The Graveyard Nexus thrummed with a restless energy, its void a chaotic dance of shattered Universes—frozen oceans, molten slabs, and starry skies drifting in the dim glow of dying stars. Claire de Leon, N0-12, crouched on a shard of icy rock, her reinforced heels gripping the frost-crusted surface, the sour tang of the air stinging her lungs. The Veil's mournful dirge had deepened into a guttural growl, its 40% anomaly surge shaking the ground. Her HUD pulsed red: Veil stability: 86%. Anomaly surge: 45%. Proximity: 800 meters. The Shatterveil Harbinger was circling back, its presence a weight that warped the Nexus
Claire steadied Ultima, her aetheric sniper rifle, its gold runes flickering as the aetheric capacitors in her gothic tactical dress recharged from the Nexus's aetheric pools. Her silver-white hair, tied with a black ribbon, whipped in the void's faint current, while her icy blue eyes scanned through the arcane scope. She'd survived worse—sniping an Echo-Class anomaly mid-phase in Gamma-3, holding a rift open for her team, and rescuing N0-Beta Saria from a collapse in Delta-7. But this Primal-Class beast tested her limits.
"Stay sharp," she muttered, her soft-spoken voice a calm anchor, cutting the void's tension.
Her Crazy Vision flared, probabilities cascading: tendrils striking from three sides, space folding into a trap, her shot deflected by a non-Euclidean shard. She filtered the chaos, her Void Walker training honing her focus, the aetheric pools amplifying her perception. The Harbinger's core—cracked from her last shot—was the key, but its tendrils were adapting, growing thicker with each strike.
The Nexus around her was a graveyard of failures—shattered containment orbs, skeletal remains glowing with aetheric static, echoes of the Foundation's Theta-3 disaster, now sealed as Haven's End. That experiment, meant to stabilize a Veil rift, had birthed the Withered Stalker, a precursor to anomalies like the Harbinger. Claire had read the redacted logs: the rift's aetheric residue had seeped into the Nexus, fueling its anomalies, a ticking bomb the Foundation couldn't fully contain.
A pulse rocked the void, the air warping as the Harbinger surged closer. Claire's HUD screamed: Proximity: 600 meters. She summoned Shadow Pulse, its matte-black frame unfolding with a hum of aetheric thrusters, scarred from her Delta-7 escape. She slid inside, the interior's runes casting a soft glow, and accelerated toward a frozen ocean shard, its surface rippling with aetheric energy. Debris flew past—broken orbs, a skeletal hand clutching a melted stabilizer—remnants of Theta-3's fallout.
Her Crazy Vision warned—tendril, right, space folding in four seconds, dodge left—and she swerved, Shadow Pulse skidding as a void limb slashed overhead, its aetheric fire eye glaring. She leapt out, resizing the vehicle to pocket size, and dropped as the tendril smashed the ice behind her, shards exploding upward. Claire fired, a resizing bullet piercing the tendril's eye at light speed, its hax defenses ignored. It burst, spraying fractured light, but the Harbinger's cognitohazardous pulse hit, flooding her mind with despair—her team aging in Gamma-3, Saria's screams in Delta-7. Her suit's aetheric runes (70% hax immunity) flared, the capacitors dampening the visions, her emotional core steadying.
The core pulsed brighter, space fracturing into overlapping shards. Claire rolled to a new slab—a piece of starry sky, its edges dripping aetheric static—and fired three quick shots, each bullet resizing to sever tendrils. Ash scattered, but the Harbinger regrew them, its eyes multiplying, a sign of its Primal-Class evolution. Her HUD showed: Time stop cooldown: 3 minutes, 12 seconds. The 5-minute cooldown, tied to her suit's aetheric recharge from Nexus pools, kept her in the fight.
She tapped her comms, static crackling. "N0-12 to Site-01—Harbinger's fracturing space. Core's exposed but regenerating. Need options."
"Wearing it down's a luxury I don't have," she retorted, her tone dry but sharp. "Gonna need more than that."
"Use the aetheric pools," Toren urged. "They're unstable—could amplify your shot."
Claire spotted a containment orb on a moon shard, its surface pulsing with aetheric residue. The Foundation had abandoned these after Theta-3, their experiments fueling the Nexus's chaos. She sprinted, her heels slipping on the starry sky, and vaulted onto the moon shard. A tendril lashed, its eye locking on, and she ducked, firing a resizing shot to sever it. Two more followed, their hax corruption testing her suit's runes, which held at 70% immunity.
She slammed Ultima's stock into the orb, the runes syncing with a hum. Her HUD spiked: Weapon charge: 175%. Risk of overload: 60%. Suit integrity: 95%. The moon shard trembled, aetheric energy surging through her suit. She aimed, the shot roaring through the void, a lance hitting the core. The Harbinger shrieked, its tendrils thrashing, the core cracking wider, fractured light spilling. But the overload strained Ultima's barrel, her HUD warning: Cooling required: 2 minutes.
Claire dodged a tendril, leaping to a molten slab as the moon shard collapsed. The Harbinger retreated, its core dim but alive, tendrils withdrawing into the void. Her HUD chimed: Time stop cooldown: 1 minute, 45 seconds. Veil stability: 84%. She leaned against a skeletal frame, her rosary chain clinking, the sour air burning her throat. The core was vulnerable—overloading it with aetheric pools worked—but the Harbinger was adapting. The hunt was heating up.