A dawn with no color. The air hummed in metallic tremors.
Sky Charge: 86% → 93%
Grav Spike: 71% → 78% (Stress)
The beacon's voice cracked:
> "The threads are pulled from both ends... Either we rejoin as one, or unravel like a dead spider."
---
He scaled the central spire. Memory-Sight pulsed in 0.3s flashes. Curved halos coiled around the cloud.
He picked the widest arc—nailed three green Memory-β crystals along its current.
Goal: transform the lightning strike into a narrative channel—to discharge power as stories, not as raw flash.
---
From below, a seismic howl.
The Grav-Spike fractured the crystal bed. A black stone vortex climbed the shaft—a solid smoke spiral.
Real gravity: 3.1g around the beacon.
The stone-snail buckled. Its shell cracked.
---
He summoned the Bolt-Drake from Spire #2.
The green shimmer along its spine devoured ambient chaos.
He threaded its tail with Pulse-Thread—lowered it into the shaft.
Circuit completed:
Lightning enters via spires → nourishes the drake.
Drake discharges clean power into Grav-Spike → burns weight-impurities.
---
The crystals dissolved—one by one, each spilling a condensed tale:
The snail's rescue
The Sprite's laughter
The night of crystal-fear
The lightning saw the stories. Its charge scattered into seven thinner arcs, redirected into every spire.
Sky Charge stabilized at 97%—maximum safe threshold.
---
Five points ignited in the stormcloud. The arcs converged into a glowing halo above.
The lightning coiled—a descending spiral.
> Beacon-0 engaged Auto-Safety.
Each spire absorbed 4,500 QP, but unanchored chaos leaked in violet hues.
The drake ballooned—on the verge of rupture.
---
If the Spike held its weight, it would rebound. If the drake remained unvented, it would burst.
He triggered Grav-Rush inside himself.
Planted his weight in the Spike for 2 seconds.
4g—on his body alone.
At the same time, he pulled a surge from the drake, cooling it.
A loop formed: Blood ↔ Gravity ↔ Lightning
---
Inside him, the Soul-Seed rose to 85%.
The Halo-Eye morphed—a vertical slit, widening by will.
> (⧼ Spirit Radiance – Early I: STABILIZED ⧽) Passive Bonus: +12% Precision on Past-Trace Vision Drain: 0.15 QP/min
---
He injected 1,000 QP from the lightning surge into the crystal stratum below the Spike.
A new growth bloomed: the Tongue of Submission.
It sang a subsonic hymn, audible only to bones.
Spike resonance tuned to 1 Hz. Earth would not pull again.
---
Five minutes passed.
Sky Charge dropped to 12%.
The drake shrank—now wrist-sized, coiled around his arm like a living band of light.
For the first time, the beacon sang dual-tones: Sky and Soil.
Chaos fell to 0.4%.
---
Total stored energy post-storm: ≈ 40,000 QP
Stable Output: 50 QP/min (Heat + Electric)
Chaos Burn Rate: 0.3%/h
All spires: >70% integrity
Grav-Spike: 55% capacity, ready for tunnel expansions.
Soul-Seed: 85%, Halo-Eye economic.
---
As the glass cooled into deep hues, the Halo-Eye flickered—
A green vision: deep within the planet, a root-tree of unknown element.
Its veins spanned like a colossal spider's web.
He recognized it—origin of Elemental Harmony.
> "The season of sparks is sealed. But one lightning still clings beneath my skin— a light meant not for the sky… but for the deep."
---