The floor buckled.
Not physically—Kael knew the ground was still there—but his mind refused to trust it. Shapes flickered across the vault, as if the past and present had collapsed into one stage play without a script. Blood leaked from the walls in reverse. Some relics chanted prayers; others screamed them backwards.
And then—
THOOM.
A massive sigil flared at the far end of the room. A containment vault opened, hissing steam and holy light. From within rose a mechanical sphere the size of a lion's skull—etched with deep-cut godscript, its center glowing with condensed divinity.
Kael didn't need the Knife to tell him.
Divine-grade suppression relic. Active. Angry. Hungry.
It rose on a pillar of light, scanning. Its light burned through hallucination. The memory storm bent away from it like fog from fire.
But Kael felt something else stir inside him.
Not fear.
Rage.
Core surged awake in his chest—hot and personal. Not with her usual cold calculation. This was violence.
"THEY THINK THEY CAN ERASE ME?"
Kael staggered as glyphs across his ribs blazed with black heat. His blood felt like molten wire.
The relic's light focused on him.
Core reacted violently.
A tendril of invisible energy lashed out from Kael's hand, struck a nearby relic—a cracked helm—and drained it dry. The helm turned to ash in an instant. Another relic flared, caught in the pull. Then another.
Kael gasped, feeling power rise—but also loss.
Too fast. Too hungry.
And then—
The Knife screamed.
Not aloud.
But in his head.
"She's targeting me! She thinks I'm vulnerable! I'm— I'm not hers!"
Kael looked down.
The blade in his hand vibrated, heat radiating from its hilt as it tried to resist Core's pull. His arm twitched toward the suppression relic, but his body tried to devour his only weapon.
"No," Kael growled. "Not this one."
Core's voice hissed. "It is fragmentary. Weak. Replaceable."
"No."
"It hesitated."
"It chose." Kael snarled. "Like I did. Like you did."
The glyphs flickered.
Core paused.
Something shifted.
Kael grabbed the Knife in both hands and held it against his chest, between himself and the suppression relic.
"I said NO."
A pulse of energy rippled outward—not Core's hunger, but Kael's will.
The suppression relic staggered back in midair.
The storm halted.
Core stilled.
And the Knife—blazing hot, its edge warped, its voice panting—whispered:
"Thank you."