Howard hopped onto the table, his three-eyed crow form casting a shadow across the cluttered surface.
His talons scratched the wood as he pecked at a scrap of paper, scrawling a list of ingredients with surprising precision.
"Ch'en, I need you to gather these—herbs, Originium shards, ritual salts. They should be in Siesta's markets; maybe look at market stalls by the port. Be quick, but don't draw attention."
Ch'en nodded, grabbing the list, her fingers brushing the paper.
"Are you sure this'll work?"
"It has to," Howard said, his tone firm. He turned to Hoshiguma.
"I need you to find the next target. The entity's picking victims deliberately. Pretend you're asking about a Leithanian friend, a woman, who checked in recently. Check guest logs, charm the staff, whatever it takes. Get her name and keep her safe."
Hoshiguma cracked her knuckles, a grim smile on her lips. "Got it. I'll shake down the front desk if I have to."
The two women slipped out of the suite, leaving Howard alone in the heavy silence. He perched on the table, staring at the body bag containing his grey, lifeless form.
The phone buzzed—Alexander's name on the screen. He pecked the speaker button.
"Alexander."
"You alone?" Her voice was sharp, cautious.
"They're gone," Howard confirmed, his three eyes narrowing.
"Why haven't you used your ability to rebirth?" Alexander asked, her tone probing.
"Your cell manipulation should let you reform a new body. What's stopping you?"
Howard's feathers bristled, frustration rising.
"It's not that simple. Our connection's been shaky, hasn't it?"
"I tried to pull myself back together, but something's blocking me. This isn't a normal entity."
His voice grew heated, the words spilling out.
"The hollowed-out body, black patches, black blood oozing until it's unrecognizable—there's only one thing that fits."
"It's a Collapsal."
****
Howard's crow form stiffened on the table, his three crimson eyes glinting with urgency.
Before Alexander could respond, he cut her off, his voice sharp through the beak.
"I've got to go." He pecked the phone, ending the call abruptly, and with a flutter of glossy black wings, he launched himself toward the open window.
The night air of Siesta swallowed him as he soared into the darkness, the glittering lights of the city below a mocking contrast to the dread coiling in his mind.
In the shadowed depths of his consciousness, Howard felt the weight of revelation descend like a shroud.
It should have been obvious, he thought, his mind a blazing furnace of realization and dread.
The pieces of this cursed puzzle were falling into place, each one more damning than the last.
A ritual gone wrong—catastrophically, unfathomably wrong.
The air around him seemed to hum with an unseen malevolence as he glided through Siesta's night, his three-eyed gaze piercing the veil of the ordinary.
His thoughts swirled, a tempest of fragmented lore and instinct. Cultists. Always the damn cultists.
He detested their kind—zealots who meddled with forces beyond their ken, leaving chaos in their wake. For someone who had once navigated the events of Arknights as a mere game, the truth was now painfully clear.
This is something else entirely.
A singular piece of knowledge burned in his mind, a secret from the Witch King event that had haunted him since his arrival in this reality.
It was a truth so perilous that Leithanien's authorities would have him hunted or beheaded for whispering it aloud: Otto Dietmar Gustav von Urtica, the Witch King, had not truly died.
His body was dust, yes, but his soul endured, tethered to a realm beyond the mortal coil.
In his pursuit of Originium's mysteries, Urtica had stumbled upon the forbidden—a place where Terra's Eldritch horrors slumbered, entities of incomprehensible power.
He had pledged to defend the world against them, securing his soul close to the Aethergate, the legendary source of Collapsals that, in turn, drove him insane.
Howard's mind raced as he pieced it together.
Those cultists—they found his incantations, his research.
In their blind zeal to resurrect their fallen king, they had botched the ritual, tearing open a miniature Aethergate instead.
Not the Witch King's soul, but something far worse had slipped through—a Collapsal, a being of paradox, neither fully real nor unreal, existing only when perceived.
They manipulated the cultists' observation to manifest, he realized, his wings faltering for a moment.
The entity's grotesque form—limbs and eyes sprouting from a black, foggy darkness—flashed in his memory, its demonic laugh still echoing in his skull.
Collapsals were an infohazard, their power growing with every mind that knew of them, feeding on primal emotions like fear.
Terra's nations suppressed all knowledge of them, restricting it to the highest echelons, lest their mere awareness summon more.
That's why it's here, Howard thought, his beak tightening.
It's trying to prey on Siesta.
The entity wasn't just killing—it was preparing, growing stronger with every heart it claimed.
To confirm his suspicions, Howard swooped down, landing on a gnarled branch overlooking Siesta's moonlit outskirts.
Other birds rustled in the nearby trees, their eyes glinting warily at his unnatural form.
His ability to commune with all creatures—extended even to the eldritch. He spoke softly, his voice a low croak.
"I'm not here to cause trouble."
The birds tilted their heads, skeptical but curious. One, a scruffy sparrow, hopped closer.
"You're no bird," it chirped. "What do you want? Food for answers."
Howard's three eyes gleamed.
"I'll bring you food. Tell me—have you seen strange flowers growing nearby?"
The sparrow fluttered, pointing a wing toward an isolated tree in the distance.
"There. By the old oak. Blooms that don't belong." Without another word, the flock took flight, leaving Howard alone.
He glided toward the tree, his heart sinking as he spotted it—a single flower, radiant and impossibly beautiful, its petals shimmering under the moonlight.
No roots, he noted, his gaze narrowing.
And blooming in spring, when it should only flower in fall.
The anomaly was unmistakable, a sign of the Collapsal's influence seeping into the world, warping nature itself. He sighed, a low, rasping sound. This is worse than I thought.
The flower's unnatural presence confirmed his fears: the Collapsal was not just a predator—it was reshaping Siesta, and time was running out to stop it.
***
Ch'en burst through the door of Howard's suite, her arms laden with bags that clinked and rustled with the weight of herbs, Originium shards, and ritual salts.
Her white t-shirt was damp with sweat from her frantic dash through Siesta's market stalls, but her eyes burned with determination.
At the same moment, Hoshiguma strode in, her turtleneck slightly askew, her shield slung over her back.
The air in the room crackled with urgency as the two women met at the threshold.
Hoshiguma spoke first, her voice low but steady.
"I found her—the next target. Leithanian woman checked in yesterday. Convinced her to move to the room next door for a bit of cash. She's safe, for now."
Ch'en nodded, setting the bags on the table.
"I got most of what was on the list. Some of the salts were hard to track down, but the port vendors came through."
She glanced at the body bag containing Howard's grey, lifeless form, her jaw tightening.
At that moment, Howard's three-eyed crow form swooped through the open window, landing heavily on the desk.
His feathers ruffled as he let out a low, rasping sigh, his crimson eyes dim with something unspoken.
Ch'en's brow furrowed, catching the shift in his demeanor. "Howard, what's wrong? You look… off."
Howard's wings twitched, his voice hesitant through the crow's beak.
"It's… I'm not sure I should ask more of you two. I've already dragged you into this mess—my mess. This whole thing feels like my fault."
Ch'en stepped closer, her hand gentle as she patted his feathered head, her touch warm despite the tension.
"Howard," she said softly, her voice steady with conviction, "the moment we chose to be with you last night, I decided to entrust my life to you. I know in my heart I wasn't wrong. Time will prove that."
Hoshiguma crossed her arms, a faint smirk hiding her own worry.
"Yeah, bird. You're stuck with us. No backing out now."
Howard's three eyes softened, a faint croak escaping him.
"I don't deserve you two." He paused, then straightened, his tone hardening with resolve.
"But there's something I need you to do. It's not easy."
"I need you to stab my body."
Ch'en's hand froze, her eyes widening. Hoshiguma's smirk vanished, replaced by a stunned frown.
The room fell silent, the weight of his request sinking in as they stared at the body bag, the grey shell of the man they'd vowed to save.
***
In the shadows of a hidden chamber beneath Siesta's glittering surface, where candlelight flickered weakly against the dark, a circle of robed figures knelt in reverent silence.
Their masks, carved with jagged runes, gleamed faintly as they chanted in low, guttural tones, their voices weaving a tapestry of forbidden words.
Above them, corpses hung suspended, their blood dripping into a crimson line that formed a perfect circle on the stone floor.
A black mist coiled around them, pulsing with an unnatural life, curling like tendrils of smoke.
In the center of the circle, a pile of hearts—still glistening, freshly torn—began to spark, faint embers of unnatural light flaring within them.
The air grew thick, oppressive, as the chant rose to a fevered pitch.
Behind the circle, unseen by the chanting cultists, the Collapsal loomed.
Its formless body, a mass of black fog studded with grotesque limbs and countless eyes, writhed in silent glee.
A grin split its featureless face, a slash of malice that seemed to drink in the ritual's power.
The sparks from the hearts grew brighter, and the mist thickened, as if the boundary between worlds was fraying under the cult's reckless ambition.