Location: The Ash Wastes, Sector 7 Border.
Time: 18:30.
The Psychopomp idled behind a high dune, its engine rumbling a low, steady bass note that vibrated the sand. The sun had finally set, plunging the radioactive desert into a cold, bruised purple twilight. The wind howled, carrying the distant scent of burning ozone from the ruined Flesh-Cathedral.
Dante stood on the reinforced hood of the car. The wind whipped his long coat, but he moved with the steady precision of a surgeon. He held a stick of alchemical white chalk in his mechanical hand.
"Are you sure this is necessary here?" Silas asked, leaning out of the driver's window, scanning the horizon for patrols. "We are technically still in Gorm's backyard. If he sends the flyers..."
"The Landlord is impatient," Dante muttered, scratching a line of geometry onto the brass plating of the hood. "And I don't like carrying a bomb made of unborn god-meat. It attracts attention."
Dante drew.
He didn't draw a simple circle. He drew a Tesseract Projection—a complex, two-dimensional representation of the First Axiom's four-dimensional geometry. He inscribed runes of Exchange, Time, and Transmission along the edges. The chalk glowed faintly, reacting to the residual mana in the air.
He placed the heavy lead canister containing the Crown-Class Homunculus Embryo in the exact center of the design.
Valerius stood nearby, arms crossed over his cracked chest plate. He stared at the canister with a mix of longing and disgust. Inside, the pale, faceless fetus floated in orange suspension, dreaming of a life it would never live.
"It was supposed to be me," Valerius said softly. "Once my body failed, Gorm was going to transfer my consciousness into that thing. A vessel that never degrades. A clean slate."
"It's not a vessel anymore, Valerius," Dante said, finishing the last rune with a sharp snap of his wrist. "It's currency."
Dante stepped back. He bit his thumb, wincing as he drew blood. He smeared a single drop onto the activation rune.
"Prime. The rent is due."
The air above the car hood distorted. It didn't crack; it pixelated. White squares of hard light floated up from the chalk lines, dissolving the physical reality of the canister. The lead turned to glass, the glass to light, the fluid to data.
"PAYMENT RECEIVED," Prime's voice resonated. It didn't come from the sky; it vibrated from the circle itself, using the car's chassis as a speaker.
The canister dissolved completely. The Embryo floated for a second in the air—a tiny, perfect thing—before turning into streams of white code, spiraling upward into the void.
"ANALYZING ASSET... BIOLOGICAL PURITY: 99.9%. GENETIC POTENTIAL: UNLIMITED. ACCEPTABLE."
"The trade," Dante reminded him, looking up at the empty air. "Thirty seconds. On demand."
"CONTRACT RATIFIED."
The white light slammed back down.
It didn't hit the car. It hit Dante's right arm—The Gentleman's Ripper.
KZRT.
Dante gritted his teeth as the Dead Iron heated up to searing temperatures. The runes he had drawn on the car were burned directly into the plating of his mechanical forearm. A glowing, white tattoo of the Tesseract Circle etched itself into the metal, humming with power.
"MECHANISM INSTALLED," Prime stated. "TO ACTIVATE THE 'CHRONAL GLIMPSE', YOU MUST CHANNEL MANA THROUGH THIS SPECIFIC CIRCUIT. THE COST IS HIGH. ONE ACTIVATION PER DAY. DURATION: 30 SECONDS. DO NOT WASTE IT."
Dante flexed his arm. Smoke rose from the metal. The white runes dimmed to a dull grey, leaving faint scars on the casing. He could feel the connection—a dormant line to the future, waiting to be dialed.
"Understood," Dante said, blowing smoke off his arm.
He expected Prime to disconnect. But the connection remained open. The air grew colder, freezing the condensation on the windshield.
"DANTE. A WARNING."
Dante narrowed his eyes. "What is it? Is the Embryo defective?"
"I HAVE BEGUN THE DISSECTION. THE DNA IS NOT SYNTHETIC. IT WAS NOT CRAFTED BY GORM."
"What do you mean?"
"IT IS A CLONE. BUT THE GENETIC MARKERS ARE ANCIENT. THEY PREDATE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. THEY PREDATE THE EMPIRE."
Prime's voice dropped an octave, vibrating with genuine, terrifying curiosity.
"THIS MEAT BELONGS TO THE 'FIRST ERA'. GORM FOUND A CORPSE OF THE OLD KINGS AND TRIED TO GROW IT BACK. THIS THING HAS MEMORIES, DANTE. MEMORIES OF THE WORLD BEFORE THE AXIOMS FELL."
Dante felt a chill that had nothing to do with the desert night. The Old Kings. The myths said they were the ones who broke the world.
"Keep it contained," Dante ordered, his voice hard. "Don't let it wake up."
"I AM THE LIBRARIAN," Prime replied, sounding offended. "NOTHING WAKES UP IN MY LIBRARY UNLESS I ALLOW IT."
ZAP.
The connection severed. The chalk circle on the car hood blew away in the wind like dust.
Dante hopped down from the hood, his boots crunching in the sand. He looked at his arm. He now had a direct line to the future, etched into his combat chassis.
"Is it done?" Silas asked.
"It's done," Dante nodded.
He turned to Valerius. The Sword-Saint was holding a pneumatic injector filled with the glowing orange Antidote.
"Your turn," Dante said.
Valerius looked at the needle. For years, this fluid had been his leash. Gorm had used it to turn him into a dog. Now, it was just chemistry. Just a compound.
He pressed the injector against his neck.
HISS-CLICK.
He emptied the vial.
Valerius shuddered violently. He dropped the empty injector. He fell to his knees, gasping. His skin flushed. The pale, translucent look of the homunculus faded, replaced by a healthy, human tone. The tremors in his hands stopped instantly. The blue veins beneath his skin turned a darker, richer color.
"I can feel the Garden dying inside me," Valerius whispered, looking at his hands. He clenched them into fists, feeling the strength return without the pain. "I am empty."
"Empty is good," Dante said, climbing into the passenger seat and kicking his boots up on the dash. "Empty means you have room to put new things. Like revenge. Or pizza."
Silas revved the engine. The Psychopomp roared, spitting flame from the exhaust.
"Where to next, Boss?" Silas asked. "Back to Sector 9? My plants miss me. I need to water the mandrakes before they start screaming."
Dante pulled out the notebook—The Architecture of Eternity. He opened it to the page regarding the Second Axiom: The Gilded Crucible.
"No," Dante said, closing the book with a snap. "We have the strength. We have the guide. And now, I have the cheat code."
He pointed toward the smog-choked horizon of Sector 2—where the fires of industry burned eternal.
"We're going back to the Red Baron. We have a Titan to claim credit for, and a library to rob."
Silas sighed, putting the heavy car in gear. "I knew you were going to say that. I really, really hate the War District."
The Psychopomp roared, tearing off into the night, leaving the biological horrors of Sector 7 behind them in a cloud of dust.