Chapter 102: Dragon as a Mount
The glow from the Heart pulsed like a heartbeat through every conduit of Obsidian Gate. Magnus’s new command center had become a hive of scientists, engineers, and shard analysts, all bent over consoles and test rigs. At the center of the main chamber the Heart itself sat in a reinforced cradle, electrodes and nano-membrane injectors attached in a lattice around its crystalline surface.
Nioh stood before it, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the three holoscreens. He had spent days fine-tuning the harmonic resonance arrays that would coax the ancient dragon’s biocore back to life. Now, with a final nod to the team, he keyed the activation sequence.
Each injector released a tailored nanite swarm that bonded to the Sangrine crystals. The aether-driven bots formed micro-circuits, linking the crystal’s electrochemical pathways to external power nodes. Nioh opened a control panel and began to modulate the frequencies.
Nioh stood at the central hub, fingers dancing across his interface. The principle was simple, in theory:
The dragon’s biocore operated like a harmonic reservoir—storing energy in song-like pulses, broadcasting it into the Sangrine veins across the Maw. If they could tune the lattice to its core wavelength—somewhere between 3.6 and 3.8 Terahertz—they could simulate the memory of its awakening moment.
A frequency not heard in 10,000 years.
"Activating shell-layer analyzers," Althea said.
Magnus stood near the base of the dragon’s spine, armored to the teeth, helmet retracted. He was already wired in—his own biocore syncing with the secondary systems. Magnus’s railgun matrix, an unstable but powerful symbiosis of ionized particles and magnetic pulse coils, was dangerous even in standby mode.
But today, it was essential.
"You sure the dragon’s not gonna see him as a threat?" Akron muttered.
"Magnus’s biocore emits a directed burst pattern," Nioh replied. "Like a predator’s heartbeat. Aggressive, but predictable. If we anchor it into the feedback loop at the right moment... it won’t provoke the dragon."