The Molten Maw had been reclaid.
--
"We got the money," Althea said, her voice sharp as she looked down at her wrist communicator. The screen glowed faintly in the low light of the cave.
Nioh barely turned. "Good," he said after a mont, distracted by the hum in his thoughts. He was still watching the feed from the fossil’s containnt logs, even though the work was already done. The Heartwing had been activated. Stabilized. Tethered.
It wasn’t really resurrection. Not in the classical sense. The dragon hadn’t died. It had slipped into so kind of deep coma, buried in geologic ti, listening only to a specific harmonic frequency that no one knew existed until now. Canonization was the word the council used. Nioh had his own thoughts. He preferred the idea of resonance mory. That ti, like a shell, could carry a frequency long after the event had passed.
And sohow, Ekoh had known. His biocore had matched that frequency without Nioh even prompting it.
Since the cocoon phase ended, Ekoh had barely spoken, barely pulsed. But in the final mont, it had intervened. Not with violence. Not with power. But with alignnt.
Nioh didn’t say it out loud, but it had rattled him.
"Since we have everything we need, we can go back to the citadel," Akron said. He stretched, then bent down to start organizing the equipnt. His hands moved fast, the way they always did after a job was done. He wanted clean exits. Fast transitions. No lingering.
Above them, the Heartwing flew across the do in a wide arc, wings splitting the ash-laced sky. The resonance crystals pulsed along its body like veins. Its roar echoed into the still-forming walls of the Obsidian Gate. A living monunt.
Magnus descended shortly after. The dragon dropped him from its back in a careful slide of wings and steam.
"I’ll stay behind for now," Magnus said. "Secure the Maw. You did good work."
He didn’t say goodbye, not directly. He just nodded once, then turned his back as the transport ship ca to life nearby.
They boarded the airship quietly.
It took them from the Gate to the outer Transfer Ring in under thirty minutes. The whole ride, Nioh didn’t say much. Althea sat across from him, boots propped against the storage crate, visor off. The light of the volcanic fields gave her face a faint red glow. Akron sat between them, looking fine. Calm even.
Until he wasn’t.
--
The mont they stepped through the Transfer Gate and into the Citadel’s receiving do, Akron dropped to his knees.
He doubled over and clutched his chest, gasping. His back arched, and a sharp, distorted scream tore out of him.
"Akron!" Althea was first to reach him. She pulled his shoulder, trying to get him to lie down, but he twisted away violently. His body was shaking. Heat poured off his skin.
Nioh rushed over, eyes already checking his biocore implant. What he saw made his stomach drop. The resonance lines were going haywire. Pulsing with strange cadences. His biocore wasn’t syncing. It was reacting. Pushing against sothing unseen.
"Hold him!" Nioh ordered. "Al, hold his legs!"
She dropped to her knees beside him.
"I don’t know what this is—his core is rejecting sothing."
"From the Maw?" Althea asked.
"I don’t know!"
Without thinking, Nioh hit the ergency beacon on his forearm.
"I can’t hold him," Althea said. "He’s—"
"Hold him down!"
But even as she tried, Akron’s muscles surged unnaturally. His skin pulsed, veins lighting up like circuitry. Whatever he had brought back from the Maw was rewriting him.
Nioh pressed an ergency alert. The beacon shot a tightburst ssage to the citadel’s command channel.
Then a shimr.
Lithaa appeared.
She didn’t speak at first. Just walked forward and knelt beside Akron, observing.
"Move," she said.
"But—"
"I said move."
There was no warmth in her tone.
She touched the base of Akron’s neck and whispered sothing low. Sothing Nioh didn’t understand. Akron stopped seizing.
Then, in a flash of light and static, they were gone.
One Month Later
The only sound was the clatter of boots and the occasional strike of a weighted practice blow.
Nioh stepped back from the impact, sweat running down his back.
Grims stood across from him, unarmored, dressed in plain training gear. The older young man held his bone blade low, watching Nioh’s footwork.
"You’re favoring your left side."
"No, I’m not."
"You are. Barely. Enough to get you killed."
Nioh adjusted and circled again. He lunged, but Grims caught the strike and pushed him back. The bone blade wavered in his hand.
"You’ve been distracted."
Nioh didn’t answer.
Grims tossed the blade into the rack and sat on the bench. He pulled out a flask and took a sip before speaking again.
"What do you know about the Bris Family?" Nioh asked.
Grims raised a brow. "That old question again?"
"This is about the young lass, isn’t it?" he added.
"Why do you call him a lass?" Nioh said, wiping his face with a cloth. His tone wasn’t accusatory, just tired.
Grims paused, swirling the drink in his hand.
"Maybe it’s ti you visited the Shoxa region," he said. Then he stood, picked up his jacket, and walked out.
He didn’t say anything else.
--
Later that evening, Nioh stood at the docking platform with a light pack slung over one shoulder.
Althea approached, her coat rustling in the soft wind. She looked rested, but he could tell she was thinking the sa thing.
"I’m going to see Akron," he said.
"In the Shoxa region?"
"Yeah."
She nodded. "I figured."
There was a quiet pause between them. The noise of the citadel faded. The platform lights cast faint white halos on the floor.
"It’s been a month," Nioh said finally. "I need to know how she is."
Althea tilted her head, but didn’t comnt.
"I an him," he added. "I think."
"She?"
He looked at her.
"I’m not sure anymore."
Althea exhaled. "You want to co?"
"I won’t make you."
"I didn’t ask that."
He gave her a small smile.
She sighed. "I’ll get my gear."
As she walked off, Nioh glanced at the ring etched into the transfer dock’s console.
Shoxa was remote. Half its nodes were still classified, thanks to ongoing conflicts with Bri-linked regions. The other half were overgrown, marked as semi-hostile terrain. For so reason, Lithaa had taken Akron there.
Not to a hospital. Not to a temple.
To the Bri border.
Ekoh pulsed faintly on his back as if sensing the thought.
"You knew sothing back then, didn’t you," Nioh whispered.
Ekoh didn’t answer, but a low hum flickered through the connector node.
Not quite agreent.
Not quite denial.
Just a reminder.
—
Later that night, Nioh found Althea waiting by the docking platform. She already had her gear slung over one shoulder, one boot resting on the edge of a crate.
"I’m going to see Akron," Nioh said.
"In the Shoxa region?"
He nodded.
Althea studied him. "It’s been a month."
"I need to know how she is."
She blinked at that.
"She?"
"I think so. I don’t know."
He was tired of guessing.
"You want company?"
"I’m not asking you to co."
"I didn’t say you were."
She walked past him, toward the shuttle prep terminal.
Nioh smiled faintly.
They reached Shoxa at sunrise.
It wasn’t like the Citadel or the Maw. This land was old. Untad. The shuttle descended through a valley of cliffs overrun by moss and spiked roots. Rolling green hills rose and fell like waves frozen in stone. Massive trees with pale leaves stretched into fog. Ruined fortresses clung to rock ledges. Birds with bioluminescent wings circled above.
Nioh stepped off the ramp and exhaled.
The whole region humd—not like a city’s synthetic pulse, but a natural frequency. Unfiltered. Alive.
"This place feels... different," Althea said.
"It’s Bri territory," Nioh replied. "One of the few monarchies still left with living bloodlines."
And Lithaa was royalty.
They hiked up through the cliffs, following a trail Ekoh had etched into Nioh’s vision feed—a harmonic map. He hadn’t been silent after all. He’d just been waiting for the tone to match.
A few hours in, they reached the crest of a hill.
And the kingdom appeared right before them. Huge stone statues rise from the jungle, covered in moss and vines. Trees grow on their shoulders, with rope bridges linking wooden temples. Waterfalls pour from cliffs into glowing rivers. Warriors walk hidden forest paths below, while silent stone faces watch from the mountains, guarding the city of Amazons and Titans.
It was Shurima. The sanctuary of Titans.
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