Adam's awareness seeped back into a world of soft, diffused light and muffled silence. The crushing agony of his wounds had dulled to a deep, throbbing ache that permeated his entire being.

He was lying on something yielding yet strong, not the hard stone of the canyon floor. Blinking open heavy-lidded eyes, his vision resolved into a ceiling of intricate, pale silk, woven into a protective dome that encapsulated the space. It was a cocoon of safety, unmistakably Lilith's work.

A gentle, familiar presence brushed the edge of his mind. Turning his head, a movement that sent fresh spikes of pain through his neck, he saw her. Lilith, the Crimson Weave Sovereign, was perched nearby. Several of her elegant legs were clearly damaged, held at careful angles, and her pale carapace was dull and bore cracks. Yet, her primary cluster of eyes was fixed on him, and in their multi-faceted depths, he saw a profound wave of relief and lingering worry.

«Adam?» Her psychic voice was a soft whisper in his consciousness, tinged with exhaustion. «You're finally awake.»

With a grunt that was more a pained hiss of air, Adam pushed himself up. Her body felt foreign—simultaneously heavy and hollow. The void-rend wound in his chest was a nexus of cold fire.

«Adam!» The cry was accompanied by a warm, scaly weight as Ignis practically threw herself against his side, nuzzling him fiercely. «You're okay! Thank the flames, you're okay!»

The impact jarred his injuries, and Adam couldn't suppress a sharp flinch. "Easy… Ignis. Take it easy. I'm… still in bad shape." His voice was a dry, rasping thing.

Ignis immediately recoiled, chagrin on her draconic features. «Sorry! I'm sorry! I just… I was so scared…»

"It's alright," Adam managed, offering her a slow blink before turning his full attention back to Lilith. Seeing her alert, despite her injuries, was a balm to his own frayed spirit. "Lilith… I'm glad. I'm glad you're alright."

«I am functional,» she replied, the psychic tone warming a fraction. «My injuries are significant but stable. Thanks to Ignis's strength and my silk, we have secured a temporary haven.» She gestured with one delicate limb at the woven dome around them.

"Alice," he said, the name a cold stone in his gut. He looked past them, his eyes scanning the silk-shrouded space frantically. "Where is she? How is she?"

Lilith's many eyes dimmed. She gestured toward the far side of the cocoon. There, on a thick, cushion-like pad of the softest, whitest silk, lay Alice. Her form as the Umbral Regent Panther was barely more substantial than a shadow. She seemed to flicker at the edges, a mirage of smoke and starlight. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, barely perceptible breaths.

«She has not awakened,» Lilith communicated, and for the first time, Adam sensed a thread of helpless frustration in her mental voice. «That creature… it performed a violent extraction on her void essence. Her core is compromised, leaking. It is as if a fundamental part of her was… stolen.»

A hot, corrosive rage boiled up in Adam's chest, pushing against the pain. "That thing's energy… it was a purer form of void. The same as hers. They're connected, somehow. Damn it!" The implications were a maze of terrifying possibilities. Was Alice a fragment of that being? A descendant? A discarded tool? The not-knowing was its own torture.

A gentle, insistent nudge at his side broke his dark reverie. Ignis was there again, her jaws carefully holding a large, gleaming chunk of pale, almost crystalline flesh—meat from the colossal corpse of the Pale Revenant. She placed it before him with a soft thud.

«You have to eat,» she declared, her voice firm with a worry that overrode her usual recklessness. «Your energy feels all wrong. Empty and… thin. You need to get better. So eat! This is from the big white snake. It has to be powerful, right?»

Lilith nodded in agreement. Our resources are critically low. «We cannot access Alice's Void Locker in her comatose state. The potions and stored provisions are beyond reach. Ignis has been… remarkably diligent. She foraged for what healing lichens and fungi she could find to stabilize our wounds.»

Adam looked at Ignis, truly seeing her. The young Blazeheart Drake was a tapestry of injuries: cracked scales, a bent wing-kin, eyes still puffy from her earlier tears. She had witnessed near-annihilation, carried them to safety, and tended to them while guarding against whatever lurked outside. A profound gratitude, fierce and protective, washed over him.

"Thank you, Ignis," he said, his voice low and sincere. "You did incredibly well. You saved us."

Ignis's eyes shimmered, a small, pleased flame puffing from her nostrils.

Adam turned his gaze to the meat. Lilith and Ignis were right. To think clearly, to plan, to protect them, he needed strength. The path ahead was a treacherous slope: healing Alice, understanding the Void Entity, and facing the inevitable retaliation from Solaria. But the first step on that path was right before him. He needed to heal. And then, he needed to claim the power he had earned.

'Fuel first,' he thought, steeling his resolve. 'Then evolution.'

He opened his jaws and sank his fangs into the Pale Revenant's flesh. It was tough, with a strange, dry, mineral taste, but rich with potent essence. As he consumed it, system messages scrolled through his mind.

[ Consumed flesh of Legendary Progenitor Serpent (Pale Revenant). ]

[ Absorbing dense Essence and unique genetic fragments… ]

[ Venom of the Void has assimilated 'Crystalline Neuro-Toxin' fragments. Potency increased. Venom now induces rapid micro-crystallization in biological systems, causing brittleness and internal lacerations. ]

[ Skill Fragment Acquired: Bone-White Resonance - 1.0/1.0 - COMPLETE ]

[ Composite Skill Formation Detected... ]

[ Synergy Found: Earthshaker (Lvl 4) + Bone-White Resonance (Complete) ]

[ New Composite Active Skill Generated: Seismic Shatter (Lvl 1) ]

[ The initial Earthshaker shockwave is now followed 0.8 seconds later by a secondary, deeper, and more focused tremor. This secondary tremor does not cause widespread damage, but instead delivers targeted vibrational force that drastically reduces the hardness, durability, and structural integrity of stone, bone, exoskeletons, and crystalline formations within the area of effect. Affected materials become brittle and prone to cracking/splintering under subsequent force. ]

[ Vitality +2. Strength +1. ]

A familiar, warming power began to flow into his ravaged body, patching the worst of the systemic damage and easing the hollow ache. The permanent loss from the Crown remained, a chilling void in his vitality, but the acute starvation of his cells was being sated.

His mind cleared, the fog of pain and exhaustion lifting slightly.

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