The eighth-generation vessel's chest trembles violently amid the ruins, its liquid mercury umbilical cord linked to the alchemical array hub, continuously consuming the remaining shards of Alison's pocket watch and mechanical heart. Black blood runes spread from beneath the skin, while the pupils flicker alternately between scarlet and time-blue light, as if vying for dominance.
"Her residual consciousness is resisting fusion..." Sebastian's voice emanates from the mercury armor, the remaining gemstone left eye scanning the new host's physiological data in red light. "We must accelerate core maturation, or the Time Administration will seize the carrier first."
Suddenly, the vessel's fingers begin to twitch autonomously, tracing the coordinate runes of Alison's time travels in the air. The mercury umbilical cord contracts abruptly, injecting array hub energy into her spine—her bones emit the clicking of alchemical transformation, and dark patterns identical to the Lancaster family mask emerge within her skull.
"No! I won't..." the vessel roars, its voice a mix of Alison's memory fragments and Sebastian's mechanical intonation. Her pupils flare with blue light, forcefully tearing open the breastplate and stabbing a scalpel toward the immature core. "I will end this curse!"
The mercury armor's restraints tighten abruptly, and Sebastian's laughter swirls with time dust. "The laws of vessel vessel tribulation cannot be defied. Since you inherited Alison's heart, you must fulfill her uncompleted mission—revenge, fusion, and the rebirth of a new carrier."
In her struggle, the vessel triggers the time device within the breastplate, and a miniature rift splits the ruin's floor. Her consciousness is dragged into a mirrored corridor of multi-dimensional time: Alison burning the Lancaster family crest in a plague village, confronting Sebastian in an alchemical lab, the ultimate choice to self-destruct the core in the void... All memories pierce her nerves like blades.
"These aren't my experiences!" She roars, slicing through the mercury umbilical cord with a scalpel. The array hub energy rebounds, causing core overload. Blue and red lights explode in her chest, forming a chaotic time vortex—the vessel suddenly vanishes, and the wail of future New York police sirens echoes from the other side of the rift.
On the streets of modern New York, a time vortex rips open between skyscrapers. The eighth-generation vessel crashes onto a crime scene cordoned by police, whose holographic screens display her wanted portrait: "Time Traitor, Code ST-08, carrying an unstable core." Before she can steady herself, particle cannons fire from all directions.
"Surrender the core! The Time Administration executes Clearance Order No. 7!" The commander's voice rings out from a hovering battle tank, their face a younger version of the clone grandmother, with a gemstone left eye glowing the same red as Sebastian's.
The vessel activates the alchemical device hidden in her breastplate, and mercury corrodes the ground to form a defensive barrier. She discovers dark Lancaster family crest patterns beneath the police uniforms—the Time Administration has long been infiltrated by the family. "You are the traitors," she snarls, triggering a random jump, but the immature core causes coordinate chaos, hurling her into a 1930s Chicago gang shootout.
Under the neon lights of a Chicago speakeasy, the vessel curls up in a pool of blood. A gang leader approaches her core with a gilded dagger, only to have his arm burned by the time-blue light bursting from her pupils. "A Lancaster vessel... will fetch a high price." The leader rips open her breastplate and finds Alison's mechanical heart shard embedded in the core.
The vessel suddenly unleashes Alison's memory skills: the clicking of pocket watch gears rings in her mind, allowing her to precisely predict the dagger's trajectory and counter with a scalpel to the leader's throat. "You don't know the cost," she whispers as mercury seeps into the opponent's veins through the wound, corroding alchemical pact runes.
Gang members' bodies dissolve in mercury, and the vessel finds a yellowed photo in the ruins—inside a medieval alchemical lab, Sebastian's ancestor signs a blood pact with the Time Administration's founder, the same rune array hub as on her breastplate visible in the background.
"Sebastian... has been weaving this web from the start." She clenches the scalpel as the core suddenly receives a coordinate pulse—Sebastian is tracking via mercury traces, only 3 time jumps away.
A time rift tears open again, revealing Sebastian's new armor. His gemstone left eye scans her breastplate in red light. "You inherited too many of Alison's weaknesses. Surrender the core and let me complete the maturation ritual."
The vessel stabs Alison's heart shard into her own core, blue light and mechanical gear sounds surging. "I choose my own mission." The rift collapses in the confrontation, pulling both into a time turbulence...