The Graveyard Nexus convulsed, its void a fractured abyss of molten slabs, frozen oceans, and starry skies colliding under the flicker of dying stars. Claire de Leon, N0-12, knelt on a bubbling rock shard, her reinforced heels sinking into the searing surface, the heat gnawing at her gothic tactical dress. The air was a choking mix of sour metal and ozone, the Veil's mournful dirge now a deafening scream that shredded her nerves. Her HUD blazed red: Veil stability: 80%. Anomaly surge: 50%. Proximity: 300 meters. The Shatterveil Harbinger loomed, its presence a death knell for Multiverse Epsilon-9.
Ultima trembled in her hands, its gold runes flickering as the aetheric capacitors in her suit recharged from the Nexus's aetheric pools. Her silver-white hair, tied with a black ribbon, matted against her sweat-drenched face, while her icy blue eyes burned with focus through the arcane scope. She'd defied odds before—sniping an Echo-Class anomaly mid-phase in Gamma-3, holding a rift for her team, and rescuing N0-Beta Saria in Delta-7. This Primal-Class fight would define her legacy.
"No more running," she whispered, her soft-spoken voice a steel thread in the chaos.
Her Crazy Vision erupted, probabilities crashing: tendrils piercing her chest, space folding into a prison, her suit's runes shattering under hax corruption. She filtered the storm, her Void Walker training cutting through, the aetheric pools sharpening her senses. The Harbinger's core—cracked and leaking—was her target, but its tendrils had evolved into a relentless swarm.
The Harbinger surged, a nightmare of fractured light and shadow, its void tentacles thick with aetheric fire eyes, its core pulsing like a dying star gone rogue. Space warped into overlapping shards, forcing Claire to fight across multiple planes. Her HUD screamed: Spatial anomaly critical. Veil collapse imminent.
"Site-01, this is it," she barked into her comms, static crackling like a breaking world.
"Claire, no margin left," N0-Gamma Toren's voice snapped, tense and raw, echoing Miller's desperation in The Expanse. "Breach the core or Epsilon-9 falls. Give it everything."
"Everything's all I've got," she replied, her tone dry but resolute, mirroring Darrow's defiance in Red Rising. "Tell Izanami I fought to the end."
She sprinted across the molten slab, its surface popping and hissing, and leapt onto a ruined cathedral shard, its spires twisted into non-Euclidean angles, glowing with aetheric static. Tendrils followed, tearing through the void, their eyes locking onto her. Her Crazy Vision warned—six tendrils, three planes, space folding in two seconds—and she triggered her time stop. Five seconds of silence—the dirge stopped, tendrils froze, the void stilled. She vaulted to a spire's peak, aiming Ultima at the core as time snapped back. Her HUD chimed: Time stop cooldown: 4 minutes, 58 seconds.
The tendrils struck, shattering the spires, stone raining down. Claire fired, a resizing lance hitting the core, fractured light exploding outward. The Harbinger shrieked, a cognitohazardous pulse slamming her mind—visions of her Gamma-3 team aging to dust, Saria's collapse, the Veil dissolving into the nih???? silence. Her emotional core buckled, tears streaming, but she growled, her voice a soft menace like the Shrike's in Hyperion, "You don't break me."
The core splintered, but the Harbinger fought back, tendrils lashing faster, hax corruption intensifying. A pulse hit her suit, the aetheric runes flaring to deflect it, integrity dropping to 60%. The purple lining frayed, golden crosses dimming, and a tendril grazed her side, tearing the corset bodice. Blood welled, staining the black fabric, but Claire's Void Walker conditioning—honed in Gamma-3's rift—kept her upright. She'd endured worse, sniping through pain to save her team.
She spotted a containment orb on a starry sky shard, its surface dripping with aetheric residue. The Foundation's Theta-3 fallout, sealed as Haven's End, had birthed the Withered Stalker, its aetheric pools now a weapon against the Harbinger—an Outerverse fragment festering in the Nexus. She leapt, heels slipping on the molten rock, and landed on the starry shard, slamming Ultima's stock into the orb. The runes synced, her HUD spiking: Weapon charge: 250%. Risk of overload: 90%. Suit integrity: 50%.
"This ends now," she murmured, aiming at the core. Tendrils converged, their aetheric fire eyes blazing, but she fired. The shot was a blazing supernova, tearing through the void, shattering the core's hax barriers. The Harbinger's shriek was a sonic wave, its core exploding into fractured light, tendrils dissolving into ash as the Nexus quaked
The overload hit hard. Ultima's barrel glowed red, runes burning out, her HUD blaring: Weapon critical. Cooling required: 3 minutes. Suit integrity: 0%. Hax immunity lost. A final hax pulse warped her perception—colors bled, sounds distorted, scars burned as if fresh. Claire collapsed, blood pooling, her vision fading. Her HUD flickered: Veil stability: 85%. Anomaly contained.
She lay still, Ultima beside her, rosary chain stained red. The Nexus hummed, the Veil's dirge softening to a whisper. A faint smile touched her lips—she'd contained a Primal-Class, saved Epsilon-9, maybe the Multiverse. Her icy blue eyes closed, the void's cold embracing her. The cost was steep, but she'd bought time.