Before he saw the Black Rain, he smelled it—the salt of burning ink behind his eyes.
The sky above Beacon-0 fractured into petals of violet chaos. At its center bloomed a white light—pure, merciless. The petals bled drop by drop, and every bead of liquid crackled with a pulse, falling like soft nails through iron-gray air.
(⌁ 1.8% Chaos ⌁)
---
A drop struck Sub-Mast #3.
Not a splash. A snap. Like molten sugar cracking against cold steel. The reading flickered:
Chaos-Residue (Liquid) ▸ Purity 97% Warning: Bone conduits corrosive in 11s
He rerouted energy to heat the bone—fought back with thermal pulses. The vertebra lasted three seconds. Then it folded inward, melting like candlewax beneath electric acid.
(⌁ 2.3% Chaos ⌁)
---
Three Echo-Wraiths breached the mist: silver ruptures of jellylight, whispering in frames of broken imagery.
> "Light is rot... Memories drowning! Give us a tale—we save your storm!"
His empathy-thread sparked. Soul-Seed at 60% glimmered, catching their hunger like wind catching a web.
He offered them story. A memory. Not of war. Not of fear. But kindness.
The memory of saving the rock-snail during the first storm.
He sealed it in a γ-Memory Crystal, pressed it into the slick of one Wraith's being. It shuddered, unfurled a wing of woven light across the mast. The pact was sealed.
(⌁ 1.6% Chaos ⌁)
---
He traced two pulse-threads from the crown of each mast, forming a six-armed star above Beacon-0. The Wraiths danced between beams, casting spectral veils infused with memories:
The steam salamander's rescue.
The Sprite's laugh.
A faded memory: a mother's hand during a thunderstorm.
Each rain-drop hit the veils, hissed into ash, and spiraled down toward the Gravity-Spike below.
---
Ten minutes later, a slanted bolt tore a veil—the one formed by the mother's memory. Weak, incomplete. The sky howled.
He drew blood from his shoulder. Fog-blood coiled outward in a pink thread, binding the failing veil. He anchored it with a living fear: the first night in the Stillness Crystal.
The veil held. For now.
(⌁ 1.2% Chaos ⌁)
---
Rain thinned. Now ash. Now whispers.
The Echo-Wraiths lined the sky like inverted tongues of fire. When a drop fell, they cast it into a crystal and lobbed it toward him. Beacon-0's core devoured them all.
Energy Output: 26 QP/min
Chaos: 0.9%
---
But the earth had become mud, thick with gravity-surge. Every step sucked. Every pulse a scream.
> [Local Weight Surge: +12%] [Blood-Pulse unable to adapt]
His ribs cracked. A streak of gray spilled from his side. A sign: Micro-Flesh Trial incoming.
---
The Wraiths finished their work in silence. One by one, they folded their luminous veils into crystals and bowed. In return, they showed him a vision:
A lake at dawn. A hex-star in the water. A place of future remembrance.
---
Drizzle now. Not rain.
But the ground didn't believe it was ground anymore. Just a black mirror. And his cracked reflection asked if it could ever be whole.
> [Micro-Flesh Trial will trigger automatically in 19h 42m] [Reinforce bio-bones or risk collapse]
He stared at the Grav-Core-β. Soon, it must become his spine.
"Every drop the earth swallowed today," he whispered, "she'll return tomorrow as stone… Can bones of mist bear the weight of even one?"