Azurite moss devoured residual bloodstains in the lab ruins. Alyssa rose from shattered incubation pods, her silver ring searing—congealed blood countercurrent forming 73 in neon inside the band.
"Rebirth party needs better decor." She flicked a mechanical spider off her eyelid, its leg-splatter oil congealing into Layne's hologram. "At least fireworks."
The specter's mechanical fingers brushed her new metallic scales, mimicking crucifixion touch: "Like your new skin? Nourished with thirteenth clone's spinal fluid..."
She crushed its throat. Black smoke seeped into her ears carrying encrypted data: "...cultivar."
Moonflare raged not as phoenix but metallic-wombed embryo, holographic eclipses rippling across flame-umbilicals. Each past-life death scene reverse-transfused through fire, her ring's bloodstains morphing into Wolf Mother's stretch marks.
The ruins tilted, exposing underground cloning pods fused with biomechanical vines. An infant's cry echoed from the depths—identical to the chrysalis core's wail.
"Cycle express delivery." Alyssa kicked warped pod doors as azurite dust mapped Kane's arrow trajectory. "Your time tricks..."
She froze. The trajectory ended at a half-melted mechanical corpse wearing Layne's signature pocket watch—now engraved with Kane ciphers. Moonlight hit the dial, reversing its hands three cycles as a priest's three-century-old prayer crackled inside:
"...purify this tainted vessel..."
The prayer died. Alyssa's ring stabbed into watch gears, sparks igniting Moonflare. Flames raced up chains to her heart, restructuring into a chronal calibrator—each heartbeat syncing with multiverse gears.
"Time receipt acknowledged." She crushed the watch. Shards flew into pod depths as the infant's cry mutated into Wolf Mother's war cry. The ruins ascended vertically, exposing the intact immortality forge burning Alyssa's clone-hair fuel.
Layne's spectral form emerged from forge flames, cracked mechanical spine glitching: "Know why you survived? Seventy-three thousand trials finally..."
"Cultivated perfect kindling." She snapped her pinky, bone shard piercing his spine's fissure. "Update your script, antique."
Moonflare imploded. The embryo-phoenix erupted swathed in mechanical placenta, each feather a timestream portal, beak clutching ring shards. As it dove into the forge core, all pods detonated, fluids coalescing into a colossal pocket watch hologram—
Hour hand at her birth, minute hand jammed at Layne's first modification. Central dial showed Kane firing an arrow from past timelines, shaft wrapped in her smoldering hair.
"Goodbye, specimen." Alyssa sneered at forge ashes, her molten ring reforming into an ouroboros wolf. "Or rather..."
She turned toward storm clouds gathering southeast, mechanical wolf howls reverberating. The serpent-eye ring projected Layne's final data fragment:
Protocol 73,001 ActivatedTermination Target: A. Silvermoon (Perfected)
Engine roars approached—not pursuers. A modified motorcycle crushed azurite debris, its rider's leathers bleeding "Mad King" sigils.