NOVEL NEXT Chapter 125: Unspoken
The pressure felt like a heavy weight on Jonah's shoulders. The Headmaster's orders, Ariana's warnings, the Bureau's hidden threats, the decaying serum's dark secret. All of it swirled in his mind like a wild storm.
He needed to focus. His semi-final match against Draven was the next day, and beyond that, a potential final against Ariana. But every time he tried to strategize, his thoughts would drift back to the swirling, galactic essence of the Broodmother, to the dying hope of his entire nation.
He went to his workshop. He needed to touch that power again, to find the hope within the Broodmother's sadness, and remember his true goal.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, the door sealed by Vanessa's complex runic wards. He closed his eyes and sank deep into his Beast Space, past the sleeping forms of his Progeny, until he was face-to-face with the swirling nebula of the Alpha Broodmother Essence.
It was a library of a million lives, a mix of a thousand stolen genetics. He reached out to it, not to create, but to study. To understand.
He was not ready.
The moment his consciousness touched the essence, a wave of pure agony slammed into him. It was the psychic backlash, the memory of the Broodmother's own tormented history. He felt the pain of her capture, the horror of being ripped apart by the "metal men," the torment of having her own essence torn apart and forcibly merged with others. He felt her desperate struggle to survive, to create a legacy from the ruins of her own body.
It was too much. The weight of her sorrow, combined with the immense pressure he was already under, was a total overload.
A sharp pain shot through his head, and his vision exploded into a field of white static. He cried out and collapsed onto the workshop floor, his body trembling, caught in a psychic seizure.
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Vanessa was running a diagnostic on a new runic array when she heard it. A muffled cry, and then a heavy thud from Jonah's workshop.
Her blood ran cold.
"Jonah?" she called out, knocking the reinforced door. There was no answer.
She didn't hesitate. She placed her palm flat against the door, and the intricate runes she had carved into it flared to life. With a few quick gestures, she input the emergency override sequence. The wards dissolved and the heavy door swung open.
She found him on the floor, convulsing. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and a trickle of blood was coming from his nose.
"Psychic backlash!" she gasped, her mind racing. He must have tried to connect with the Broodmother's essence without proper shielding.
She flew into action. This was her world. Not a battlefield of beasts and blades, but a battlefield of energy and runes. She grabbed a set of small, polished silver disks from her toolkit and quickly placed them in a precise circle around Jonah's head.
"Stabilizing array, activate!" she commanded, pouring her own mana into the disks. They buzzed to life, projecting a glowing, blue cage of light around his head. It was a Mana Sieve, a more advanced version of the one she had designed to filter essences.
She knelt beside him, placing a gentle hand on his forehead. His skin was ice-cold. "Jonah? Can you hear me? You have to fight it. Ground yourself."
Slowly, the convulsions began to subside. The glowing blue cage of light was working. The raw pain in Jonah's mind began to recede, leaving him so exhausted and completely hopeless.
He opened his eyes, his vision blurry. He saw Vanessa's face, showing concern and soft blue light. The relief was so huge, so complete, that his last defenses broke.
The secret, the one he had sworn to the Headmaster he would carry alone, the secret that was crushing him from the inside out, spilled out of him in a broken whisper.
"It's dying, Vanessa," he choked out. "The serum… it's all a lie. The Dragon's essence… it's decaying. It's all going to fall apart."
Vanessa stared at him, confused and slowly horrified. She didn't understand the context but she understood the terror in his voice. She understood that he was talking about the end of their world.
She saw the despair in his eyes, the crushing weight of a boy who believed he was the only thing standing between his people and oblivion. Her heart ached for him.
She leaned closer, her own voice a fierce whisper. "Then we'll fix it."
He looked at her, his eyes full of doubt.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Jonah," she said, her grip on his hand tightening. "But I know you. You are a creator. A Weaver. If the old power is dying…" she paused, her faith in him was unwavering. "Then we will build the original. You and me. We'll build a new one."
Her words, full of such strong belief, were the anchor he needed. He saw not a scientist or a runic engineer, but his partner. His friend. The one person in the world who saw the full scope of his power and wasn't afraid of it.
The space between them, once filled with the buzz of machines, was now charged with something else. Something fragile, powerful, and real.
He leaned in. She leaned in.
The air between them held the promise of an unbreakable bond, just a breath away.
WEEEEEE-OOOOO-WEEEEEE-OOOOO!
A security alarm, loud and urgent, blared through the workshop, breaking the silence. A flashing red light on Vanessa's main console pulsed with a clear warning.
She jerked back, her eyes snapping to the screen. "What…?"
Her face went pale. "That's a high-level security breach alert," she said, her voice tight with alarm. "It's a Bureau signature. It's been detected in the lower levels of the arena. Directly beneath the main stage."
The moment was gone. Smashed to pieces by what was happening in the world outside. The shadow war the Headmaster had warned him about was no longer a whisper.
It was here.