The wind shrieked through the shattered remains of the monastery, cold and heavy with the scent of blood and burning earth.
Selena clutched Dante's arm, eyes wide with horror. "Dante… do you see it?"
From the crater where Lorenzo had vanished, the inky vortex churned, pulsing like a living heart. A hand—pale, elongated, clawed—reached up from the center, dragging something unspeakable with it.
Dante pulled her behind him, still unsteady. "That's not Lorenzo anymore."
A body emerged—tall, skeletal, yet grotesquely graceful. It wore no face, only a crown of black horns and a mouth that split too wide across where a human jaw should be. The Core had formed a body—its first true vessel.
Elias stumbled closer, leaning heavily on his staff. "The Core has chosen to awaken. And it's unfinished. Unstable."
"It shouldn't have form at all," Selena whispered.
"But it does now," Dante said grimly. "Because of us. Because of the bond."
