The Seed pulsed in the Alpha's hands.
It didn't hum.
It didn't glow.
It remembered.
The echo of that Vault still clung to it — not just the fight, but the Warden's final words, spoken through the shell of Elian's old face. The Seed felt like weight, but not in mass.
In meaning.
Something the system had tried to delete.
But it had failed.
And now the Seed had come home.
The Alpha ran under a bleeding sky.
Trees twisted away from its presence. The ground cracked with every step. It didn't slow. It didn't stumble. The Seed was too important. Not just because of what it was…
But because of who it was tied to.
By the time the Rotwrought Beacon came into view, night had deepened. The clearing throbbed with infected silence.
And Elian was already waiting.
He stood at the center of the beacon's spiral, cloak still, monsters bowed around him. His eyes were on the horizon.
But when the Alpha stepped into the clearing, Elian turned.
And he knew.
[Rotkin Alpha Returning – Objective Complete]
[Vault Status: Compromised]
[Seed Acquired – Origin Fragment: Bound Thread Active]
The Alpha knelt.
Both hands extended.
The Seed rested in its clawed palms — cracked, still pulsing, still alive.
Elian walked forward. Slowly. Carefully.
The other Rotkin shifted. The girl said nothing. Even the crawlers stopped breathing.
When Elian reached the Alpha, he didn't speak.
He didn't hesitate.
He took the Seed.
And the moment his skin made contact—
The world shattered.
Rotlight dimmed.
Threadlight froze.
Time bled sideways.
His vision blurred — not from blindness, but from memory overflow.
And then…
A voice.
Young. Desperate.
His own.
"Please."
"If I can't be stronger, then make me forget."
"I don't want to remember what I lost."
He saw a door.
A blade.
A small room flooded with red.
A name on a terminal screen.
Not Elian.
Something else.
Something fragile.
And then came the system's response:
[Request Denied.]
[Memory Not Erased.]
[User Identity Rewritten.]
The moment broke.
Elian blinked.
The night returned.
The beacon throbbed. The Alpha exhaled.
And Elian stood still, the Seed now resting in his palm.
It was no longer just an object.
It was a wound.
A beginning.
A piece of the devil before he became rot.
[Lucid Trait Sync: 56% → 59%]
[Devil's Core Progression: 19.0% → 20.5%]
[Seed Acquired: Origin Fragment 1/7 – Memory Thread Active]
[New Passive Gained: Echo Shield I – Auto-resist hallucinations and forced dream-state illusions.]
The girl stepped closer. Slowly. Carefully.
"Is that… you?" she asked.
Elian didn't answer.
He stared at the Seed, fingers curled around it, rotlight glinting off his eyes.
"No," he said quietly.
"It was what I had to burn to become me."
He looked toward the night.
The system was already moving. He could feel it — its gaze tightening. Its balance tilting. It knew he had found something it meant to lose.
And that meant it would come for him again.
But this time?
He had a weapon it couldn't predict:
Memory.
He turned toward the beacon, letting its rotlight climb up his spine, painting his silhouette like a crown of black fire.
His voice cut through the clearing — not loud, but final.
"We don't grow into ourselves."
"We rot away the parts that lied until only the truth is left."
He clenched the Seed in his fist.
And the world remembered his name.