Location: Crimson Safehouse "Featherfold" – 17 Hours After Xu's Departure
The storm didn't come with thunder.
It came with silence.
No sirens. No network pings.
Just the complete absence of connection.
Mouse was the first to notice.
"Our relay nodes just went dead."
She checked again.
"Not down. Severed. Someone erased the mesh."
Lin looked up from the map table. "EON?"
Mouse shook her head.
"No. This isn't EON. This is... Rootlight."
Seconds Later – Outer Perimeter
A low-frequency pulse shook the safehouse.
Pressure doors rattled in their frames.
Qingyue checked her firearm, eyes narrowing.
"They're not testing us. They're coming."
Outside, six shadow figures moved in formation.
Unmarked suits. Veil-tech helmets. One held a cruciform scanner that pulsed blood-red with each step.
"Target confirmed. SEED-ORCHID-Δ."
Inside the Safehouse
Lin turned to Yan.
"They want you."
The boy—Yan—stood still, unblinking.
"Not me," he said. "What I haven't decided to become."
Qingyue cursed as she bolted the west corridor manually.
"Then decide now. Fight or flight?"
Yan looked down at his hands.
They weren't glowing. They weren't weaponized.
But the air around him shifted.
"No more running."
Assault Begins
The first wall blew inward.
Two intruders moved like fluid, synchronized as one.
But they didn't expect Lin.
He struck the first mid-lunge, redirected the second's rifle before she could aim, and cracked her visor with one blow.
Qingyue's shots rang behind him—two more down in seconds.
But a third wave entered, dragging a mobile stasis field toward the hallway where Yan stood alone.
"SEED, stand down," a voice intoned. "This is your extraction."
Yan looked at them calmly.
"No. This is my line."
The Turning Point
Without touching a terminal, without raising his hand, Yan whispered a single phrase:
"System: Refuse them."
And every digital thread within thirty meters collapsed.
Weapons glitched.
Helmet displays turned to static.
Even the stasis field cracked, then shattered from within.
The agents froze.
Their reality had stopped obeying.
"He's live!" one shouted.
"Abort!"
But it was too late.
Yan walked forward, unarmed, and the systems themselves bent away from him.
Aftermath
Three attackers escaped. Four lay unconscious. The rest? Gone—vanished in code collapse.
Lin stared at the boy.
"You... controlled it."
Yan looked tired. Pale.
"No. I convinced it."
Mouse's voice crackled through the static.
"You just gave yourself away, kid. Every satellite with eyes saw that."
Yan turned toward the darkened sky.
"Good. Let them come."
Final Scene – Rootlight Interior, Location Unknown
The High Monitor of Rootlight watched the footage.
Paused at the moment the systems bent to Yan's whisper.
He touched the screen.
"He's not a successor."
He turned to his council.
"He's a heretic."