They emerged from Gluttony's false Gate in silence.
No fanfare. No clashing symbols of escape. Just the quiet collapse of a realm not meant to exist — a breath released from a throat that never knew how to speak.
The tunnel ahead yawned wide.
Sterile stone met warm metal, lined with alchemic veins that pulsed faintly beneath their feet. The walls radiated not life, but intention — as if something down here wasn't just built, but willed into being.
Edward reached out to steady Alphonse.
"You good?" he asked, voice low.
Alphonse nodded. "Feels like we stepped into a heartbeat."
Aeon stepped past them both.
"No," he said. "You stepped into a design."
They moved deeper, careful.
The structure beneath Central wasn't just a network of corridors. It was a circle. A binding ring. A ritual coiled beneath the capital like a snake around its prey.
Greed met them at a fork where two bridges intersected over a vast chasm.
"Nice of you to show up," he said, arms crossed.
"Nice of you not to die while waiting," Edward replied.
Greed smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"I've seen the central chamber," he said, more serious now. "They're getting ready to light it. Whatever Father's planning… it's close."
"Define 'light it,'" Alphonse said, cautious.
"Every line in this place leads there," Greed muttered. "It's not alchemy anymore. It's religion."
Aeon's expression darkened.
"Or worse—imitation."
As they approached the core, the halls grew stranger.
They passed statues carved from obsidian, each faceless and featureless — placeholders for gods that never were. Between them, golden threads of formula stitched the air itself, glowing softly with silent promises.
"Energy circulates through belief here," Aeon whispered. "This place isn't powered by knowledge. It's powered by obedience."
He touched a wall.
And recoiled.
The Shadow had been here.
Not in form.
But in thought.
Far below, in the lowest ring, Father stood before the unfinished Philosopher's Seal.
He didn't look up.
He didn't need to.
The ritual would work. The calculations were precise. The sacrifices aligned.
He hadn't sensed the Shadow in the lattice.
Because it didn't scream or whisper.
It listened.
Edward, Greed, and Alphonse waited at the mouth of the final corridor.
Aeon stood apart, eyes closed, breathing in the memory of the stone.
"It's feeding on this," he said at last. "Not just the energy. The despair."
Alphonse tilted his head. "The Shadow?"
"Yes," Aeon replied. "It's embedding itself into the ritual. Like rot in a tree."
Edward's eyes narrowed. "Then we cut it out."
"No," Aeon said. "We let it grow."
They all looked at him.
"If we stop the ritual now, the Shadow escapes unseen. But if we let it show itself… I can confront it. Bind it. Understand it."
Greed snorted. "You're letting a bomb go off just so you can talk to the fire?"
Aeon didn't flinch.
"It's not a bomb," he said. "It's a mirror. And it's showing me what I once feared becoming."
In the darkness ahead, the alchemic circle flared to life.
And for the first time since stepping into this world, Aeon felt something stir inside him.
Not anger.
Not power.
A fragment of the truth he severed.