Reading Room D was a tomb of cold. Pallid sconce light struggled through hanging mist, casting grotesque, dancing shadows. Scattered heavy tomes lay like discarded gravestones, pages rustling with an eerie, whispering susurrus. The air was congealed ice water, each breath scraping raw. The chaotic, sorrowful psychic energy radiating from the frosted epicenter near the great oak table felt like a physical tide, battering Alan's suppressor-dulled senses.
"Target confirmed. High-density psychic contamination zone with intense cryogenic field," Lena's voice crackled in Alan's ear comm, calm as a weather report. "Fenrir, maintain perimeter. Alan, attempt to pinpoint the core. Monitor flux. Report anomalies." Her words were both command and data sync for Command.
Alan nodded stiffly. The suppressor cuff was a leaden weight. His Harmony power, agitated by the external psychic assault and internal suppression, thrashed like a caged beast. He fought to focus, pushing past the sorrow threatening to overwhelm him, extending his dampened awareness like a probe towards the cold heart—the massive oak table and its globe.
Just as his focus neared the globe's base—
Hum!
An invisible, viscous force field erupted from the room's center! Air turned to thick gel! Alan's movements slowed to a nightmare crawl, limbs heavy as if dragging through deep water. Breathing became a laborious struggle. Worse, the sorrowful energy intensified tenfold, becoming icy needles stabbing into his mind! Despair, anguish, crushing isolation flooded him!
"Ungh!" Alan grunted, skull splitting, vision dimming. The monitor on his chest flashed frantic red—Command was alerted.
"Force field! Psychic suppression field!" Lena's voice held new tension. Her movements, though hampered, were still precise. She drew her rune-etched baton. Blue-white electricity crackled along its length, forming a shimmering, fragile barrier against the psychic onslaught and field pressure. "Fenrir! Status!"
A furious snarl came from the doorway. "Damned door's sealed! Welded shut! Somethin's poundin' out here!" THUD! THUD! Heavy impacts shook the doorframe, dust raining down. Fenrir was pinned, dealing with an external threat.
Before they could react—
The chaos escalated!
Heavy volumes from the towering shelves—leather-bound Chronicles of Britain, vellum Ancient Star Atlases, massive Victorian Botanicals—ripped themselves free! Like enraged hornets, they hurtled through the air from all angles, aimed with bone-crushing force at Alan and Lena in the center! Tearing the cold air, they screamed towards their targets!
"Down!" Lena barked, moving with agonizing slowness in the field. Her baton snapped out, blue arcs detonating several books mid-flight in showers of paper. But there were too many, too fast!
Alan's eyes widened in terror! Instinct screamed! His suppressed power surged in primal panic! The suppressor cuff blazed blue, vibrating violently with a shrill whine! He instinctively crossed his arms before him, channeling the frantic energy into a desperate shield!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Books aimed at him slammed into an invisible, viscous barrier inches from his body! Their speed and force bled away, dropping harmlessly at his feet. The suppressor's dampening field had held, barely. But the impact jarred him, knocking him back a step, breath stolen, wrist aching from the cuff's violent tremor.
"ROOOOAR—!!!"
Fenrir's enraged bellow shook the room! The confinement and chaos had snapped the werewolf's control. Alan glimpsed Fenrir at the door—eyes blazing molten amber, fangs bared, muscles swelling grotesquely beneath his fatigues. Feral energy, a storm of aggression, momentarily thinned the oppressive psychic field.
"ENOUGH! BREAK!" Fenrir roared. Abandoning the door, he targeted the suppression field itself! Muscles like corded steel bunched. His massive, grey-furred paw, claws like polished obsidian, lashed out with terrifying speed, ripping at the thickest part of the field before him!
SCREEEEECH—!
A sound like tearing canvas! Fenrir's claws ripped visible, distorted ripples in the air! The field parted momentarily where he struck! But the tears snapped shut instantly! The field's core remained untouched. Worse, a powerful backlash of freezing energy slammed into him!
"Urk!" Fenrir staggered back, claws sheathed in instant frost! His brute force vanished into the field, useless! The failure only fueled his rage. He gathered himself for another lunge.
"Fenrir! HALT! The field has an Anima core! Force won't work!" Lena shouted, still deflecting books. She saw the futility, the danger of provoking it further.
"Then WHAT?! Die here?!" Fenrir snarled, claws scoring deep gouges in the floorboards.
Lena didn't answer. Her eyes scanned like lasers. Dodging another tome, her left hand flashed to her belt pouch, retrieving three small, disc-shaped metal sigils etched with intricate silver runes – Anima Detection Beacons. With a sharp cry, she channeled a spark of power and hurled them!
Zing! Zing! Zing!
The beacons flew like silver birds, partially defying the field, embedding themselves high on three different walls. Hum! They activated simultaneously, casting overlapping cones of soft silver scanning light through the mist and chaos!
"Initiate wide-spectrum Anima scan! Focus on psychic contamination source!" Lena ordered into the comm. She slammed her baton point-first into the floor, hands weaving complex sigils, chanting under her breath, guiding the beacons' energy.
The scanning beams combed through the turbulent energy field. Alan, fighting the headache and field pressure, focused desperately on the beams converging near the oak table. His Harmony power, caged yet resonant, pulled him towards the sorrowful chaos like a magnet.
Suddenly!
The beams snapped into focus—not on the globe itself, but on a small, unassuming, black leather-bound book lying discarded *beneath* it on the table! The book looked ancient, worn, its cover blank except for faded, indistinct gilt tooling.
The moment the beams locked on—
"Target acquired!" Lena's eyes blazed with triumph!
HOOOOONK—!!!
A psychic tsunami, a hundred times more potent than before, saturated with bottomless malice, agony, and freezing despair, erupted from the black book! It arrowed straight at Lena, the source of the probing scan! Pure, focused, soul-crushing force!
Lena's face paled! Her sigil-weaving hands faltered. The baton embedded in the floor flickered wildly! She gasped, staggering back as if struck physically, a trickle of blood appearing at her lip!
Her mental defenses buckled! The malignant despair flooded her mind like glacial water!
But this psychic cataclysm wasn't aimed solely at Lena!
It detonated like a bomb, the shockwave engulfing the entire room! Alan was caught in the blast wave! An invisible ice maul smashed into his skull! A shrieking, inhuman wail tore through his soul!
Memories surged—Grandfather attacked, the art center chaos, the humiliation of failure—all detonated by the external malice! Darkness and icy visions swallowed his sight!
"AAAAAGH—!" Alan screamed, clutching his head, feeling his consciousness shred under the frigid hatred!
Simultaneously!
CRACK! ZZZZT—!
The Anima Suppressor Cuff on his left wrist screamed in protest! The sheer, unadulterated psychic fury overloaded its delicate runic matrices! The etched silver symbols glowed like white-hot brands! The metal casing began to melt! Blue lights stuttered insanely, then—SNAP! A sharp, final crack! Tiny electrical sparks spat from its seams!
The suppressor field—the cage that had bound him for days—shattered.
A power suppressed for too long, a slumbering volcano, unleashed by the icy malice and excruciating pain, erupted within Alan.