Matthew woke not to a world of light, but to the suffocating embrace of a viscous, medicinalfluid.His lungs burned. He tried to gasp, but he swallowed a mouthful of thick, pale-green gel thattasted of ozone and chemicals. His eyes snapped open, blurring as he realized he wassuspended in a vertical glass tube. Wires were stitched into his spine, pulsing with arhythmic golden light, and his limbs felt like lead weights.Beyond the glass, the world was a high-tech nightmare. This wasn't the rusted, industrialdecay of the Back Allies. This was a sterile, white-lit laboratory filled with hummingmachinery and dozens of technicians in reinforced hazard suits.This was the Inner Sanctum of the Spire.To his left, another tube stood. Lyra. Her eyes were closed, her white hair floating around herhead like a halo of silk. She looked fragile, her skin pale against the green fluid. To his rightwas Seraphina, still trapped in the marble-white state of her "Silence," her body a motionlessstatue being scanned by a dozen rotating lasers."Subject 01 is regaining consciousness!" a voice boomed over a speaker. "Increase thesedative flow to forty percent! We haven't finished the extraction of the Void-marrow!"Matthew felt a needle in his neck hiss, injecting a cold numbing agent into his carotid artery.His vision began to dim. The world started to slip away again, into that peaceful, dark fog.No.He thought of the Older Matthew. He thought of the "Vow" he hadn't made yet. He looked atLyra, helpless and hooked to machines like a lab animal. A raw, primal heat ignited in hischest. It wasn't the controlled mana of a student; it was a scream of pure negation.I am not a subject.The Void Core didn't just pulse; it detonated. Matthew didn't use a blast. He didn't use aNoble Art. He simply willed the concept of the "Tube" to cease existing.The glass didn't shatter; it simply vanished, leaving the green fluid to crash onto the floor in amassive tidal wave. Matthew tumbled out, coughing and retching, tearing the needles fromhis arms with a savage jerk. The Void was no longer just in his palms; it was radiating fromhis skin like a dark, flickering aura that ate the light around him."Seal the sector!" a lead researcher screamed, falling back as Matthew stood up. "Sentinels!Engage! Lethal force authorized!"Four heavy-duty Sentinels, armored in white Law-Plates, charged into the room. They raisedtheir pulse-rifles, but Matthew didn't even flinch. As the golden bolts of energy entered his"Void Zone," they simply dissolved into gray mist."Get. Away. From. Her," Matthew hissed. His voice didn't sound human; it sounded like twotectonic plates grinding together.He swept his arm in a horizontal arc. A blade of violet-black energy, thin as a razor and tenfeet long, hissed through the air. The Sentinels' shields, rated to withstand orbital strikes,didn't even slow the blade down. The armored men were severed at the waist, their bodiesturning to ash before they even hit the floor.Matthew stumbled toward Lyra's tube. He didn't look for a release valve. He placed his handon the glass and watched as the Void consumed the material, turning the reinforced crystalinto nothingness. He caught Lyra as she fell, her shivering, wet body pressing against hischest."Matthew?" she whispered, her eyes fluttering open, filled with a terrifying confusion."I've got you," he said, his voice breaking as he held her. "I'm not letting them touch youagain. I promise."
