Chapter 12: Three's a Crowd

Alice Winters quickly located the military medkit in a crate tucked away in the corner. The faded red cross symbol was barely visible beneath the dust. She swiftly lifted the heavy metal case.

"Found it," she announced, walking back quickly, her voice deliberately steady. Her gaze swept over Sophia Reed, who was leaning in close to Jack Miller.

"Good job," Sophia replied without looking up.

She efficiently opened the case, retrieving antiseptic, hemostatic powder, and bandages. Her movements were precise, honed by war. Forceps grasped a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant and pressed it firmly onto the wound. "Suck it up, Prophet. Worse than being dumped."

"Hiss—!" Jack gasped as pain shot through him. Cold sweat instantly beaded his forehead. The burning pain momentarily eclipsed the pressure from the two pairs of eyes beside him.

"Doctor Winters, lend a hand?" Sophia gestured for Alice to hold Jack's upper arm. "Keep this lab rat still."

Alice pressed her lips together and stepped forward. Her cool, strong fingers clamped down firmly on Jack's arm. Strands of her hair brushed his cheek as she leaned in. Her clinical scent mingled with the lingering gunpowder traces on Sophia, creating an odd pocket of tension within the cold vault.

Strangely, the intense pain in Jack's arm seemed diluted by this subtle, charged atmosphere.

"You're... proficient?"

Alice observed Sophia expertly sprinkling brown powder and swiftly wrapping the bandage.

"Syria, Afghanistan, Donbas... Graduated top of my crash course in battlefield medicine," Sophia stated flatly, a triangular bandage flipping expertly in her hands. "Plenty of practice with 'helpful neighbours'."

She secured the final knot and lightly patted Jack's sling-bound arm. "Done! That hand's decorative for now. Shelve the lone wolf fantasy."

Sudden silence descended, broken only by the low buzzing of the emergency lights.

Sophia sat back against her pack, her shotgun laid across her lap. She slowly wiped the barrel with an oil rag, but her gaze was sharp as a scalpel, sweeping over their faces. "Party's over. Cards on the table."

The cold gleam of the gun barrel reflected her tight jaw. "What are those purple rifts outside? The armoured monsters? The Shadow Hunters? Why did those soldiers die getting you in here?"

Jack leaned back against the cold wall, exhaustion washing over him like a tide. He knew he couldn't hide from Sophia's scrutiny. He took a deep breath and began: the ancient prophecies in the book, the three predicted Dimensional Rifts, the research on Runes, the terror of the Shadow Hunters.

He spoke of Sergeant Harper's sacrifice and his final plea to "find the answer." When the words "Void Watcher," "The Emptiness," and "Spirit Crystal Clan" left his lips, Sophia's hand froze mid-wipe.

"Stop!"

she cut him off, her face etched with disbelief. "Aliens? Silicon-based life? And that old book breathes fire?" She pointed at Jack's bandaged arm. "Jack, blood loss hallucination or just frozen stupid?"

"It's real," Alice's voice cut through the air, cool and precise as a scalpel. "The photothermal energy release from Runic activation is measurable. The Shadow Hunters defy known physics, but their cryogenic fields and psionic interference are documented. As for the Void Watcher signal—" She paused. "Its encryption protocols contain fragments of ancient stellar identification codes. I stake my reputation as an astrophysicist on it."

Sophia narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing them both.

Jack struggled to pull the ancient book from its protective wrapping. He closed his eyes, focusing inward, seeking the inner awareness described within its pages. A faint warmth stirred low in his Dantian, struggling upwards along pathways that felt like Core Energy Pathways. Sweat beaded anew on his forehead. Alice held her breath. Sophia watched, arms crossed.

After several heartbeats, a point of golden light, like a firefly's glow, flickered to life at the tip of Jack's index finger!

The weak light wavered but was undeniably real, illuminating Sophia's suddenly constricted pupils.

"Christ…" Sophia breathed out half the word. She leaned in abruptly, her nose almost touching the point of light. "This... magic trick or radiation sickness?"

"Aether Flow," Jack whispered, the light vanishing, his voice weak. "Or, per Doctor Winters' theory, a biofield effect guiding fundamental particles." He gently touched the book's vellum pages. "This... is the key."

Sophia silently sat back, her knuckles unconsciously rubbing the shotgun barrel. Her gaze travelled between the book, Jack, and Alice, finally settling into a dry, humorless scoff: "So. You two. One with a family grimoire, the other with deep space telescopes... running an express class in apocalypse cultivation?"

The mockery held a fading edge of doubt, replaced by a heavy, bitter weight.

"Leveling too slow, mobs too tough," Jack offered a weak smile.

"Harper's 'answer'... this book or 'The Emptiness'?" Sophia went straight to the heart of it.

"Perhaps both."

Alice rose and walked towards the vault's center. Her fingers traced the heavy steel reinforcing beams. "This construction far exceeds standard bank vault specs. The emergency power is also a later modification. This place feels more like... a pre-positioned refuge." She stopped at an inner wall section, brushing away thick layers of dust.

Dust cascaded down, revealing a smooth obsidian panel set into the wall.

At its centre, slightly raised, was an inlaid Taiji symbol of white and black jade, holding an inner luminescence.

Concentric circles, like planetary orbits, spread outwards from the Yin-Yang fish, dotted with intricate points of light!

"Incredible…" Alice murmured, her scientist's mind reeling as her fingertips met the cool jade surface. "This energy signature... it defies known matter!"

Jack struggled to his feet. The moment his eyes fell upon the Taiji Jade Disc, the book in his arms gave a distinct thrum!

Warmth surged spontaneously towards his chest from the book, and the pain in his arm inexplicably lessened.

"It's resonating!" he blurted out, suddenly recalling the obscure star charts in the book's latter sections.

"Resonating with what?" Sophia crouched, wiping grime from the wall below the Jade Disc. An inscription of stark, powerful characters emerged:

玄门地枢,镇守九渊.炁通玉牒,星图自现.

(Mystic Gate Earth Pivot, Guardian of the Nine Abysses. Aether flows through the jade disc, the star map reveals itself.)

Jack's mind raced wildly.

The book's meridian diagrams, the Void Watcher's warning of ancient stellar accords, Harper's life-traded answer – all converged upon this Jade Disc!

But Alice was fixated on the stellar orbits.

Her finger traced the outer ring's trajectory, connecting several light points. Her breath suddenly caught. "Jack! Look at these coordinates! It's a three-dimensional stellar projection!" Her voice trembled with excitement. "Angular calculations show... it points to a specific location on the Moon's far side! It perfectly matches the deep-space radiation source I detected just before the third Dimensional Rift!"

Absolute silence swallowed the vault. The harsh white glare of the emergency lights enveloped the three figures.

A Taiji Jade Disc bearing Mystic Gate secrets.

A set of star coordinates pointing to the lunar far side.

A vellum grimoire capable of channeling Aether Flow.

The Spirit Crystal Clan's warning of the "Embitterment" – The Emptiness's calamity.

The tip of the truth's iceberg surfaced in the absolute darkness.

Sophia stared at the Jade Disc, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the strange, rune-marked Soviet-era dog tag hanging from her neck – a "souvenir" from Syria.

She finally understood the "big story" she'd been chasing was tearing open the dome of human understanding.

In the cold air, the antiseptic scent of Alice's bandages mixed with the lingering gunpowder on Sophia's collar and the faint, clear energy radiating from the Taiji Jade Disc.

Three utterly disparate existences, like three rivers that could never truly merge, collided and intertwined soundlessly within this steel cage.