The Graveyard Nexus quaked, its void a fractured mosaic of shattered realities—molten slabs, frozen oceans, and starry skies trembling under the strain of dying stars. Claire de Leon, N0-12, pressed against a skeletal frame on a bubbling rock slab, its surface hot enough to sear through her gothic tactical dress. The air was thick with a sour, metallic bite, the Veil's mournful dirge now a howling wail that clawed at her skull. Her HUD flashed red: Veil stability: 84%. Anomaly surge: 47%. Proximity: 500 meters. The Shatterveil Harbinger was closing in, its presence warping the Nexus into a deadly trap.
Ultima rested in her hands, its gold runes flickering as the aetheric capacitors in her suit recharged from the Nexus's aetheric pools. Her silver-white hair, tied with a black ribbon, clung to her sweat-damp face, while her icy blue eyes scanned the void through the arcane scope. She'd faced nightmares before—sniping an Echo-Class anomaly mid-phase in Gamma-3, holding a rift for her team, and rescuing N0-Beta Saria in Delta-7. But this Primal-Class beast pushed her to the edge.
"Move or die," she whispered, her soft-spoken voice steady, a sniper's resolve cutting the chaos.
Her Crazy Vision surged, probabilities crashing through her mind: tendrils spearing her chest, space folding into a cage, her suit's runes failing under hax corruption. She filtered the storm, her Void Walker training sharpening her focus, the aetheric pools boosting her perception. The Harbinger's core—cracked but resilient—was her target, but its tendrils were evolving, their aetheric fire eyes multiplying.
Space folded inward, a non-Euclidean trap snapping shut around her slab. Tendrils erupted from fractured light, their eyes blazing, converging on her. Claire dove, her rosary belt chain clinking as she rolled, the skeletal frame shattering under a tendril's lash. The rock cracked, molten edges hissing, and she landed hard, her suit's aetheric runes (70% hax immunity) flaring to deflect a cognitohazardous pulse. Her HUD screamed: Spatial anomaly detected. Escape window: 8 seconds.
She triggered her time stop. Five seconds of silence—the dirge ceased, tendrils froze, the void stilled. She sprinted across the fracturing slab, her heels clicking on the molten surface, covering 200 meters to a ruined city shard, its streets twisted into impossible angles. Time snapped back, the Nexus roaring as the trap collapsed, rock and debris plummeting into the abyss.
Claire dropped to one knee, gasping, her open sleeve torn further, exposing scars from Delta-7 where she'd sniped an Echo-Class swarm. Her HUD chimed: Time stop cooldown: 4 minutes, 58 seconds. The 5-minute cooldown, powered by her suit's aetheric capacitors recharging via Nexus pools, kept her in play. The Harbinger loomed, its core pulsing brighter, fractured light warping the city shard beneath her.
"Site-01, it's got me pinned," she snapped into her comms, static crackling.
"Claire, you're in deep," N0-Gamma Toren's voice cut back, tense but firm. "Primal-Class traps are lethal. Hit the core—use the aetheric residue to overload it."
"How?" she growled, her tone dry but urgent. "It's shrugging off my shots."
"Tap a containment orb," Toren urged. "Theta-3 residue could push Ultima past its limits."
Claire's gaze locked onto a containment orb on a frozen forest shard, its surface pulsing with aetheric energy. The Foundation's Theta-3 experiment, sealed as Haven's End, had unleashed the Withered Stalker, its aetheric fallout now fueling the Nexus's anomalies. She'd studied the logs: the rift's residue amplified tech, a double-edged sword that strained the Veil. She sprinted, the city shard tilting, and leapt onto the forest shard, its frost crunching under her heels.
A tendril lashed, its eye glaring, and she ducked, firing a resizing bullet to sever it. Two more struck, their hax corruption testing her suit's runes, which held at 70% immunity, the capacitors absorbing the strain. Her Crazy Vision screamed—all three converging, space folding to crush me, core vulnerable—and she saw it: the core, pulsing faster, its fractured light a beacon.
She slammed Ultima's stock into the orb, the runes syncing with a hum. Her HUD spiked: Weapon charge: 200%. Risk of overload: 75%. Suit integrity: 90%. The forest shard trembled, aetheric energy surging through her suit, the purple lining glowing faintly. She aimed, the shot roaring through the void, a lance hitting the core. The Harbinger shrieked, a cognitohazardous pulse crashing into her—visions of her Gamma-3 team aging, Saria's collapse in Delta-7. Her emotional core wavered, tears stinging, but she clenched her jaw, growling, "Not this time."
The core cracked wider, fractured light spilling like a broken dam, tendrils thrashing wildly, tearing chunks from the Nexus. The overload strained Ultima, its barrel hissing, her HUD warning: Cooling required: 3 minutes. Suit integrity: 85%. The forest shard buckled, roots snapping, and she leapt to a molten slab as it collapsed. The Harbinger retreated, its core dim but alive, tendrils withdrawing into the void. Her HUD chimed: Time stop cooldown: 2 minutes, 30 seconds. Veil stability: 82%.
Claire leaned against a skeletal frame, her rosary chain clinking, the sour air burning her throat. The core was vulnerable overloading it with aetheric residue worked but the Harbinger's adaptation was accelerating. The Nexus hummed, the Veil's dirge a warning of the endgame. She had to end this soon.