.
It fused at cellular level.
That's why he doesn't "summon" Kazeon.
He is Kazeon.
[Present Time — Street Level]
A low-tier Válkrith senses him nearby.
Starts sweating.
Not from fear.
From pressure shift.
"Why does it feel like the sky is lowering?"
Ryuto walks past without looking.
The air subtly tightens around that Válkrith's skull.
Tiny nosebleed begins.
Unintentional.
His control isn't perfect yet.
[Ashen Crown Chamber]
One surviving elder from the ritual sits in shadow.
Older now.
Scar across face from decompression blast.
He watches through surveillance.
Whispers:
"…It stabilized."
Another voice:
"Shall we terminate him?"
The elder replies:
"No."
"Observe."
"If he reaches Phase Two… we will know."
[Final Page — Rooftop, Night]
Ryuto stands alone again.
Wind spiraling upward.
He presses two fingers against his chest.
The sigil glows faintly brighter than before.
Not complete.
But reacting.
He whispers—
"…I remember pressure."
Behind him—
The storm-serpent silhouette appears clearer than ever.
Hollow eyes watching.
This time—
It does not disappear immediately.
It breathes.
Clouds spiral inward.
Then—
Fade to black.
AERION
End Chapter 3.