—If the divine wears your face, who speaks when you say 'I'?
Quinn stood in the ruins, his expression austere, his eyes bottomless—like the sea before a storm: calm, yet charged with danger.
Shawn locked his gaze on Quinn, his mind screaming with warning sirens..
This was the man who had once saved him… and nearly killed him.
"What are you doing here?" Shawn asked, voice taut with suspicion.
Quinn stepped forward slowly.
A faint shimmer of transparent energy rippled around him, setting him apart from the bleakness around them.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he glanced up at the cloud-swallowed sky and said quietly, "You still don't understand who you truly are."
Shawn frowned. "I know who I am. But you… who the hell are you really?"
His eyes narrowed, cutting straight into Quinn's: "I'll admit it—I'm grateful you brought me to see Meta Hierophant and helped me grasp the power of the Central Core. But…" He paused, his voice darkening, "You never answered me—was Kyng's death your doing?"
At the mention of that name, Quinn's pupils visibly contracted. Silence stretched between them, as if he were forcibly suppressing some memory—or regret.
"Kyng... chose his own end."
Shawn recoiled. His voice jumped an octave. "What do you mean? You killed him?"
"It wasn't me." Quinn lifted his eyes, icy and sharp as a blade. "He tried to sever all access to the Source Realm. He knew the cost—and he accepted it."
Shawn's fists clenched. His jaw tightened. "He did it for me. He knew I carried a shard of the Core inside me."
"You're wrong," Quinn interrupted. His voice was calm, but his words brooked no challenge. "You don't carry a fragment. You are—the multi-dimensional vessel for that fragment."
The air thickened, as though gravity itself had grown heavier. Shawn felt it pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe.
"…What did you say?"
Quinn took a few more steps forward. A soft glow danced across his fingertips as he drew in the air.
A three-dimensional projection flickered to life—shaped like a shattered pane of glass, its cracks spiderwebbed outward.
But at its center was a faint, pulsating light—resonating ever so slightly with the energy inside Shawn's own body, like a heartbeat responding to its twin.
"You're not some fated 'chosen one,'" Quinn said steadily. "You were created to contain this core energy. Not a failed experiment. Not a normal human being. You… are the 'Core Vessel'—designed by the Meta Origin Sect to connect multiple realities."
The words carved through Shawn, hollowing him from within. His body swayed. He almost couldn't stand.
Fragments of memory flashed in his mind—
The day he was born. He didn't cry—just smiled, a smile too knowing for a newborn. That smile had terrified the nurse so much she dropped him and ran. The nurse would later swear his irises flickered with gold.His mother vanished that same day, as if she'd evaporated from existence. Neighbors called him a freak. His father barely acknowledged him.
Were it not for his grandfather's patient care, he might have disappeared into the cold silence of rejection long ago.
Now back in the moment, Shawn gritted his teeth. His voice was low, hoarse: "You're saying… I'm just a vessel? Then what about my mind? My identity? Who the hell am I?"
Quinn didn't answer at once. He silently reached into his tactical pack and pulled out a thin data crystal. He handed it to Shawn.
"You need to see for yourself."
Shawn hesitated, then took the crystal and slid it into the reader on his wrist. A soft beep chimed. His retinal interface flared to life as a sealed data stream began to play.
—A lab. Cold and sterile. Silent oppression hung in the air. A not-yet-fully-formed humanoid figure floated in translucent nano-fluid, surrounded by monitors and blinking graphs. Several scientists in hazmat suits argued near a terminal.
"His neural chain is unstable! Injecting the energy shard might trigger reverse disintegration!"
"We don't have time! If fusion isn't complete before he turns nineteen, the fragment will reject the host !"
Their voices clashed with shrill warning tones, each word a needle to Shawn's eardrums.
Then the footage shifted—to a face he recognized.
Kyng.
He stood before the glass chamber, eyes tired but steady. His tone was calm, but threaded with sorrow.
"You are the last experiment of the Meta Genesis Realm… and our final hope. Forgive me."
The feed cut off. The projection vanished. Silence returned, too complete to feel natural.
But Shawn stood frozen, as though the life had drained from his limbs. His chest felt crushed, each breath an effort, like drowning in air.
"I'm… not even human?"
He whispered, eyes blank, as if his soul were slipping away from his flesh.
Quinn's voice broke the silence, deep and steady: "You're not an abandoned experiment. You are the living extension of the fragment's own will. You are its projection—its vessel, crafted by Meta Origin Sect to preserve the final trace of consciousness."
His gaze bore into Shawn, reverent and clinical, as though studying something that should not exist.
"You're not an ordinary life form. Not even… human. You are a construct of divine intent. A container for Elemental Core. The key—both to the end and to the reset."
Shawn felt the earth tilt beneath him. The world cracked open.
Everything he had believed—his memories, his identity, even his very self—now felt like an elaborate lie.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, voice calm but low, flames flickering behind his eyes. "What do you really want?"
Quinn didn't respond at first. He gazed toward the horizon.
There, a rift was slowly peeling across the sky. From the dark blue clouds, a faint sliver of light slid downward—like some invisible hand had torn the heavens open. The wind carried a low hum, ancient and unknowable.
"Because time is running out," Quinn said at last, quietly but with steel beneath his words. "The Darkwave has detected the fragments' convergence. They're accelerating their breach. If they succeed, the Source Realm will be cut off—forever."
Shawn turned slightly, suspicion returning to his voice. "So now I'm the center of everything? The final piece in someone else's plan? But I'm just a vessel. I'm not your hero."
"You don't need to be a hero," Quinn said softly. "You're simply the only key left."
He looked again at the torn sky.
"Meta Hierophant has entered deep stasis. Kyng is gone. The only one left who can contain the energy—and activate the Rift Bridge—is you."
Beneath them, the earth trembled faintly. The ruins stirred, rippling like something deep underground was awakening—echoes of something old answering a future yet to come.
Quinn turned, extending his hand.
"Come with me. We must reach the Rift before it fully opens."
Shawn didn't move. He stared at that hand, his gaze still and sharp—measuring the weight of destiny.
Then he nodded, slowly. His voice was steady, but edged like a blade:
"If you're still hiding something… I will end this myself."
Before Quinn could respond, a furious voice exploded from the rubble:
"Going somewhere?"
Gary had appeared ahead, his eyes cold and deadly.
A mocking laugh followed: "Not before we see if you can leave alive."
It was Da's voice.
The sky dimmed.
Da's body began to warp grotesquely, as if an unseen force was disassembling and reshaping him. In the next instant, a colossal beast emerged from the shadows—its form vaguely simian, but wrapped in spiraling multidimensional tendrils. Its presence pressed down like a mountain, and its guttural roar shook the world.
Shawn's pupils contracted. "That's not Da!"
"Run!" Quinn barked. He grabbed Shawn, and the two vanished into the ruins as blurs of motion.
The buildings collapsed. The ground buckled and groaned—as if the entire city were being torn from reality.
As they fled, Shawn looked back.
The monstrous shadow wasn't chasing Quinn.
Its target… was him.
The vessel of the fragment.