Chapter 35 · Protocol Zero

"Get your hands off me!" Kael roared, but the sound was a glitchy mess, his voice layering over itself like a corrupted audio file.

He wasn't just falling; he was being peeled apart. Mord’s shadow had him pinned against the invisible geometry of the void, and the extraction process felt like a thousand white-hot needles sewing through his skin. Every stolen skill, every fragment of power he’d ripped from another soul, was vibrating, trying to tear its way out of his chest.

"Stop it!" Vera’s voice cut through the static. She lunged forward, her fingers grazing Kael’s wrist. The touch was a spark in the dark, a momentary anchor of warmth against the freezing vacuum of the system.

"He's breaking, Mord!" she screamed, her eyes wide, searching Kael’s face. "Look at him! He can't take any more!"

Mord didn't even look at her. The entity’s voice didn't come from a mouth—it resonated directly inside Kael’s skull, a cold, rhythmic vibration. "The vessel is designed to break. That is how the distillation works. Only the purest essence survives the collapse."

"I'm not a vessel!" Kael spat, his body flickering. One second he was solid, the next he was a wireframe ghost.