Aryan did not recover. He existed in a state of shattered stillness, huddled on the sled next to Rohan. The vibrant, living light of the Neural Jungle seemed to avoid him, leaving him in a personal pocket of gloom. He spoke only when necessary, his voice a hollow echo. The triumphant, terrifying figure who had faced the Guardian was gone, replaced by a man who had felt the universe declare him an error. The terror that came with having a taste of non-existence was one no man is meant to live with
Jaya took point, her face set in lines of grim endurance. Her mend-blades were ablaze with captured suffering—Rohan's pain, Elian's despair, the acid's burn, Aryan's suffering. She was their strength now, the pragmatic core holding them together.
"The Phantom showed us one thing," she said, her voice cutting through the psychic whisper of the trees. "This place...it feeds on strong, foreign emotions. Our fear, our pain... it's a beacon."
It was a cruel demand. How could they not feel fear in a place that fed on it? How could Rohan not feel agony? But they tried. They moved with a forced calm, burying their terror deep, becoming ghosts in the machine of the Primordial's mind.
The Jungle began to change. The gentle glow of the dendrites intensified to a painful, pulsing crimson. The soft whispers coalesced into a constant, low-level scream—not of pain, but of pure, undiluted FEAR. It was the Primordial's raw, unfiltered input, a torrent of sight, sound, and thought with no mind to process it.
They had entered the Screaming Woods.
Here, the air itself was thick with frantic energy. Thoughts weren't memories or emotions; they were physical hazards. A wave of [Scent: Death] would wash over them, so potent they could taste it. A blast of [Sensation: Falling] would make their stomachs lurch. It was a cognitive storm, a place where the mind's senses bled into reality.
"We can't navigate this," Elian gasped, clutching his head after a burst of [Sound: Shattering Glass] nearly drove him to his knees. "It's too much! It will tear our minds apart!"
Rohan, jaw clenched against his own pain, grunted from the sled. "The null Shard. It's the only shield. It has to be."
All eyes turned to Aryan. He flinched from their gazes.
"I can't," he whispered. "If I use it... I might not come back. I might let it all go." The memory of [Oblivion]'s sweet promise was a fresh wound.
"You don't have a choice," Jaya said, her voice not unkind, but final. "You either build us a shield, or the Screaming Woods will unravel us into madness. It's a calculated risk."
A calculated risk. His life, his sanity, against theirs.
With the despair of a man walking to the gallows, Aryan closed his eyes. He didn't reach for the void's power aggressively. He pleaded with it. He envisioned a bubble, not of [Stasis] or [Nothingness], but of [Neutrality]. A space where the overwhelming sensory data of the Woods was dampened, filtered into a bearable hum.
The Null-Shard answered, not with a roar, but with a cold, efficient sigh. A sphere of muted grey bloomed around them, twenty feet in diameter. The second it formed, the relief was instantaneous. The screaming faded to a distant murmur. The violent sensory assaults became faint, manageable echoes.
Inside the bubble, they could think. They could breathe.
But Aryan paid the price. He sat at the center of their moving sanctuary, his body rigid, his eyes wide and unblinking. He was the anchor, and the void was the chain. Every pulse of the shield was a drain, not just on his energy, but on his very essence. He was holding the door closed against a hurricane, and he could feel the wood splintering.
For hours, they traveled like this, a island of fragile silence in a sea of psychic noise. The Woods threw horrors at their shield—phantoms of light that were pure [Anguish], gusts of wind that carried the [Betrayal]. Each impact was a tremor Aryan felt in his soul.
Just as his focus began to waver, the character of the Woods shifted again. The screaming intensified, focusing into a narrow path ahead. The chaotic sensations organized themselves, weaving together into a terrible, compelling pattern.
It was a story. A narrative woven from pure concept.
They saw it play out in the air before them: a group of explorers, much like themselves, finding a quiet grove. A sense of [Relief]. Then, a creeping [Doubt]. A shadow of [Paranoia] as one turned on another. The story accelerated, showing accusations, a fight, a betrayal. It ended with the last survivor, alone and mad, being gently dissolved by a wave of [Oblivion].
The Woods wasn't just screaming. It was showing them their future. It was using their deepest fear—of turning on each other—as a weapon.
The image hit Aryan's shield like a physical blow. The grey sphere flickered. For a terrifying second, the full force of the Screaming Woods rushed in—the sensory overload, the psychic pressure, the despair of the shown narrative.
Jaya cried out, staggering. Elian fell to his knees. Rohan roared in frustration.
With a final, gut-wrenching effort, Aryan slammed the shield back into place, the grey sphere solidifying once more. He slumped forward, blood dripping from his nose onto the pulsating ground.
He had held. But the Woods had made its point. It knew their weaknesses. It knew how to break them. And the most fragile point of all was the broken man desperately holding their world together.