His gaze swept over the damaged device and the other, not-yet-fully-assimilated parts of the wreckage like a laser. Quickly, he locked onto a black component half-buried in the crystals, shaped like a hexagonal prism with complex energy circuits on its surface. According to the information fragments he'd received, that seemed to be the stabilization field's **field effect generator core**!
But it was severely damaged, and had no power source!
"Rex!" Kael spun around, his voice hoarse with urgency and adrenaline, "Toss me your blaster's **backup power cell**! Now!"
Rex hesitated for a split second. The backup cell was his lifeline, the final guarantee his weapon wouldn't become a useless club at a critical moment. "What? Sir!"
"No time! It's the only way to kill this thing! Trust me!" Kael practically roared.
Seeing the absolute resolve in Kael's eyes and the rapidly deteriorating situation, Rex gritted his teeth. "Dammit! Catch!" He ejected a fist-sized cylinder glowing with a faint blue light from his waist and hurled it towards Kael!
The power cell traced an arc through the air. Simultaneously, several crystalline spikes shot up from the floor, attempting to intercept it!
"Not happening!" Kael bellowed, throwing his high-frequency blade. It spun through the air, precisely severing the intercepting spikes! Kael himself dove forward, snatching the power cell just before it hit the ground!
"Lia! Can you hold? I need time!" Kael yelled, scrambling back towards the generator core.
Lia didn't respond with words, but her actions spoke volumes. She jerked her head up, the data streams in her eyes burning at their absolute limit, tiny electrical sparks even leaking from the corners! She abandoned disrupting Vance and focused all her processing power, forming a powerful, temporary **data barrier** between Kael and the crystal core! It couldn't block the energy radiation completely, but it drastically weakened the mental attacks and conscious interference targeting Kael!
"Quickly...!" Lia's voice was a barely audible whisper.
Kael didn't hesitate further. He ripped away the generator core's broken outer shell, revealing complex, charred circuitry within. He didn't understand the alien technology, but he'd grasped the key elements from the information stream: **Power Input** and **Field Activation**!
He found two nodes that looked like primary power conduits and slammed Rex's backup power cell onto them!
*HMMMMMMMM—!!!*
This time, it wasn't a faint vibration! The entire generator core flared with a deep, light-absorbing dark blue radiance! Similar patterns lit up on the untransformed parts of the wreckage surrounding it! A strange force field that caused subtle spatial distortions began spreading outwards from the generator!
It was working!
For the first time, the "Pandora Stone" emitted a conscious wave that wasn't temptation or rage, but... **fear**!
**"No... this is... imprisonment... error... must... be free..."**
It felt threatened! Truly threatened!
The crystal core's glow became wildly unstable, its form shifting at speeds impossible for the eye to follow! It frantically drove the surrounding crystalline matrix, sending it surging towards Kael and the activated generator core like a tide! It had to destroy this threat before he succeeded!
"Rex! Protect the generator! At all costs!" Kael kept his hand pressed firmly on the power cell, feeling the stabilization field forming rapidly, but it needed time!
"On it!" Rex, having expended his blaster's final rounds, swung the superheated barrel like a club, smashing approaching crystals! But his armor was breached in multiple places, his movements noticeably slower.
Lia's data barrier wavered under the crystal's frenzied counter-assault. Blue energy fluid seeped from her seven sensory orifices, her body teetering on the verge of collapse.
The dark blue light of the stabilization field and the gray-white radiance of the crystal clashed violently in the lab's center, pressing against each other, emitting a sound like energy tearing itself apart! The spatial distortion grew more pronounced, light behaving strangely, sound propagating distortedly.
Kael saw that within the bounds of the stabilization field, the writhing crystalline matrix's activity significantly decreased, even beginning to show fine cracks! Meanwhile, the crystals outside the field redoubled their frantic attacks on its boundaries.