The camp was built like a secret someone didn't want to keep.
Tucked inside a jagged basin near the Threadscar Divide, its perimeter flickered with weak stabilizer nodes, half-shielded by crooked towers and broken terrain. Makeshift barracks. Relay antennas twitching like dying nerves. A fallback post. Scarhold-grade.
Low-risk.
Unremarkable.
Exactly the kind of place that never expected to be visited.
And certainly not by him.
Elian stood just outside the perimeter.
He didn't move like an invader. He made no effort to hide.
But the crawler at his side shifted — infected bone plates creaking as it crouched low in the threadgrass. Watching. Waiting.
Another followed behind them. Then a third.
A rotborn shadow of a procession.
Elian raised a hand. The crawler froze.
[Lucid Trait: Threadsense Active]
[Detected Zone: Scarhold Auxiliary Camp – Designation: Perimeter 3D]
[Thread Activity: 23 human operatives | Emotion Cluster: Containment. Unease. Contagion markers.]
They already knew.
He stepped forward.
The stabilizer nodes responded instantly. Beam formations shimmered to life, humming in geometric precision. Light spears snapped into place. Barrier pulses trembled — not from power…
…but from hesitation.
A voice echoed from the wall — amplified, sharp.
"Unidentified Seedborne, declare your Echo alignment. Stop immediately."
Elian didn't.
He kept walking.
Ten paces. Then five more.
From atop the nearest tower, the speaker revealed herself.
A woman. Crimson-stitched armor, system-forged. Echo halo behind her head—golden. Stable. Defensive.
Her stance: firm.
Her eyes: frightened.
Elian stopped just shy of the barrier's edge.
"You feel it," he said, voice calm.
"Don't pretend you don't."
She narrowed her eyes behind the visor.
"Corrupted?"
"Mutated," he corrected. "But not collapsed."
"Not yet."
He raised one hand — not toward them, but the air.
Rotlight spilled from his palm, soft and slow.
It didn't radiate out.
It sank — into the ground, into the threads.
A quiet spiral of infection bloomed, linking to the zone's logic layer without resistance.
The nodes began to flicker.
[System Warning: Infection Signature Detected – Source: Anomaly "Crownless"]
[Effect: Passive Contagion – Interface Desync Probability 38%]
[Recommendation: Isolation Protocol or Acknowledgement of Containment Breach]
"Don't worry," Elian said. "It's not a trap."
"It's a gift."
"Freedom from the part of you that still begs to be seen."
Silence. But the threads pulsed in panic.
Elian let it linger. Then spoke again:
"Let me pass."
"No violence. No purge."
"Just… infection. Left quietly. Tucked behind your walls."
He gestured toward the crawlers. They didn't move. Didn't growl.
They simply watched.
Like students awaiting instruction.
"Or," Elian added, "try to kill me."
"And see what it costs to forget what you've already seen."
The woman tensed. Her grip tightened around the interface blade.
But she didn't give the order.
She didn't speak again.
Elian took a single step back.
"Think carefully," he said. "The system tells you I'm a threat."
"But if that's true—"
He smiled.
"—why hasn't it erased me?"
He turned. Began to walk away.
And at his feet, a small black spiral of rotlight remained.
Not pulsing.
Breathing.
Waiting.
[Lucid Trait Sync: 46% → 47%]
[Devil's Core Progression: 11.0% → 12.4%]
[New Trait Marker Created: Rot Spiral – Zone Contagion Event Trigger Possible]
[Faction Response: Delayed – Internal Decision Gridlocked]
He didn't need to break their walls.
He only needed to leave something behind.
A seed.
A whisper.
A future no one asked for… but someone would answer.