The vortex of time-space turbulence hurls the Vessel and Sebastian into the abyss of the Dimensional Prison. Woven from warped space-time steel and alchemical runes, this prison has each cage pillar flowing with liquid mercury. The iron-masked ancestor's skull hanging in the central cell emits a deep blue core light, resonating with the immature core in the Vessel's chest to form ripples.
"This is the origin of the contract." Sebastian's mercury armor flows between the cages as his gem-left eye scans the runes on the iron mask in red light. "Five hundred years ago, the first ancestors of Winston and Lancaster signed a blood contract here, embedding the time-space core into the skull in exchange for eternal power. Your mission is to restart this contract."
The Vessel's scalpel stabs at the mercury armor but rebounds off the time-space force field of the rune pillars. Blue light bursts from her pupils as she forcefully deciphers the prison's alchemical logic: "The contract requires dual-core resonance... and you, Sebastian, have long lost your own core."
Sebastian's laughter ripples through the mercury: "Who said my core vanished?" He suddenly leaps to the iron-masked ancestor's skull, driving the scalpel into its cavity—an dim time-space core is embedded in the brain matter, the original form of Allison's father's core. "The Vessel's core is just a fragment of power; the real key has always been in the ancestor's skull."
Mercury engulfs the core to strip it away, but the iron mask abruptly animates into an alchemical puppet. Chains shoot from the skull's eye sockets, binding Sebastian's arm. The Vessel seizes the chance to activate a random jump, falling into the mercury lake on the prison's lower level. Liquid mercury forms alchemical mirrors at the lake bottom, reflecting countless imprisoned Lancaster clan members—black blood runes ooze from their ulcerated skin.
" Souls of failed Vessels through the ages are trapped here." Sebastian chases into the lake as his mercury armor splits into dozens of mechanical tentacles, grabbing time-space fragments from the mirrors. "Their existence data will help me fully control the ancestor's core."
Dashing through the mirror maze, the Vessel suddenly spots a familiar reflection—the moment Allison self-destructed her core in the Void Realm, with the final blood words from her grandmother's diary floating in the blue light of her pupils: "Dual-core collapse requires the host's voluntary will; otherwise, the contract persists forever." She realizes Sebastian's plan has a fatal flaw: forcibly seizing the ancestor's core will only continue the curse, not end it.
"You're wrong, Sebastian." She leaps from the mercury lake, scalpel aimed at the core in the skull cavity. "The real key is the will to voluntarily collapse." Mercury armor and alchemical chains disintegrate in the confrontation, and the gem in Sebastian's left eye cracks for the first time. "You inherited Allison's weakness and will never—!"
The Vessel embeds fragments of her mechanical heart into the ancestor's core interface. Blue and red lights burst within the skull. The iron-masked ancestor's chains suddenly reverse, wrapping around Sebastian's neck as the skull speaks hoarsely in Lancaster's tongue: "Seventh-generation Vessel... the price to unlock the contract is the voluntary annihilation of both core hosts."
In his struggle, Sebastian triggers the mercury armor's self-destruct program. Liquid mercury corrodes the prison's steel structure, triggering the precursor of time-space collapse. The Vessel roars as she activates core resonance, with Allison's memory fragments reorganizing in blue light—the scene of the Void Realm self-destruction ritual overlaps with the present, and the diary's blood words reappear: "Voluntary collapse requires the host to know the truth... and Sebastian never told you: the price of family power is eternal imprisonment in time-space rifts."
The red light in Sebastian's pupils extinguishes as his mercury armor disintegrates completely. Before being swallowed by the collapsing black hole, the Vessel stabs her scalpel into the connection point between herself and the ancestor's core—time-space dust storms surge, the Dimensional Prison and Winston Manor ruins collapse synchronously in the real world, and moonlight is devoured by blood again...
In the aftermath of the collapse, only a fragment of the iron mask floats, inscribed with new coordinate runes. A Time-Space Administration chariot suddenly pierces the rift, and a young cloned grandmother's particle cannon aims at the fragment: "Lancaster core annihilated, but the Vessel Vessel Tribulation contract remains unbroken... The eighth-generation host is already gestating in another dimension..."