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  • Chapter 15 : The way

    Chapter by LEOWOLF · 28 Oct 2026
  • Damian described an ancient method that would allow Cassandra and the others to experience the true Brood God firsthand, and Cassandra raised her doubts and questions...
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  • The air in the basement was nearly motionless.

    The shielding device's low-frequency hum ran on without pause, the green indicator light blinking steadily, like a heart that refused to rest. Cassandra sat in the folding chair, breathing evenly, her eyes clear. The ancient intrusion inside her had receded completely; she was almost once again the PhD in philosophy who could dissect the world with a phenomenological frame — except for the faint coolness left in her palm by Damian's touch, which still vaguely reminded her of what had just happened.

    Elias, however, had not given up.

    He pulled a thick stack of printouts from his backpack, the edges curled from years of handling. He spread several pages across the metal coffee table, pressed a fingertip hard against a data chart, and his voice trembled slightly with urgency:

    "Look here — the phase cancellation rate between 0.7 and 2.3 hertz. Seventy-two cases I've collected over twenty years. As long as the shielding power stays in this range, resonance intensity drops by more than sixty percent on average. Turning it off is the same as deliberately exposing our position to that thing. You just said suppression provokes anger, but the data shows —"

    "The data has a problem." Damian cut him off, his tone calm to the point of coldness. "Your model is built on the premise that it can be suppressed. The premise is wrong."

    Elias's face flushed red in an instant. He drew a deep breath, tried to force the anger down, and still could not keep his voice from rising:

    "What gives you the right to declare the premise wrong? I've studied this for twenty years! From the original Pioneer spectrograms to medieval monastery manuscripts to modern neuroimaging — I've walked every path. You happen to possess some kind of... trait, and you dismiss all of it?"

    Liora had stood silently by the console the whole time. Her fingers rested lightly on the edge of the panel, her grey-green eyes narrowed a little. She wasn't looking at Elias, or at Damian. Her head was tilted slightly, as if she were listening to something very far away.

    "Elias." She spoke suddenly, quietly, a note of uncertainty in her voice that had never been there before. "Something's off."

    Elias turned to look at her. "What?"

    Liora didn't answer at once. Her gaze swept across the vent, the shielding layer on the …
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