The black light reached Ayan's throat.
And the moment it touched his neck—
The whispers became voices.
Not distant anymore.
Not fragmented.
Clear.
Ancient consciousness pressed directly against his mind while the collapsing underground cathedral twisted around him beneath impossible pressure.
"…Open…"
"…Return…"
"…Become whole…"
Ayan dropped to one knee violently.
Pain exploded through his entire body as the cracked crystal at his side shattered further, black fractures spreading across its surface while darkness crawled beneath his skin like living veins.
Aelira immediately held him tighter.
"Ayan!"
Crimson energy surged around her desperately, trying to suppress the spreading black light consuming his body.
But it wasn't working.
The Void beneath Sector Seven continued rising.
And somehow—
It resonated perfectly with him.
The gigantic eye deep within the abyss remained fixed entirely on Ayan now while impossible tendrils twisted upward through collapsing reality around the ruined cathedral.
Everything else felt irrelevant to it.
The synchronized survivors fleeing through the upper corridors.
The collapsing network.
Even the Harvester scout.
Only Ayan mattered.
Cael's expression hardened sharply.
"…It's accelerating too fast."
The Harvester scout slowly observed the spreading black light across Ayan's body.
"…Bridge anomaly synchronization confirmed."
Aelira's crimson eyes sharpened dangerously toward the creature.
"Shut up!"
The Harvester ignored her.
"…The Void selected him."
Cold silence spread through the collapsing chamber.
Ayan forced himself to breathe through the agony tearing across his nervous system while fragmented memories continued slamming violently through his mind.
The laboratory.
The children.
The dimensional fractures spreading across Earth centuries ago.
And scientists repeating the same word again and again.
"Bridge."
Ayan clenched his teeth painfully.
"…I wasn't born naturally."
Cael remained silent briefly.
Then—
"…No."
The answer hurt more than expected.
The underground cathedral trembled violently again.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
A massive section of Sector Seven collapsed completely overhead while black dimensional fractures spread through the remaining structure like infection.
The synchronized woman screamed from one of the upper corridors.
"…The dimensional walls are gone!"
The Void's whispers deepened instantly.
"…Reality opens…"
The black light surged further across Ayan's body.
Aelira's expression changed immediately.
Fear.
Real fear.
"…Cael!"
The first anomaly stepped closer rapidly.
Crimson synchronization energy spread around his hands as he examined the black fractures moving beneath Ayan's skin.
Then his expression darkened further.
"…The Void isn't simply synchronizing with him."
Ayan looked upward weakly.
"…Then what?"
Silence.
Then quietly—
"…It's trying to wake him up."
The underground cathedral became still for one horrifying second.
Even the Harvester scout paused.
Aelira's voice lowered dangerously.
"…Explain."
Cael looked directly into Ayan's eyes.
"…Bridge anomalies weren't only created to stabilize dimensional contact."
His crimson gaze dimmed slightly.
"…They were designed to survive becoming vessels."
Cold spread slowly through Ayan's chest.
The whispers inside his head immediately intensified.
"…Vessel…"
The Harvester scout answered calmly.
"…Humanity attempted to create controlled avatars for dimensional entities."
Ayan felt sick instantly.
Because suddenly—
The laboratory memories made sense.
The children weren't experiments trying to survive convergence.
They were containers.
Aelira's crimson energy exploded violently around her.
"No."
The underground cathedral shook beneath the force of her power while countless glowing symbols erupted across the chamber.
"…He is not a vessel."
The Harvester scout's white eyes remained fixed on Ayan.
"…Biological structure disagrees."
Aelira vanished instantly.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
Her fist slammed directly into the Harvester hard enough to rip apart reality around the impact itself. Black distortion and crimson energy exploded through the ruined cathedral while collapsing debris vaporized instantly beneath the pressure.
This time—
The Harvester scout crashed backward violently through several remaining pillars.
Its humanoid body twisted unnaturally as black armor shattered across its torso.
Aelira stood motionless afterward.
Breathing harder now.
Blood running slowly down one arm.
But her crimson eyes remained terrifyingly cold.
"…I warned you."
The Harvester slowly rose again from the ruins.
Damaged heavily.
Still adapting.
Always adapting.
"…Emotional instability reaching critical levels."
Aelira smiled faintly.
Dangerously.
"…Good."
The underground cathedral suddenly groaned violently.
Then—
The gigantic eye beneath Sector Seven moved.
Not blinking.
Turning.
The impossible pupil shifted slowly away from Ayan—
Toward Aelira.
And for the first time—
The whispers changed.
"…Obstacle…"
The black tendrils rising from the abyss exploded upward instantly.
Aelira reacted immediately.
Crimson barriers formed around her body as the gigantic tendrils smashed through the underground cathedral like weapons wielded by reality itself.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAASH.
The entire chamber collapsed further.
Ayan was thrown violently across the shattered floor while black dimensional fractures spread everywhere the tendrils touched.
The Void was attacking now.
Directly.
Not mindlessly.
Intentionally.
Aelira sliced through one tendril in a flash of crimson light.
The severed piece dissolved instantly into black mist.
But three more replaced it immediately.
Cael's expression sharpened.
"…It identified her as interference."
The Harvester scout observed calmly from the ruins.
"…The Void prioritizes gateway stabilization."
Another tendril erupted upward toward Aelira.
BOOOOOOOOM.
She barely blocked the impact this time.
Ayan's chest tightened painfully.
Because despite her strength—
She was losing ground.
The Void wasn't adapting like the Harvester.
It simply overwhelmed reality itself.
The whispers inside Ayan's mind deepened further.
"…She cannot stop inevitability…"
The black light spread across half his chest now.
His breathing became uneven.
And suddenly—
More memories returned.
A hidden conversation inside the laboratory.
Scientists arguing desperately.
"We can't control what's beyond the fracture."
"We don't need control."
"We need compatibility."
"If the Void reaches Earth fully, humanity dies anyway."
"…Then we create something it can recognize."
Ayan's eyes widened sharply.
Recognition.
That was why the Void focused on him.
Not random selection.
He had been created specifically so dimensional entities would recognize him as compatible.
The realization nearly made him sick.
Cael immediately noticed his expression.
"…You remember now."
Ayan slowly looked toward him.
"…Earth created us because humanity was already afraid of the Void."
The first anomaly nodded once.
"…The first collapse nearly destroyed your world centuries ago."
The Harvester scout answered quietly.
"…Humanity repeated the same mistake."
Ayan's thoughts sharpened violently.
Because suddenly—
Everything connected.
The Harvesters.
The network.
The anomalies.
The Void.
Humanity created bridge anomalies trying to survive dimensional collapse.
Cael created the network trying to preserve humanity afterward.
The Harvesters tried forcing convergence to prevent the Void from entering reality completely.
Every system.
Every horror.
Every sacrifice—
Started from fear.
The underground cathedral suddenly split apart beneath them.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.
A massive black fracture tore upward directly through the chamber floor while the gigantic eye beneath Sector Seven opened wider than before.
And from the abyss—
A shape finally emerged.
Not fully.
Only partially visible through the dimensional fractures.
But even that was enough.
Ayan's mind nearly failed trying to process it.
The entity had no stable form.
Its body shifted continuously between impossible structures while countless gigantic eyes opened and closed across endless darkness stretching far beyond what reality itself should physically contain.
Cities could disappear inside one movement of its body.
Worlds could drown inside its shadow.
And somehow—
Only a fraction of it existed here.
The synchronized survivors throughout Sector Seven screamed in terror.
Several lost synchronization instantly as the network collapsed around them.
Others simply froze.
Broken.
Unable to process what they were seeing.
The Harvester scout stepped backward again.
"…Void manifestation exceeding acceptable thresholds."
For the first time—
It sounded genuinely alarmed.
The entity's countless eyes slowly focused downward.
Not on Cael.
Not on the Harvester.
On Ayan.
The whispers inside his head became one voice at last.
Ancient beyond understanding.
"…You were made to carry the door."
The black light reached Ayan's eyes.
And suddenly—
The world around him stopped moving.