[T-minus 33 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The air stank of sterilized rot.

Max crouched beside Dan, one hand on his shoulder as the golden glow around him flickered and faded. The ruins of the garden steamed behind them – ash where petals once breathed, soot where statues once wept. Nothing green remained.

Max's fingers burned faintly. Not from his own fire. From proximity.

No one spoke.

Chloe wiped blood from her temple. Victor leaned against a collapsed pillar, claws twitching involuntarily. Even Alpha and Omega – Dr. Grimm's engineered weapons – stood still, watching Dan like something sacred had just detonated in his bones.

Alyssa knelt beside him.

She didn't say anything at first. Just reached out, gently brushed the soot from his jaw with her thumb. Her hand lingered a second too long.

Dan blinked up at her, dazed. "You okay?"

"You scared me, idiot," she muttered. Then, softer: "You looked like you were going to burn away."

He managed a half-smile.

Then her expression hardened – masking whatever had flickered through. She pulled her hand back and stood quickly, brushing hair from her face as if nothing had happened.

But she didn't look away from him.

A small crease formed in Chloe's brow – subtle, but watching. Quiet recognition passed between the sisters.

Dan had done more than survive. He'd burned the corruption out of the world.

And now the world was holding its breath.

Max glanced around. Chengdu was shifting. Slowly. The fungal skyline groaned above them – buildings tilting as if bowing toward something. Windows blinked with spore-lit eyes. Root-veined roads curled like muscle fibres, converging in one direction.

Toward Zhaojue Temple.

No… not a temple anymore.

A locus.

A womb.

"We're being pulled," Chloe said quietly, her shadow flickering behind her like smoke under pressure. "The whole city's turning toward it."

Max stood. "Toward Liz."

Dan stirred, voice rasping. "She's close."

Victor lifted his head, eyes narrow. "How close?"

Max didn't answer. He didn't need to. The feel of her was unmistakable now – like a heartbeat through the soil. Every step forward hummed with a tether. Something alive. Something powerful. Something resisting.

"She's still fighting," Max said. "I can feel it."

A tightness gripped his chest – not fear, but guilt. She was in there alone, battling something older than nightmares. And he hadn't been fast enough.

Alyssa nodded slowly. "Then we better move. Before she can't."

They crossed the boundary where the garden ended and the fungal avenues began – vein-like roads webbed with tendrils and bio-flesh. The wind had changed. The mist was warmer now. Sweeter. And below the sweetness, something else.

Voices.

Soft. Constant. In every direction. Not screaming. Praying.

"She saved us," they whispered. "She will save you."

Victor growled, low and uncertain. "Who the hell are they talking about?"

Max didn't break stride.

He already knew.

…………………

It was like waking up inside a heartbeat.

Everything pulsed—red, warm, endless. Not pain. Not safety. Just pressure.

Elizabeth Jaeger floated in the glow, limbs suspended, hair drifting like ink through water. Her lungs weren't moving. There was no air. No sound. Just the faint thrum of something vast enclosing her from all sides.

Am I dead?

The thought came slowly. As if even her mind had to swim through syrup.

She tried to remember – tried to hold onto something real.

There had been fire. Screaming. Not hers. Someone else's. And a voice.

A voice like silk-wrapped knives. Mocking. Effortless.

Moloch.

Her body jerked at the memory. She had seen him – felt the weight of that boy's gaze as he shattered her mental fortress like a child kicking over blocks. Even the Devourer – her parasite, her jailer – had trembled at his presence.

She had never felt so violated.

And then… nothing.

No, not nothing. This.

This sphere.

She reached out with one hand, or thought she did. Her fingers met resistance – slick, pulsing, like the inside of a womb. The surface gave under her touch but didn't break. Veins of red light webbed outward from her palm, pulsing in slow defiance.

Is this me?

It was. She could feel it now.

The cocoon wasn't a prison. Not entirely. It was her own power – clenched, flared, and held. A psychic scream frozen in time. A shield.

I made this.

But something pressed against it.

Not hands. Not fists. Words.

A voice seeped through the cracks – not with volume, but with memory.

"Sweet girl," it murmured. "You've suffered so long. Let go. You've earned peace."

Liz flinched. The voice didn't come through ears. It came through her. In her bones. In her dreams.

Images fluttered behind her eyes. Her old room. Apricot curtains. The soft click of a lamp.

Her mother, April, tucking her in. Whispering lullabies. Kissing her forehead.

Then Dad. Laughing. Carrying her through the rain. Arms warm, safe.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But something was wrong.

Their eyes were too wide. Too green. Their teeth were showing. Smiling without blinking.

Behind the bedtime story, a chorus hummed. A whisper not of comfort, but of claiming.

She tried to scream.

No sound came. Just bubbles of red that burst against her throat.

The cocoon pulsed harder, resisting the illusion. Cracks spread like veins through the memory.

Behind the false April came the real ones. The darker ones.

The Wretch. The Devourer's voice in her skull. And Moloch's shadow falling across all of them.

A shudder ran through her. The cocoon vibrated – a feedback loop of terror and fury.

She wasn't dead. She was buried.

Liz clenched her fists. The pressure around her tightened, then yielded – just slightly. A tremor through the cocoon, like her resistance was noticed.

Something in the darkness hissed. Not in pain. In amusement.

"Poor child," the voice cooed. "You're already home."

But then she felt it.

A thread.

Thin. Red. Glowing beneath her feet – or where her feet would be, if her body remembered gravity. It stretched downward. Not physically. Inward.

Toward something deeper.

Her centre.

Liz reached for it. She hesitated for only a breath. Then followed.

And the cocoon began to dim behind her.

…………………

The fungal balcony opened like a jaw.

Great fans of flesh and coral-veined bark curled upward to reveal the sky – or what was left of it. Above, the green sun pulsed dully through clouds thick with spores. Below, Chengdu moved.

Not burned. Not broken.

Rewritten.

Skyscrapers had folded into themselves, their steel ribs curling like fern stalks, their windows shifting into panes of amber resin. Whole streets had sunk and twisted, rerouted by roots that pulsed visibly beneath the cracked asphalt. Arteries, not avenues. Bloodpaths leading inward.

Toward her.

From every corner of the dead city, they came.

The faithful.

Some walked on two legs, faces half-remembered. Others dragged warped limbs, their bodies swollen with blooming tumours and lichen. Eyes gone, mouths still praying. All of them smiling.

They did not shout. They did not run.

They converged – drawn to the temple like petals folding around a seed.

Verrine stood at the edge of the balcony, arms folded lightly before her. Her body looked human still. A woman's grace. A saviour's softness. But the longer one stared, the more wrong it became.

Her feet did not touch the floor.

Her breath synchronized with the garden.

Her dress – woven of lilies and skin – shifted with each heartbeat of the earth.

"Eligos," she said.

The archdemon – General Wang – stepped beside her, boots cracking the crust of dried sap beneath him. His face remained impassive, carved from bone and duty.

"They gather," she said. "As expected."

Eligos nodded, eyes scanning the ever-tightening spiral of converted roads and vein-streets below. "The convergence is accelerating. Their faith reinforces the spiral."

"Their love," Verrine corrected gently. "Love is the root."

His tone remained flat. "A breach has begun to form beneath the central root chamber. Psychic destabilization. Possibly triggered by the girl."

Verrine's smile didn't waver.

"She struggles. Of course she does. She's young."

"She may tear the Circle open before the ninth is ready."

Verrine's gaze never left the horizon. "That is not a problem. It is a sign. Birth always comes with blood."

A low groan echoed through the chamber. Somewhere in the depths, a building collapsed – no explosion, just a slow folding of matter. Glass became petal. Stone became cradle.

Eligos adjusted the strap across his rusted chest plate. "The Grimm Institute has dispatched a second retrieval unit. Reinforcements may arrive within the hour."

"Let them come."

She raised a hand.

A pod bloomed beside her – fleshy, red-veined, its skin slick with dew. Inside, a figure floated. Male. Mid-fifties. Pale. Praying silently.

Verrine reached inside.

The pod opened like a flower, and from its core she plucked a lotus – black-petaled, rimmed in crimson. Still damp. Still beating faintly.

She walked to a low altar grown from the balcony floor – shaped of bone and cartilage, its surface slick and warm to the touch.

She placed the lotus gently atop it.

A shiver passed through the temple. A breath. A contraction.

Verrine smiled.

"The womb is ready," she said. "The birth begins soon."

Eligos's voice was quiet. "Will it scream?"

Verrine's fingers lingered on the petals.

She tilted her head, radiant, rapturous.

"The child will scream."

Below, the city pulsed like a heartbeat.

And the temple groaned.

…………………

Site B – The Fortress, Scottish Highlands

The walls of the war room pulsed with low crimson alert. Holograms flickered overhead – satellite feeds, psychic telemetry, projected soulfield heatmaps. Everything pointed to Chengdu, China. Everything pointed to collapse.

Dr. Adisa stood stiff-backed, fingers flying across the interface as numbers updated in real time. Sweat beaded at her temple. Not from the heat but from the shape the data was taking.

"Growth vector's accelerating," she muttered. "Biological coverage increasing by three kilometers an hour. Spore patterns consistent with Circle-class distortions. Possibly Second or Third-tier."

Across the room, Dr. Grimm stared at the centre screen, unmoving.

Chengdu no longer looked like a city.

The latest recon images were warped – streets pulsing with luminous veins, towers wrapped in fungal bark, human-shaped figures praying in slow, synchronized spirals. The skyline was blooming. Organically. Deliberately.

"Where's Alpha?" Grimm asked.

"Still transmitting from the perimeter. Data packet came through five minutes ago." Adisa tapped to open a compressed feed.

Grainy helmet footage played in the corner of the display. Max – ashen, wounded – stood beside a blazing figure of gold and light. Dan. Behind him, Alyssa staggered, one hand outstretched toward a wave of green mist. The footage cracked, overloaded by psychic interference.

Adisa turned, voice brittle. "Dr. Grimm… readings are spiking."

She pointed to the soulfield signature near the heart of Chengdu.

Red. Pulsing. Intense.

"Jaeger's daughter," she said. "Elizabeth. Her signature's flaring. She's resisting something… or someone."

Grimm's jaw tightened. His hand hovered over the biometric scanner beside his terminal.

With a slow breath, he pressed it.

A locked file hissed open on his private console – marked VER-01.

The first entry.

The file was old. Pre-Institute. One of his first black-zone anomalies.

He scanned the record in silence.

"Verrine," he muttered.

Adisa turned, startled.

"You knew?"

"We hoped she was dormant," Grimm said. "We hoped the Garden died in Guangzhou. But this—" he gestured to the map, "—this is seeded."

His fingers clenched around the desk.

"She's not just a Demon Lord. She's a seed engine."

Adisa's expression shifted. "A full bio-theological conversion model."

He nodded grimly. "And it's not passive anymore. It's replicating."

Silence.

Then she whispered: "Max is walking into a live demon womb."

Grimm didn't speak for a long moment.

Then, quieter: "If he dies, we lose more than a Contractor."

She looked at him.

Grimm's eyes were fixed on the red pulse at the centre of the city. "If he dies, we may lose the world."

He turned to the side screen. A list of active Institute assets flickered by – many crossed out. KIA. Missing. Deployed.

Only two remained in Chengdu.

Alpha. Omega.

Both tagged: Category 2.5 / On Threshold.

"They're close," Adisa said. "Alpha's stabilized her core. Omega's adapting faster than expected. One more trauma vector—"

Grimm cut her off. "—and they'll break through."

He made the decision.

"Send every Contractor we can spare. Every drone. Every blessed round. Full Override: Heavenfall Protocol. Scramble the goddamn Black Choir if you have to."

Adisa hesitated. "By the time they arrive…"

"I know."

He looked back at the map.

Max's icon blinked slowly on the edge of the Third Circle.

"She's birthing something," Grimm whispered. "And he's the only one who's ever faced a Demon Lord and lived."

Then he added, almost to himself:

"If they capture him – if they turn him—"

He didn't finish and she didn't answer. They just looked at the red pulse on the map – watching it beat like a countdown neither of them could stop.

And far across the world, Eden's heart kept expanding, one breath closer to rupture.

…………………

Chengdu Outskirts – Ruined Highway 213

The road into the city was broken.

Concrete split like dead bark beneath Agent 714's boots as she limped along the centre line, her silhouette jagged against the green-stained horizon. Her left leg dragged slightly – still not fully healed. Metal ribs showed through the tactical vest. Her coat fluttered with surgical tears. But she moved like a blade. Sharp. Intentional.

The green mist thickened ahead but parted for her.

It didn't welcome her. It recoiled.

Like it remembered her.

The last living street sign read: 成都欢迎你 – Chengdu Welcomes You.

She scoffed.

To her left, a man in rags knelt in the gutter, hands clasped in prayer. His eyes glowed faint jade. His skin shimmered with veins that weren't veins – roots crawling beneath the surface.

He didn't look up.

"Save us," he whispered.

Agent 714 didn't slow.

She stepped around a woman singing lullabies to a skeletal dog. Its ribs pulsed faint green. A child behind her whispered names in Mandarin, again and again, into a cracked mirror.

All of them smiled.

Agent 714's grip tightened on the massive anti-materiel rifle strapped across her back.

"They're already gone," she muttered.

With one hand, she unhooked a disc-shaped device from her belt and clicked it on.

A low beep. A red light blinked.

Tracking Beacon Active.

Target: Jaeger, Max.

Her voice was hoarse, dry, almost prayerless. "Entering central Chengdu."

She stared up at the city ahead.

Chengdu no longer moved like a city. Its skyline flexed. Buildings bent toward the temple like limbs toward a womb. Above, the green sky rippled faintly – like lungs expanding.

She breathed once.

Then again.

Her brother's voice echoed in her head. "Leave her, 714. You can't win this."

She had believed him.

Once.

Now all she could feel was heat in her chest and metal in her spine. General Wang, a vile demon, had carved the last of her faith from her with scalpel precision.

But she had a new god now.

Vengeance.

She climbed into the front of a half-collapsed semi-truck. The cabin was caked in green. Moss grew across the windows. The seat reeked of blood and pollen. She didn't care.

She slung her rifle into the passenger seat.

Slapped the ignition with her palm.

The truck roared.

And Agent 714, bone-tired, faithless, and barely alive, slammed her foot down on the accelerator.

The engine screamed. The wheels tore over the cracked road. Mist hissed and parted.

A trail of scorched green carved through the fog as she drove straight toward the heart of Eden.

Toward Max.

Toward retribution.

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