The main laboratory of the Observatory was a cavern of polished chrome and glowing holographic interfaces. In the center of the room, held in a powerful anti-gravity stasis field, was the Pagoda's soul-decay rifle. It was a wicked-looking piece of technology, its crystalline components humming with a silent, contained malevolence.
Anya moved around it with the focused intensity of a master sculptor studying a new block of marble. A dozen different scanners and sensors projected beams of light and waves of Aether onto the weapon, feeding a constant stream of data to the massive holographic screen that dominated one wall.
"The power source is a paradox," she murmured, her eyes flicking across lines of complex data. "It's a contained Aetheric reaction, but it's not based on a natural Spirit Core. The energy signature is synthetic, unstable. It's like they created an artificial, short-lived soul and imprisoned it in a crystal matrix."
Ren stood beside her, observing the weapon. He didn't see the data. He felt the weapon's presence. And Zephyrion, from the depths of his mind, felt it too.
"She is correct," the spirit's voice was a low, disgusted growl. "This is not a Spirit Master's weapon. This is an abomination. The Pagoda did not just build a rifle; they created a disposable, artificial soul and turned its dying screams into a weapon. They have weaponized the very concept of decay."
Ren watched as Anya's scanners tried to map the rifle's firing mechanism. "The energy conversion is flawless," she said, a note of grudging admiration in her voice. "They are converting raw Aether into a targeted resonant frequency that should, theoretically, be impossible to block with a standard Aetheric shield. It doesn't attack the shield; it passes through it and instructs the target's own soul to self-destruct."
"A child's imitation of a true Raijin art," Zephyrion scoffed. "We could command an enemy's soul because we understood its song. They have simply built a noisemaker so loud it shatters the singer's voice. It is crude. Powerful, but crude. And like all crude instruments, it has a fatal flaw."
"What flaw?" Ren asked quietly, his eyes still on the rifle.
Anya looked up from her screen. "Did you say something?"
Ren ignored her, his attention focused on the voice in his mind.
"The decay frequency is inherently unstable," Zephyrion explained. "To keep the weapon from consuming itself, they must have embedded a counter-frequency, a constant 'song of stability' to hold the chaos at bay. The weapon is not just a cannon; it is a cage. If you can find the frequency of the cage, you can make the cannon devour itself."
Ren looked at the rifle with new eyes. He now had a theory, a ghost's theory, but Anya's scans couldn't find it. Her machines were analyzing the weapon's output, its power source, its materials. They were not designed to listen for a song of silence.
"Let me try something," Ren said, stepping forward.
Anya raised an eyebrow. "My diagnostic array is the most advanced in the private sector. What do you intend to do?"
"Get a second opinion," Ren replied.
He placed his hand not on the rifle, but on the stasis field containing it. He closed his eyes and extended a single, impossibly fine thread of his will. He didn't use power. He used the perfect, silent control he had honed for months. He touched the rifle's crystalline casing and simply… listened.
He ignored the loud, angry scream of the weaponized soul. He listened for the cage. And after a long moment, he heard it. A faint, almost imperceptible, high-frequency hum, a pure and stable note buried deep beneath the weapon's chaotic signature. It was the counter-frequency. The key.
He focused his will, not to disrupt it, but to memorize it, to understand its perfect, simple melody.
He opened his eyes.
"The control crystal," he said, pointing to a small, secondary crystal embedded near the rifle's stock. "That's not a targeting matrix. It's a resonance dampener. It constantly broadcasts a stabilizing frequency to the main power core."
Anya's eyes widened. She furiously typed a new set of commands into her console, directing a micro-scanner to the component Ren had indicated. The results flashed on the main screen, and she gasped. The data confirmed it. An incredibly high-frequency, stable resonance field was emanating from the smaller crystal, a field her broader scans had missed entirely.
"If that crystal were to be disrupted, even for a microsecond…" she breathed, her mind racing through the implications.
"The weapon would consume itself in a catastrophic energy feedback loop," Ren finished for her.
They both stood in silence, looking at the rifle. They had done it. They had found the weapon's self-destruct switch.
Anya looked at Ren, her expression a universe away from the simple rivalry of the academy. She had used a mountain of technology to analyze the machine. He had simply touched it and listened to its soul.
"Your 'heretical bloodline'," she said softly, her voice filled with a new, profound, and slightly fearful respect, "is more interesting than I could have ever imagined."