The rain returned not with a whisper, but a roar.
Dark clouds rolled over the ruins of the Old Library, shadows crawling across shattered stone and blood-soaked earth. Sam stood beneath the storm, his Resonance barely stable, flickering like a dying flame. The weight of the last battle clung to him—the confrontation with the Chain Monks had torn through his body and mind alike. Echoform: Mind Split had granted him a glimpse of clarity and chaos, but at a cost he still couldn't name.
And yet the sky kept shifting. Something was coming.
He looked around. Valencia sat on a slab of rubble, blood matting her hair, her arm wrapped tightly with gauze. She hadn't spoken since the battle ended. Rael, for once, wasn't meditating—he was pacing, eyes locked on the Vein Map flickering from the wrist device on his forearm.
"Intramuros isn't safe anymore," Rael muttered.
"No place is," Sam replied, voice low. "They knew where we were. The Court didn't send just scouts. They sent executioners."
Rael nodded. "And they'll send worse."
Sam felt the truth settle in his gut. He remembered what Rizal had shown him—the Court of Logos' plans to sever not just futures, but identities. History was a battleground, and the battlefield was fracturing.
"They're after the Memory Wells," Valencia finally said.
Sam turned to her. "The what?"
She raised her head slowly, pain etched in every blink. "The places where Resonance echoes loudest. Where the past is rooted deep. They're planning to erase them. One by one."
Rael frowned. "We've only heard whispers. No official records. Are you saying—?"
"I'm saying I remember," Valencia cut in. "Because I lost everything to it."
Sam's breath caught. Valencia had always held back—fierce in battle, quiet in grief. He hadn't pushed. He hadn't dared.
But now, something had broken.
[Flashback – Mindoro Highlands, 2020]
A younger Valencia stood at the cliff's edge, her hands glowing faintly with windfire. Below, her village burned.
Her brother's scream echoed in her ears—the last sound she heard before the Rift opened like a mouth across the horizon, swallowing her world in one breath.
She had survived. But not by choice.
The Vein chose her in the moment of death. A violent inheritance. And when she emerged, the Court was already there—offering "containment," offering "treatment."
They wanted her erased.
She ran.
[Present]
"I never told you," Valencia whispered. "But Mindoro was one of the Wells. They wiped it from all Vein records. You won't even find it on maps now."
Sam looked at her, the weight of her words anchoring in his chest. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I was scared it would happen again. And because they made me believe I didn't belong in the story."
Silence fell, broken only by the storm.
But something had shifted.
Sam stepped forward, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You do. You always have."
Her eyes met his—wet, not from the rain.
Rael cleared his throat. "If the Court's targeting Wells, we need to find the next one before they do. We stop the erasure."
Sam turned toward him. "Do we even know where the next one is?"
Rael glanced at his Vein Map again. "There's a faint reading in Samar. Deep within the old forests. It's not stable, but it's… resonating."
"A Memory Well," Valencia confirmed. "And probably protected by something ancient."
Sam looked out toward the horizon, where the storm was beginning to break—barely.
"Then that's where we go."
[Cut to – Court HQ, Sector IX]
The Director of Rift Strategy stood over a dying monk.
The Chain Monk's body convulsed, dark smoke curling from his veins.
"They were stronger than anticipated," he gasped. "The boy… he unlocked the Echoform."
The Director's eyes glimmered.
"Good," she said. "Let him evolve. Let him believe."
She turned away, stepping into a room of screens—each showing a different location across the country.
"Because the real Well… isn't in Samar."
She placed her hand on a glowing glyph.
"It's already inside him."
The true location of the Resonant Core may not be external—it may be rooted within Sam himself.