Elara crouched in front of the pulsating domain core, her breath catching as she took in the ominous copper veins twisting through its surface. Normally, cores glowed with a steady, serene blue light. This one, however, seemed corrupted—its energy swirling like rust-colored poison trying to escape confinement.

Her fingers twitched. The blade in her hand wasn’t hers, though it felt disturbingly natural in her grip. She’d taken it from Arcanis, and the thought of his expression if he found out brought a smirk to her lips.

As the blade kissed the nearest vine, a burst of static erupted in her ear, making her wince. The sharp feedback grated against her eardrum.

“Elara! Finally!” Z’s voice cut through the noise, frantic and tinged with something she rarely heard from him—fear.

“Z?”

“I thought I lost you.” He breathed a quick sigh of relief.

She straightened, twirling the dagger with an idle flick of her wrist. “You sound a bit breathless for someone who’s been sitting on his ass while I did all the heavy lifting.”

“Listen to me!” he snapped, his usual cheerful tone replaced with an edge sharp enough to rival her blade. “You need to get out.”

Her lips curled into a slow grin. “Z, are you begging? Kinda hot, but I’m still not listening.”

“Now’s not the time,” Z growled.

He must be serious if he’s not even reacting to my comment. Elara tilted her head, eyeing the core again. The copper veins throbbed irregularly, as though it had a heartbeat. “I guess it does look a little cursed,” she admitted more to herself than to him.

Z’s voice began rising. “The mana readings are insane. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s… wrong. I don’t even need the Doomwing feather for your blade upgrade anymore. Just get out of there.”

“We’ll talk about not needing the Doomwing feather when I get back.” Her lips curved into a dry smile. “But I have to do this to even try to leave. I don’t know what you see out there, but there’s no route to an exit in here.”

“Elara—”

“I think it might be… alive,” she cut him off, her tone light despite the weight in her chest. She glanced at the core again, the swirling veins seeming to pulse in time with her heartbeat.

“That’s not possible,” Z strained. “Cores are energy sources, not living things.”

Elara hesitated, her thumb brushing over the dagger’s hilt. The thought of leaving the core gnawed at her—a strange, unfamiliar sense of responsibility weighing on her. She wasn’t one to play hero. She didn’t have a noble bone in her body. But the image of the hundreds of raiders still scattered throughout the domain flashed in her mind.

“Z,” she said, her voice softer, almost distracted. “If I don’t pull this, the whole place will go volatile. You know what that means.”

Z spoke through gritted teeth, “Do you want me to hate you?”

“I know that’s not possible.” Elara chuckled. She knew she touched a sore spot, but she also knew that she was the only one who could without dying.

She knew she should leave. It was the logical choice, the safe choice. But logic didn’t seem to hold much sway over her these days. She didn’t know what was wrong with her—why she kept making decisions that felt so out of character. She recalled her lapse of judgment to save Eryx Arcanis. That’s right… everything started to go wrong since I met him.

Staring at his black dagger, Elara sighed resignedly and tightened her grip, slashing the dagger through the vine. The moment the blade severed the tendril, the core dropped into her hand, unnervingly warm and slick. The ground beneath her buckled, sending cracks racing outward.

“Elara, what the hell did you just do?” Z’s voice was sharp, panic bleeding through every word.

“Relax,” she panted, the core now cradled in her hands. It was warm—too warm. Worse, now that she was holding it, she really did think it was alive. It pulsed like it had a heartbeat. “The exit reopened, right?”

There was a beat of silence, then Z cursed. “Yes, but the entire domain is destabilizing. You’re running out of time. Get. Out.”

The air grew heavy, the oppressive weight making it hard to breathe. Elara staggered as the domain itself began to quake, the air shimmering with unstable energy.

She pivoted and sprinted in the direction of the reopened exit, the core pulsing erratically in her grip. Every step sent tremors up her legs as the ground fractured beneath her.

The core thrummed against her palm, its energy surging in waves that mimicked a living heartbeat. Her stomach twisted.

No, it’s not my imagination. The core is alive—or something close to it.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Elara?” Z’s voice crackled in her ear. “Why’d you stop? Did something happen?”

Ignoring him, she pulled her eyepatch up to reveal her healing eye. The glow of her iris illuminated the core in vivid detail. Threads of crimson poison laced through its energy, weaving a tapestry of corruption that radiated a sickly aura. It was like staring into a living organism infected by some foreign intruder.

“Z,” she said, her voice low. “Even with my speed, I don’t think I can make it to the exit. But I think… I can fix this.”

“Bullshit. You’re the fastest Raider there is,” Z’s disbelief was palpable. “And that’s impossible. Cores aren’t biological. They’re pure energy. You can’t heal it.”

“You know me, Z.” She narrowed her eye, her lips quirking into a faint smirk. “I’ve always made my own rules.”

“Elara, listen to me—don’t do this. Just get to the exit. Please.”

She ignored him, her free hand hovering over the core’s surface. It pulsed faintly beneath her palm, its rhythm uneven. She closed her eyes and let the familiar warmth of her healing energy flow. Her breath hitched. She expected resistance, pain, maybe even backlash.

As her energy seeped into the core, her eyes snapped open in surprise.

“Z,” she whispered, a hint of awe creeping into her voice. “I can feel it.”