A guttural cry tore from Kael's throat. He stumbled backward, hands clamping over his temples, eyes wide and unfocused. The Memory Crystal, still gripped in his shaking fingers, pulsed with a sickly green light, mirroring the agony etched on his face. Sweat beaded on his brow, trickling down his temples. Fragmented images flashed behind his eyes – not his own, but the raw, unfiltered terror of another, ripped from time and forced into his mind. Vlorn watched, unmoving, from across the obsidian floor of the spatial domain. His usual stoicism was a carefully constructed facade, thin as ice over a deep current. Kael's distress was more acute than anticipated. His System had predicted *some* resonance, a connection to the trauma embedded in the crystal. This, however, was a violent rejection, a psychic scream. The crystal's power, or perhaps its corruption, ran deeper than even his algorithms had accounted for. Kael gasped, collapsing to his knees. He dropped the crystal, which rolled innocently across the floor, its light dimming. His body convulsed, a silent battle raging within him.

Chapter 4: The System's Scar