Mei and Fei disappeared deeper into the dungeon while Shane and Joshua led the wounded Hunters toward the next junction.
For several seconds, nothing followed them.
Then every light in the dungeon went out.
Mei stopped and raised her blade. Fei immediately brought up her weapon, scanning the passage.
"What happened?"
Mei looked at the purple mark on her palm. It had begun glowing, but the light wasn't coming from the walls or the dungeon's systems. Something beneath them was responding to it.
A deep sound rolled through the floor. It was too low to be called a vibration; it felt like something enormous shifting far below the stone.
Mei turned toward the wall.
A thin line of purple light appeared across its surface, followed by another and then another. Within seconds, the lines had formed a symbol Mei recognized immediately.
The Eternal Seal.
Fei's expression changed when she saw it.
"Mei..."
"I know."
The symbol spread across the wall before the stone opened inward.
It wasn't a doorway. The darkness beyond seemed to look back at them.
Far below lay a vast chamber filled with black water. Massive chains disappeared beneath its surface, vanishing into depths neither woman could see.
Something moved below them.
Mei felt the pressure before she understood what she was sensing. It was the same presence that had surrounded her during the final moments of her first life, the force that had consumed her when she became the Eternal Seal.
Her grip tightened around her blade.
"The Void Heart."
Fei stared into the chamber. "Why would it be here?"
Mei didn't answer because another message had appeared across the stone.
ETERNAL SEAL CANDIDATE LOCATED.
A second line appeared beneath it.
PREVIOUS HOST MEMORY DETECTED.
Mei's blood ran cold.
The dungeon hadn't merely identified her compatibility.
It remembered her.
Behind them, Shadow's recovery teams reached the junction. Chen Zhou received the same notification through his interface, and his expression hardened as he read the final command.
SEALING PROCEDURE: REACTIVATION AVAILABLE.
"Do not kill Mei," he ordered.
One of the operatives looked at him. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
"Bring her to the core alive."
Deep below the dungeon, one of the enormous chains snapped.
The sound traveled through the chamber and up into the passage where Mei stood.
She stared into the darkness.
In her first life, the Void Heart had taken her because she had been willing to sacrifice herself.
This time, it had found her before she could reach it.
And Mei had no intention of becoming its prisoner again.