เข้าสู่ระบบ[The Angkor Vault]
The humid weight of the Cambodian jungle felt different than the neon heat of Pattaya. Here, the air was ancient, thick with the scent of damp moss, decaying vegetation, and the irony tang of stone that had breathed for a thousand years. The cicadas screamed in a rhythmic, deafening pulse, a natural alarm system that seemed to acknowledge the arrival of the ghosts of the Lu-Sheng line.
Panni woke with her face pressed against the cool, porous surface of a sandstone floor. Her head throbbed from the sedative, a rhythmic drumbeat that matched the distant chanting echoing through the halls. She wasn't in a cell. She was in a vast, open-air gallery of a temple that time and the jungle had tried to reclaim—Ta Prohm, the place where trees grew through the hearts of gods.
Jinyan stepped forward, his iron staff striking the ground. "She’s not going anywhere with you, Vera. And neither is Grace.""Jinyan, look at yourself," Vera sighed. "The 'Medea Protocol' didn't kill you, but it left you hollow. You can’t even hear the song anymore. You’re a broken tuning fork. What can you possibly offer her?""I can offer her a life where she’s not a god!" Jinyan roared.He lunged toward Vera, but he didn't reach her. Grace raised her hand, and Jinyan was thrown backward by a wall of compressed air, hitting the mud with a sickening thud."Papa!" Panni screamed, rushing to his side.Grace’s hand trembled. For a second, the sapphire in her eyes flickered back to brown. A tear tra
[The Root of the Poison]The morning light on the Mekong was a cruel deception. It danced upon the water in ripples of gold and amber, belying the absolute coldness that had settled into Panni’s marrow. She stood on the muddy bank of the river, her body a map of bruises and limestone dust, watching her daughter.Grace moved with a terrifying, fluid grace that no seven-year-old should possess. She didn't look back at the parents who had just weathered a collapsing mountain to save her. Her sapphire eyes were fixed on the black junk drifting toward the shore, and on the woman standing at its prow.Vera Panni looked exactly as she had in the faded daguerreotypes in the Carpathian manor: a silhouette of iron and silk. Her hair was a crown of moonlight silver, pulled back so tightly it seemed to stretch the translucent skin of her face.
Soma struggled to his feet, his grey eyes flickering violently. The raincoat was torn, revealing a chest covered in surgical ports and silver wires—he was a creature of the "Correction" taken to the ultimate extreme."Jinyan," Soma hissed. "The failure. You chose the Saint over the Throne. You chose the dirt over the sky.""I chose my family!" Jinyan shouted, rushing toward Panni. He pulled her up, his hands steady even as the mountain groaned above them. "Panni, the girl... we have to break the circuit!""How?" Panni gasped, clutching her side. "She’s the source now! If we stop the Organ, she’ll explode!""We don't stop the Organ," Jinyan said, looking at the stone seat where the lotus key still turned. "We Bridge it. We take the frequenc
[The Gardener’s Scythe]The air in the Vault of the Great Void was no longer something humans were meant to breathe. It had become a thick, shimmering gelatin of acoustic pressure, vibrating with a frequency so violent that the very atoms of the limestone walls seemed to be rubbing against one another. Dust did not fall; it levitated in perfect, terrifying geometric rings, dancing to the rhythm of Grace’s silver-eyed scream.Panni lay draped over her daughter’s small, shivering form, her fingers clawing into the silk padding of the Void Organ. Every bone in her body felt as if it were being ground into powder by a celestial mortar and pestle. But the pain in her limbs was nothing compared to the ice in her chest as she stared at the figure standing in the settling dust of the collapsed pillar.The man in the tattered ye
As Panni carried Grace toward the Void Organ, the physical reality of the vault began to succumb to the girl's frequency. The bronze pipes of the organ began to glow with a dull, friction-heat. The air became so dense it felt like walking through water.The stones of the wall began to rearrange themselves, the dust forming perfect, terrifying geometric patterns on the floor. It was Cymatics on a geological scale. The very foundation of the earth was being re-ordered by Grace’s presence."She’s beautiful, isn't she?" Jian whispered, standing on the observation platform. "She’s the first human to speak the language of the atoms."Panni ignored him. She reached the center of the Organ—a stone seat lined with silk and silver wi
[The Vault of the Great Void]The "Vault of the Great Void" was not a place of gold or treasure; it was a cathedral of absolute, crushing silence. Located deep beneath the limestone karst of the Koh Ker complex, the chamber was a masterwork of ancient engineering, designed to dampen every vibration of the outside world. Here, the air was cold and dry, smelling of ancient stone and the sharp, alkaline scent of the Aconite salts that lined the walls.Panni stepped into the central rotunda, her boots clicking against the basalt floor. She carried Grace, whose small body was now terrifyingly light, her skin vibrating with a frequency that made Panni’s own teeth ache. Behind them, Jian—or the creature that wore Jian’s face—moved with a predatory stillness. The bandages around his head were stained with the gr







