Chapter 32: Shadow’s Embrace

Lin Mei stood at the edge of the realm breach, her silhouette a jagged tear against the liquid starlight of the Harvester homeworld. Her flames burned inverted now—void at the core, fire licking the edges like a dying star's last gasp. Lin Wei reached for her, his hand passing through her arm as if she were made of smoke and static.

"Mei—"

She turned, her eyes twin lattices of captive constellations. "You shouldn't be here." Her voice harmonized with the Harvesters' dirge, a dissonant choir that scraped his nerves raw.

The cracks in his skin pulsed, temporal instability gnawing at his joints. The system's remnants flickered weakly:

[Host Proximity Alert: Eclipse Entity.]

[Recommendation: Containment.]

He ignored it. "We can fix this. The Veil's shards—maybe we can rebuild it."

Her laugh was a blade. "The Veil was never about fixing. It was about hiding."

Flashback:

Yuelin, her back against the clan's burning archives, tossed him the Moonlit Veil. "When you're done hiding," she'd said, blood staining her teeth, "break it. Let the world see what we are."

The memory dissolved as Echo-0's skeleton materialized beside them, its bones clicking in a mockery of speech. "Little Ember," it cooed, Yuelin's voice dripping venom. "You wear grief well."

Lin Mei's flames lashed out, but the skeleton dissolved, reforming inches away. "You're not her," she snarled.

"No," it agreed. "But he is."

The breach shuddered. Within the Harvester homeworld, the familiar silhouette shifted—a figure with the Silent Patriarch's bearing, but eyes like shattered glass.

Astralon stood at the clan's ruined gates, their Harvester scars burning with renewed purpose. The shard of the Moonlit Veil glinted in their palm, its edges still sharp with Lin Mei's sacrifice. "You'll die there," Lin Wei warned, his voice hollow.

"I've died before," Astralon replied, their gaze fixed on the breach. "Stay with her. She's… unraveling."

They stepped into the starlight. The realm swallowed them whole.

The Patriarch's Prison

The Harvester homeworld was a cathedral of frozen grief, its arches ribbed with the petrified remains of consumed realms. Astralon moved through the silence, their scars acting as a compass. The figure awaited them in a chamber of mirrors, each reflection a different era of his torment.

The Silent Patriarch turned, his face a mosaic of Lin Wei's resolve and Yuelin's defiance. "You took your time," he said, voice echoing with Harvester static.

Astralon's veil disintegrated, revealing tears of liquid light. "You let them cage you."

"I let them remember." He gestured to the mirrors. One showed Lin Mei's inverted flames; another, Lin Wei's crumbling form. "My heirs are the key. Always have been."

"To what?"

"To ending the dirge."

The Eclipse's Hunger

Lin Mei's flames devoured the grove, each tree collapsing into ash as the Eclipse Entity's power surged. The Harvesters circled her, their song a seductive whisper.

Join. Mourn. Become.

Lin Wei staggered into the inferno, his temporal instability flaring. "Fight it, Mei! This isn't you!"

She faced him, void-core blazing. "Isn't it?" Her hand pressed to his chest, cold seeping into his bones. "You're still hiding. Even now."

The system screamed:

[Critical Instability: 92%]

[Directive: Terminate Eclipse Entity.]

He gripped her wrist, cracks spreading up her arm. "Then show me."

Astralon's scream echoed through the breach. The Patriarch's chamber collapsed, mirrors shattering into a storm of glass and memory. Lin Mei's void-core erupted, consuming the grove—and Lin Wei—in an eclipse's totality.

In the silence, Echo-0's skeleton reformed, its voice now a perfect mimicry of Lin Wei's:

"Welcome to the dirge."