Koval's words had been a key, a final, terrible trigger. The seed inside Kiran raged, not just with power, but with raw, undirected emotion. It surged, overwhelming his control, and burst outward in a deafening, invisible shockwave. The ground beneath their feet groaned. The old clock tower shuddered. The Alpha units, their intricate systems unable to handle the sudden, uncontrolled temporal energy, flickered and short-circuited, their bodies seizing up.
The air in the plaza grew thick, humid, and heavy. The very colors of the city seemed to shift, turning murky and indistinct. A chilling, high-pitched whine filled the air, a sound that wasn't sound but a tearing of reality itself. The Veilwas thinning. A tear, jagged and shimmering with unnatural light, appeared above the shattered face of the clock tower. For a moment, a glimpse of the Eldritch's true domain bled through. Shapes that defied logic writhed in the impossible colors, a silent scream of an ancient, vast consciousness.
Elena watched in terrified awe, clutching the Eclipse Codex. The book glowed fiercely, its pages fluttering in the sudden, impossible wind. The crystal altar Lyra had used at The Nexus had resonated with Kiran's power, turning his emotional outburst into a localized tearing of the Veil. This was the Great Eclipse, not a ritual, but a raw, uncontrolled catastrophe. Dr. Koval, for the first time, looked afraid, her face pale as she stared at the tear in the sky, her carefully laid plans in shambles. "It's… unstable," she whispered, her voice laced with a genuine terror. "He's too powerful. The tether is too strong!" The tear in the Veil pulsed, pulling at the very fabric of the city, and the ground began to shake violently.