[STATUS: Damien Karyon - Post Void-Nexus Operation]
[Cultivation: 4th Order, 2nd Rank (Peak - Threshold to 3rd Rank approaching)]
[Injuries: Severe meridian scorching (Chaos/Void backlash), Both hands 2nd degree spiritual burns, Internal bleeding (minor). Recovery estimate: 7 days with rest.]
[New Integration: Void Essence (Partial) - Spatial awareness increased 40%, can now create minor 'void-anchors' to pin space.]
[Team Status:**
**- Kiran: 4th Order, 2nd Rank (BREAKTHROUGH - Void Constitution evolved). Unconscious, integrating massive void-essence. Prognosis: Stable.**
**- Lyra: 4th Order, 1st Rank (Strained). Mental fatigue from sustained reality-edits. Minor injuries.**
**- Brom: 4th Order, 1st Rank (Permanently Impaired). Left shoulder and partial torso void-erased. Earth affinity reduced 30%. Combat effectiveness: 65%.**
**- Sylvia: Asset status - Pending.]
The cave felt different. The victory was ash in their mouths. Lyra moved between Kiran and Brom, her foxfire dimmer than usual, the strain showing in the tight lines around her eyes. The cheerful witch-fox was gone, replaced by a weary healer watching her friends break.
Brom sat against the wall, staring at the dead-gray stone of his left side. He tried to flex fingers that were no longer there. The hammer, Mountainfall, lay beside him, its head partially erased. A symbol of his own damage.
Damien sat apart, cycling his energy to burn out the chaotic-void residue poisoning his meridians. The pain was a focused, white-hot fire. He embraced it. Pain was data. It told him the limits of his current vessel.
On the second day, Kiran woke. His eyes opened, and they were no longer pale grey, but the color of event horizons—a perfect, deep black with a silver ring around the pupil. His aura, when he let it slip, didn't just erase; it contained. He had absorbed the Nexus's core concept of "perfect absence" and made it a part of his will.
"I can feel space now," Kiran said, his voice echoing slightly. "Not just tear it. I can... fold it. Hold it." He demonstrated, making a small cube of air in front of him become perfectly still and silent—a miniature void-prison. "The cost was high," he added, his new eyes going to Brom.
Brom just grunted. "The mountain is less. But it is still a mountain."
Lyra tried to smile for them, but it didn't reach her eyes.
On the third day, as sunset approached, Sylvia appeared at the cave's hidden entrance. She didn't try to enter. She stood outside the illusionary mana-vent, waiting.
Damien went out to meet her. His hands were still bandaged in spiritually-conductive gauze Lyra had made.
"I'm in," Sylvia said without preamble. Her blue eyes were hard. "But new terms. I'm not cannon fodder. I get equal share of any non-core loot. I get a say in mission planning if it involves my life. And if I say a mission is suicide, I walk. No retaliation."
Damien considered. Her demands were rational for a mercenary. "Acceptable. Addendum: you walk, you forfeit any claim to future operations and we consider you a potential intelligence leak. You will be monitored."
She scowled but nodded. "Fine. What's the next target? I assume you're not done with your god-killing spree."
Damien's Storm-Eyes looked westward. "The data-crystal indicates a stronger convergence of taints two hundred miles from here. A place where Abyssal and Void scars intersect. Likely a site of conflict between the two Singularities. We will observe. Exploit the conflict. Harvest both."
Sylvia blinked. "You want to walk into a war between two reality-eating forces and pick sides?"
"We will let them weaken each other. Then we will harvest the remnants." His tone was that of a farmer discussing crop rotation.
She shook her head, a reluctant smirk on her face. "You're insane. But it's the best show in the Shattered Lands. When do we leave?"
"We need ten days. Brom must adapt to his impairment. Kiran has to stabilize his cultivation. Lyra and I must recover fully." He looked at her. "Your task: scout the route. Identify threats, safe passages, resource points. Report back in seven days."
He tossed her a small, frost-etched communication crystal. "Use this at dawn each day. Short bursts only. The Tower may be monitoring long-range transmissions."
She caught it, weighing it in her hand. "Scouting I can do. Don't get yourselves killed while I'm gone." She turned and melted into the jagged landscape.
Damien returned to the cave. Lyra was waiting for him, her arms crossed.
"You trust her?" Lyra asked quietly.
"No," Damien said. "I use her. Her skills fill a gap in our capabilities—scouting, wilderness survival, independent operations. Her loyalty is to survival, which currently aligns with our success."
"And when it doesn't align?"
"Then she becomes an obstacle to remove."
Lyra flinched. "Damien... Brom's injury. It's permanent. We almost lost Kiran. This path... are the gains worth it?"
Damien turned his storm-eyed gaze fully on her. The frozen fractals swirled. "The path is paved with costs. The question is not if they are worth it. The question is if you are willing to pay them. If you are not, you will be left behind." He said it not as a threat, but as a fact of existence, like gravity.
Lyra's tails drooped. "I just... I don't want to lose anyone else."
"You will," Damien said, turning away to resume his cycling. "Or you will be lost. That is the nature of the climb. The only way to avoid loss is to stop climbing. And that is unacceptable."
You know you are terrible at consoling a person, Lyra said with a forced smile
The cave fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the crackle of the healing spring and Brom's labored breathing as he practiced wielding his hammer one-handed.