A sensation of surfacing, of rising from an abyss where my mind had drowned.
The first thing to graze my nose was the scent of unfamiliar herbs.
When I forced my heavy eyelids open, I saw the ceiling of a quiet room, filled with the soft light of Luminous Moss.
"You're awake?"
I turned my head toward the voice, thick with worry. Lilia was there, wiping the sweat from my forehead with a damp cloth.
It seemed that after I collapsed, she had carried me here and nursed me.
Memories flooded back like a tidal wave.
The Sky Whale's song. No, it wasn't a song. It was a scream.
I shot upright. The sudden movement startled Lilia, making her recoil.
"This isn't a sickness."
My voice was wrecked, but the conviction inside it was hard as steel.
I looked directly into Lilia's clear, turquoise eyes and spoke urgently.
"Inside your Mother's body… there's something cold, sharp, lodged deep inside. Not something living, but dead scrap. Dead metal."
It was then.
From the deepest shadows of the room, a rustling sound, like branches scraping, accompanied a figure as it emerged.
It was Elara, the current Shaman, leaning on a staff of living, luminescent wood.
As if responding to my words, she pierced me with eyes clouded by cataracts.
That gaze wasn't merely that of an old woman. It was the gaze of a sage, one that saw through centuries.
"That blue flame in your eyes belongs to Arkelos."
Elara's voice was frail, yet it held an authority that could not be defied.
"Why, then, does that noble light scream in the tongue of machines?"
She wasn't denying my power. She was acknowledging it.
But she believed I was 'tainted' by the pollution of 'machine civilization,' that I was misunderstanding the Sky Whale's sublime, spiritual agony as some 'base metal' object.
Her distrust wasn't aimed at my ability, but at my interpretation.
A sudden surge of fury choked me. I remembered.
I remembered the stubborn old men back in Silverin.
The elders of the 'Aether Technicians Guild.' They had looked at Leon with those same eyes.
Those arrogant eyes, bound by rules and tradition, blind to the truth right in front of them, ignoring a new possibility.
I wouldn't endure it a second time.
"If you won't listen to me, then listen to your Mother yourself!"
"Hey, calm down! You need to rest right now!"
I shoved Lilia's restraining hand away and closed my eyes right where I sat.
As I took a deep breath, the agonizing pulse of the Sky Whale washed over me once again.
Amidst the head-splitting pain, I focused my consciousness into a single beam of light, delving toward the source of the agony.
Just then, someone gently grasped my hand. It was Lilia.
Through her warmth, I felt her desperate plea for me not to lose my way.
Buoyed by her help, I dove deeper into the immense river of life.
Tens of thousands of years of memories flashed past like a panorama.
A peace as tranquil as the deep sea, and then, the sharp wave of pain that smothered everything else.
And at last, my consciousness reached the source from which all the agony began.
There, lodged like a cancer near the great, living heart of the Sky Whale, was a massive steel fragment.
The fragment was corroding the surrounding living tissue, vilely spewing a dark red, toxic Aether.
It was the shattered head of an Imperial Long-Range Aether Probe.
And I saw it clearly. Faintly visible on the corroded surface: the Imperial emblem, the Emblem of the Red Sun.
In that moment, the Sky Whale's pain and the fury from the day Arkelos burned ten years ago merged into one and exploded inside me.
"Kuaaaargh!"
With the scream that tore out of me, a blue Aether flame erupted uncontrollably from my left eye.
The blue light drew an image in the air.
The shape of the twisted steel fragment, and the red Imperial emblem clearly etched upon it.
It was a faint vision, but everyone present saw it clearly.
"...!"
Elara, in her shock, dropped the staff she was holding.
Leon, who had been standing silently, immediately pulled out his data-pad upon seeing the image and began analyzing it frantically.
This was no longer the claim of a 'Scrap Heap Ghost.' It was undeniable 'evidence' that everyone had witnessed.
*
"There's only one way. Surgical removal."
It was Leon who broke the silence that had lingered long after the vision faded.
He pointed to the analysis results on his data-pad and spoke decisively.
"That fragment isn't just metal. It's acting as a kind of toxic plant, maintaining its own power and contaminating the surrounding Aether. There's no choice but to remove it physically from the outside."
He turned to me and continued.
"The Lumina Lip can do it. I installed high-output plasma cutters on the variable stabilizer fins I modified back in Silverin. We'll use those to make a precise incision around the fragment's tissue, then pull the whole thing out with the ship's auxiliary tractor beam. We have to go inside the whale's body ourselves."
At those words, Elara was horrified and enraged. Her anger was no longer simple distrust, but a cry born from deep anguish.
"Is that the only way! To put a greater poison into the body to cure the first? Even if it is the only path, I cannot allow another scar of steel to be made on our Mother's sacred body!"
Her shout was a command. Kairen, the guardian captain, immediately stepped forward, leveling his obsidian spear at me.
"Seize them at once! Those who would touch the Mother's body with their filthy machines are enemies of Ekora!"
Kairen's shout stirred the other warriors and even the residents, who now surrounded us. Dozens of spear tips were aimed at us.
The eyes that had held a spark of hope just moments before were now burning again with deep distrust and hostility.
"This is illogical! We're trying to help you!"
Leon tried to argue logically, but Kairen just scoffed.
"Silence, outsider! It was your 'logic' that sickened our Mother! We will protect her in our own way!"
"You think that chunk of steel is going to just pop out with prayer? While you're busy praying, your Mother is rotting from the inside!"
Fear flickered across the residents' faces at my furious shout. But that fear soon twisted into an even greater hostility toward us.
In the tense standoff, I could see Kairen tighten his grip on his spear. A fight was about to break out.
"They might be right."
It was Lilia's calm voice that froze everyone. She stepped between us and Kairen.
She first bowed her head to her teacher, Elara. Then, with a voice that trembled but was firmer than anyone's, she spoke.
"Teacher! Our prayers could not stop our Mother's moans. But this child... she heard the scream we could not hear, and she showed us the wound we could not see!"
She turned to the residents. Her turquoise eyes took in every single person in Ekora.
"If this is the last chance our Mother is giving us... will you turn away, even if it is our Teacher's will?"
No one could answer. Lilia turned back to Elara and cried out, staking everything on her words.
"I... I will guide them. I will follow not our Teacher's teachings, but our Mother's screams. Please, give us this last chance to save our Mother."
It was not a simple request. It was 'insubordination' against her teacher, and her first 'declaration' as the next Shaman.
Elara remained silent for a long time, her expression a complex mix of anger, shock, and a very faint, flickering hope.
Finally, she tightened her grip on her staff and spoke softly to Lilia.
"This is the path you have chosen, Lilia. Whether salvation or greater ruin awaits at its end... that result now rests entirely on your shoulders. Go."
It was not permission. It was a harsh trial, shifting all responsibility onto her.
*
No one spoke the entire way back to the Lumina Lip. The air in Ekora was still ice-cold.
Hero if we succeed, a traitor who defiled the sacred if we fail. I could feel the weight of the shackles around my neck.
As soon as we entered the bridge, Leon activated the central hologram table.
A blue light glowed, and a 3D model of the Sky Whale's internal structure and the probe, reconstructed from my vision and his own data, appeared.
"The briefing begins now."
Leon's voice was filled with confidence. He was a genius back in his element.
"Operation name: 'Steel Thorn Removal.' We'll proceed in three phases. Phase 1, Entry. Following Lilia's guidance, we will enter through the wound. Jane, you take the helm. Your empathy is the only early warning system we have to predict the whale's sudden convulsions."
I nodded silently.
"Phase 2, Navigation. Lilia, your role is most critical. The whale's interior will be a living labyrinth, so you must guide us to the lesion via the safest and fastest route. Be alert for attacks from the internal immune system."
Lilia's face was pale, but her eyes were resolute.
"The Mother's veins are like the palm of my hand. We will not get lost."
"Good. Final Phase 3, Removal. I will pilot the modified stabilizer fins myself to remove the fragment. This is the most dangerous part. We can't predict how the whale will react to the extreme pain. Everyone, brace for impact."
When Leon's briefing ended, a heavy silence fell on the bridge. It was a high-risk gamble with no calculable odds of success.
Lilia stood before us.
"Our Mother's body is a living maze. I will guide you, but if you attempt to harm our Mother in any way... I will be the first to stop you."
There was no longer any hesitation in her eyes.
I nodded silently and settled deep into the pilot's seat.
Leon stood at the engine control console, Lilia next to the navigation hologram. In our respective places, we exchanged a brief glance.
"Engine output, minimum."
At Leon's voice, the Lumina Lip's heart began to thrum. I wrapped my hands gently around the controls.
With a pleasant 'Vmmm-' vibration, the ship lifted silently from the soft moss where it had landed.
The Lumina Lip slowly circled above Ekora, gaining altitude.
Our destination was the unhealed steel wound located beneath the Sky Whale's giant pectoral fin, barely visible from the outside.
Through the bridge window, the sight of Ekora, which we had just left, grew distant.
And far below, dozens of eyes mixed with distrust and hope, and the silent Shaman Elara, were watching our every move.
At last, as the ship descended along the whale's massive body, it finally came into view.
A terrible wound with sharp metal fragments protruding from dark red, corroded flesh.
And leading into it, a darkness of unknown depth.
It was like an entrance to hell, opened in the body of a living giant.