Yuri found Kain by following the screaming.
Not the city's.
The other kind.
The Obsidian Spire was in controlled panic—guards shouting orders, civilians herded into corridors, emergency barriers sliding shut with grinding booms—but beneath all of it Yuri felt something else. A pressure in his chest that didn't belong to him. A sensation like standing too close to a bonfire and realizing the fire was aware.
That feeling pulled him forward.
He moved against the crowd, slipping through gaps others didn't see, ducking beneath raised weapons and emergency conduits sparking blue-white above. Where Kain adapted by sharpening outward, Yuri adapted inward—filtering noise, isolating intent, sensing where fear thinned enough to pass through.
Then the floor jumped.
A shockwave ripped through the Spire's lower ring, throwing bodies sideways. Yuri slammed into a pillar, shoulder screaming, barely managing to stay upright as obsidian panels fractured and peeled away like scabs.
And there—through dust and fleeing silhouettes—he saw it.
Kain.
On one knee. Blood on his face. Ash scattered around him where roots had been.
Alive.
Relief hit Yuri so hard his knees almost buckled.
Then the screaming changed.
Not louder.
Closer.
The floor beneath Kain split.
No warning pulse this time. No gradual pressure.
It just opened.
A jagged seam tore across the Spire's interior, ripping through metal and stone as something forced itself upward. Pale roots burst out in a violent spiral, not crawling now but lunging, snapping together into a crude, towering shape.
A body.
Not whole. Never whole.
It dragged itself upright on fused limbs, torso stitched from roots and crystal, faces half-formed along its chest and arms—mouths opening and closing in asynchronous agony. Sand and ash poured from it as it rose, heat rolling outward in waves.
People screamed and ran.
Guards fired.
Bolts of energy slammed into the thing, punching holes straight through it—holes that sealed almost instantly as roots knitted themselves back together.
"KAIN!" Yuri shouted.
Kain looked up.
Their eyes met.
For a fraction of a second, the noise dimmed.
Then the thing noticed Yuri.
Every face on its surface twisted toward him at once.
The pressure slammed into Yuri's chest like a physical blow. He staggered back, vision blurring, not from sound but from emotion—raw desperation, terror layered over terror, all of it reaching for him like hands in the dark.
"NOPE," Yuri gasped, clutching his head. "I am not equipped for this."
The thing screamed.
This time, it had sound.
Windows shattered outward. Metal warped. Two guards were lifted off their feet and thrown into a wall hard enough that they didn't get up again.
Kain forced himself upright.
"Yuri," he shouted, voice raw. "MOVE. IT'S FIXATING."
"ON ME?" Yuri yelled back. "WHY IS IT ALWAYS ON ME?"
Because Yuri felt instead of heard.
Because he resonated instead of listening.
Because to the dead, Yuri felt like warmth.
The thing lunged.
Kain ran.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. He adapted.
He grabbed a fallen guard's shield, slammed it into the floor, and vaulted off it as the creature's limb smashed down where he'd been. The impact cratered the stone, sending cracks racing outward.
Yuri turned and bolted.
Not away—sideways.
He sprinted toward a collapsing side corridor, dove through just as emergency barriers slammed down behind him. The creature roared in frustration, slamming against the barrier hard enough to dent it inward.
"YURI!" Kain shouted.
"I'M GOOD!" Yuri yelled back, even as he stumbled through smoke and falling debris. "I THINK!"
The corridor ahead sloped downward, lights flickering erratically. Yuri skidded around a corner and nearly collided with a Warden strike unit moving the opposite direction—black armor, visors down, weapons humming.
"STOP—" one began.
The floor exploded between them.
Roots punched up from below, impaling one of the soldiers clean through the chest and dragging him screaming into the opening before anyone could react.
Chaos.
Yuri froze for half a second too long.
The thing's presence flooded the corridor—pressure, grief, rage—so strong it made his teeth vibrate.
Then Kain was there.
He slammed into Yuri from the side, knocking him clear just as a mass of roots tore through the wall where Yuri's head had been.
They hit the floor hard, rolling.
"You good?" Kain demanded.
"Define good!" Yuri shot back, scrambling up. "Because emotionally? No."
The creature forced itself through the collapsed barrier behind them, tearing metal apart like wet paper. It was bigger now—fed by proximity, by fear, by the open structure of the Spire.
"It's learning," Yuri said, breathless. "That's bad, right?"
"Yes," Kain said flatly.
They ran.
The corridor opened into a vast atrium—one of the Spire's internal transport hubs. Platforms, rails, suspended walkways now packed with fleeing civilians. Emergency lights bathed everything in harsh red and blue, painting faces in panic.
The creature burst through behind them, fully formed now—towering, shrieking, dragging its mass forward in grinding, bone-on-stone movements.
People died.
Not metaphorically.
A falling walkway crushed dozens as supports snapped. A root slammed into a crowd, flinging bodies like dolls. The screaming became constant.
Yuri stopped dead.
"Kain," he said, voice shaking. "If we keep running, this thing keeps chasing us. Through them."
Kain knew he was right.
He also knew what that meant.
"We end it here," Kain said.
Yuri swallowed hard. "You have a plan?"
"No," Kain said. "But it does."
The creature reared back, gathering itself for a charge that would tear through the atrium.
Kain stepped forward.
The dead surged inside him, panicked.
"No," he growled. "Not like that. You don't get to wear them."
He listened.
He focused—not on the screams, but on the pattern. The rhythm beneath the noise. The way the thing anchored itself to the Spire, feeding through conduits, roots burrowing into structural veins.
"It's not fully independent," Kain realized aloud. "It's tethered."
Yuri's eyes widened. "To the Heart."
"And to the Spire itself," Kain said. "Which means—"
Yuri finished it. "If we sever the anchors…"
The creature charged.
Kain ran toward it.
Yuri screamed something incoherent and followed, adrenaline overriding sanity.
They split at the last second.
Kain slid beneath a sweeping limb, drove his spear into a glowing conduit at the creature's base. The dead howled approval inside him as the structure ruptured, blue energy erupting outward.
Yuri vaulted onto a fallen rail, sprinted along it, and leapt—landing hard on the creature's side. The heat nearly cooked him alive, but he clenched his teeth and pressed his palm against the writhing mass.
He didn't listen.
He felt.
And he pushed.
Not power. Not force.
Empathy.
The dead recoiled.
For one impossible second, the screaming faltered.
The creature staggered.
Kain ripped the spear free and drove it in again—another anchor severed.
The atrium shook violently.
The creature shrieked—not in rage this time, but in fear.
Yuri slid off its side and hit the floor hard, rolling away as the thing began to destabilize—roots thrashing wildly, crystal cracking, faces screaming as the structure lost cohesion.
"KAIN!" Yuri shouted. "I don't think it likes being disconnected!"
"No," Kain agreed grimly. "And it's not done."
Deep below them, something answered.
A heavier pulse.
Slower.
Deliberate.
The Heart was responding.
The creature didn't collapse.
It reached downward—roots plunging through the atrium floor, desperately trying to reconnect.
Kain and Yuri stood side by side, breathing hard, staring at it.
"That's one," Yuri said shakily. "How many more of these can it make?"
Kain didn't answer.
He felt the answer inside him.
Too many.
And this—this was only the first chapter of the response.