Xerion drifted through the viscous dark, but something had changed.
He had fought. He had killed. He had consumed.
But now… now he remembered.
It wasn't a clear memory—nothing as precise as an image or voice. More like a shape in the fog, an emotion not his own, carved into his inner fibers.
Fear.Desperation.Grief.
But whose?
Certainly not his. Xerion had no past. No ancestors. No species. He was an accident of data and survival. A mistake blessed with potential.
So where did this pain come from?
The memory hit again.
A flash—brief, electric.
A room. Cold, metallic. Voices screaming in a language he did not know.
A glass tank filled with fluid. A mass floating inside.
Him?
No. Not yet. Another. A failed trial.
"Shut it down! The seed's collapsing—"
"No! Wait—look at the neural spike!"
The image fragmented.
Gone.
Xerion spasmed, his membrane pulsing erratically.
[Neural Disruption Detected. Emotional Residue Triggered.][Stabilizing Core. Breathing Function Simulated.]
He didn't breathe, but the system replicated the rhythm—pulse… pause… pulse…—until the tremor passed.
He floated in silence.
Not just stunned, but confused.
Was he supposed to feel?
No.
And yet… the sorrow lingered.
And in that sorrow, a strange thought bloomed:
He was not the first.
Later, as he drifted toward the nutrient folds on the edge of Sector Null, his awareness deepened.
His new sensory field—Resonance—picked up whispers. Not words. Not language.
Impressions.
A wriggling knot of larvae nearby pulsed with basic emotion—fear, panic, blind hunger.
He could sense them before they moved. Anticipate where they'd flee, where they'd scatter.
[Tactical Efficiency Boost: 23% in Predictive Combat]
He tested it.
Waited.
A nutrient sac drifted between them. The larvae lunged. He surged at an angle, intercepting mid-lunge. They didn't even register him until it was too late.
[Two Larvae Consumed. Energy +0.018 | Bio Point +1]
A clean kill.
No effort.
But he felt nothing.
No pride. No thrill.
He pulsed gently and floated upward, ignoring the drifting scraps.
He wasn't hungry.
Not in that way.
He was searching.
The system broke his silence.
[New Data Stream: Archived Memory Node Detected][Origin: Unknown.][Visual and Audio Contaminated. Attempting Decipher…]
A shimmer blinked in the darkness before him.
The void parted.
This time, it was clear.
He stood—no, someone stood—on a metal platform surrounded by black oceans. Towering structures curved upward like ribs of a fossilized god.
A voice:
"The evolution failed. Again."
Another:
"It's not failure. It's rejection. The Seed chooses. Every time we try to force it—"
The image shook violently.
Then—
A single phrase burned through the static:
"You were meant to be extinct."
The world snapped back.
The fluid was silent again.
But inside Xerion's neural web, something cracked.
Not broken.
Awakened.
[Emotion Unlocked: Anger][First Cognitive Rebellion Registered. Neural Thread Density Increased.]
He pulsed violently.
Not with power—but with defiance.
He didn't know who those voices were. Or what "the Seed" truly meant. But he understood this:
They expected him to die.
To fail.
To vanish into the nothing.
Instead… he lived.
He evolved.
And soon, he would remember everything.
Then they would learn what true failure looked like.
[Dominance Rank: 33rd of 64][Memory Imprint Storage Slots: 2/2 Used][Next Neural Milestone: Thought-Speech Interface – 64%]
He was close.
Close to communicating.
To reaching others.
And somewhere out there, he knew—someone was waiting.
Watching.
Not the system.
Not the rivals.
Her.
The one from the crevice. The one who spoke like light.
He didn't know her name.
But a shape began to form in his mind when he thought of her.
A star wrapped in silver flame.
A whisper:
Celestara.