Leo poured more of himself into it. He could feel the drain, a deep, aching hollow forming in his core. It was like trying to fill a bottomless pit with a teaspoon. But the vortex was responding. Its edges were becoming defined, less like a storm and more like a contained, swirling sphere.“Field stability at 40% and holding,” Cora announced, a note of hope in her voice. “Containment looks possible!”Then, the Vortex fought back.It wasn’t conscious. It was instinctual, like a wounded animal lashing out. The chaotic energy, forced into a shape, rebelled.A massive, concentrated bolt of pure erasure, ten times thicker than any before, screamed out of the vortex. It didn’t go wild. It lanced straight down the path of the containment beam, following it back to its source.To the projector.“INCOMING!” Roric roared.The bolt hit the projector dead center.There was no explosion. The Aetherius device, the crystalline lattice, the reinforced tripod—all of it simply ceased to exist in a bli

“I ask you to use it to ensure you have a future to pass it on to!” Orin shot back, his composure cracking. “The Ironblood’s Unyielding Earth! The Sylvan’s Unbreaking Root! The Phoenix’s Eternal Flame! The Aetherius’s Unchanging Code! And…” he looked at Valeria, “The Kaelen Starseeker’s… Unfaltering Beacon.”Valeria straightened. “Our art is lost. Broken with our house.”“Your nephew carries a refined heart of alien power,” Orin said, his eyes locking on Leo. “He is a new pillar. A fifth element. The Breach-Borne Anchor. His energy can interface with the Tide. The other four pillars can provide the structure, the pattern, the permanence he lacks.”He was proposing using Leo as a living keystone in a seal made of the world’s greatest powers.“It would kill him,” Cora said from the doorway, where she’d been silently observing. Her voice was cold. “Channeling that much refined clan energy, through his unique core, to confront an erasing void? His body would be the focal point. It would

Leo closed his eyes. He remembered Valeria's words. You must become your own north star.He didn't think about the Tide. He thought about the feel of the stone under his feet. The memory of his mother's laugh. The solid weight of his own fists. The steady, stubborn beat of his Breach-Heart.I am here, he thought. This is my ground.He felt a tug. The four Pillars were turning their focus to him. Their colossal energies, still separate, began to flow along the glowing cables of the star, converging on the central point.On him.The pain was instantaneous and beyond description.It was not one pain, but four. His skin tried to petrify into iron. His bones yearned to sprout into trees. His blood boiled to become fire. His thoughts scrambled to align into cold, perfect logic. He was being pulled in four directions, asked to become four impossible things at once.He screamed, but no sound came out. His body shuddered, on the verge of coming apart.I am here! he screamed in his mind, cling

The Aetherius safe-room felt more like a tomb. Leo sat on the floor, a circle of chalk and salt drawn around him Sylvan rituals for containment. Before him, on a low table, lay the "catalyst."It wasn't a beautiful spirit herb or a glowing beast core. It was a chunk of rock, roughly the size of his fist. It was black, but not a normal black. It was the black of the crystal wall, the black of the Silent Tide's essence, now solidified into a permanent, unchanging state. A piece of Stasis itself. Finn and the Sylvan Weavers had managed to chip it off the very edge of the barrier, where the Tide's null-energy had been frozen mid-erasure. It was the most dangerous substance on Earth, now inert… but brimming with terrible potential.Valeria stood outside the circle, the Starseeker journal open in her hands. "This is insanity, Leo. You are asking to refine your Foundation the core of your being using the crystallized desire of the universe to stop existing. It is the philosophical opposi

The interior was a single, vast space. The walls, floor, and ceiling were the same seamless silver. In the very center of the chamber, floating a few feet above the floor, was a figure.It was humanoid, androgynous, and sculpted from the same mercury substance, but this was different. It had detail. Fine lines that might have been clothing or circuitry traced its form. Its face was smooth, but held a serene, placid expression. Its eyes were closed.This was not a worker or a soldier. This was the Node Administrator.As Leo entered, its eyes opened.They were not pits of hunger or slits of light. They were deep, calm pools of silver, reflecting the entire room and him with perfect clarity.It spoke. Its voice was a gentle chime, like a bell heard from far away, and it spoke directly into his mind."Welcome, Breach-Bearer. Anomaly Leo Kaelen. You have reached Primary Terraforming Node Alpha. Your persistence is noted.""I'm here to turn it off," Leo said, his own voice shockingly loud