"The Two Sides of the Coin."

  The Greed Vessel heard Sam’s logic and laughed—a sound like tectonic plates grinding together.

  "Child. You are quite impatient, aren't you?"

  The illusionary world stirred. The stars and planets collapsed backward, rushing toward a single point of infinite density.

  "Look at this," the Greed whispered, gesturing to the singularity. "To bring the universe to life, there must be an explosion. You are deliberately forgetting the Origin itself. If there is no destruction of the old structure, where will the new structure come from? Regardless... the choice is yours."

  Then, silence.

  The projection paused, waiting.

  In the System Space, Sam stood up, his golden avatar vibrating with irritation.

  "How dare it twist the truth!" Sam snapped, his voice crackling with static. "Sis Nine! Do you hear this? And the worst part is, Aryan and Amara can't even talk to each other through the Soul Connection. The Vessel hears everything. That is how it knew about the Ally Amara sensed. That is how it saw the future Aryan saw!"

  Nine grabbed Sam’s wrist and forcibly dragged him back into the chair.

  "Calm down, Brother," she ordered, her voice sharp. "The Vessel is affecting your algorithm. Your digital frequency is being corrupted by its emotional output. You are getting angry, which means you are losing."

  Nine looked back at the external feed, watching Aryan and Amara standing frozen on the glass plains.

  "Only those two can decide now," she said softly. "They cannot speak. They cannot use telepathy. They must guess each other’s intent. This is the ultimate test. How well do they understand each other without words?"

  Sam scowled, struggling against the data corruption. "They haven't known each other for a long time, Sis! They met barely five days ago! Don't forget that! They are strangers with the same blood name!"

  "They are related by blood, Sam," Nine countered, her voice unwavering. "And more importantly, it is about survival. I know about humans. You might not know Aryan well yet, but blood carries instincts that time cannot teach. And since they met, they have gone through more life and death situations than siblings who have lived together for twenty years."

  "They better be able to deal with it," Sam sighed, finally slumping back in his glass chair, though his eyes remained anxious.

  In the mental landscape, Aryan broke the silence.

  "If we don't accept your offer... will you kill us?"

  The Greed’s voice swirled around them.

  "You will die either way. Markus will kill you if you are of no use to him. You will die in 85 days when the timer runs out. Or, you will explode if you fail to merge with me. It is not I who will kill you. It is your own indecision. Whom you believe... is your choice."

  Aryan narrowed his eyes. The logic was circular, trapping them.

  "Aren't you Anay?" Aryan asked suddenly. "The Greed Demon? Markus raised you personally. It is no wonder you speak with his arrogance."

  The entity paused. The swirling nebula shifted colors.

  "The blood that flows in everyone... does that mean the Origin of the blood is the person?" Greed asked back, a riddle in its tone.

  "I don't understand," Aryan admitted.

  "Anay is a Demon. He is a Vessel," the voice rumbled, shaking the illusion. "I am the Greed itself. Not the host. I am the Concept. A coin has two sides, Aryan. Anay is the heads; I am the metal itself."

  "You just threatened us to kill each other," Aryan pointed out, his voice hard.

  "That was a catalyst," the Greed replied smoothly. "I needed to push you. I needed you to reconstruct your Vessels through trauma so you wouldn't have to debate what is real. And now? You probably can't tell the difference between reality and illusion, even at the end of your lifespan."

  "The Stalemate."

  "Why do we have to decide right now?" Aryan asked, his voice cutting through the cosmic noise. "Just let us go. You said yourself we can't understand the vastness. So stop trying to force it."

  "It is not I who holds the key," the Greed rumbled, the illusionary stars flickering. "It is your own biology. You cannot go back. Stabilization is a myth Markus sells you. Reconstruction is the only reality."

  Amara, who had been silent, finally moved.

  She didn't step toward the Greed. She grabbed Aryan’s hand.

  "If we reconstruct... you will possess us," Amara said, her voice trembling but certain. "You don't just want to evolve us. You want to merge us. Two bodies into one perfect Vessel. That is the completion you seek."

  She pulled Aryan toward the area where Sam and Nine sat in their digital chairs. In this mental space, the brother and sister sat down beside Sam and Nine.

  Four beings. One front.

  "So that is how it is," Sam realized, crossing his arms. "I was wondering why a cosmic entity cared so much about 'saving' two kids. It’s self-preservation."

  "Forget it," Aryan said, looking at the nebula with cold eyes. "We won't do it. We won't trigger the explosion. We would just die on our own. We would burn ourselves to ash so you could try to build a house from the dust."

  He tilted his head, recalling the vision from his Seer Eye.

  "No wonder I saw us burning to death in the Glass Palace. No wonder Markus is so adamant about stopping us. He knows that if we listen to you now, we just become fuel."

  "You are too weak," the Greed hissed. "That is the fact. You fear the transition."

  "Exactly," Amara agreed. "We are weak. And that is exactly why your plan fails. Even if your logic about the Big Bang is true... we can't survive it. We are not ready. If we explode now, there is no Rebirth. Just death."

  "Restructuring the human body is like recreating the universe," Aryan added. "Do the inhabitants of a planet survive when the planet is destroyed to make a star? No."

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  The Greed Vessel remained silent. The swirling colors slowed down. It knew they were right. It had tried to rush the harvest, and they had called its bluff.

  "Since none of us can kill each other," Aryan said, his voice merging with Amara’s.

  "We will let you live here," Amara continued.

  "Your logic isn't bad," Aryan admitted. "But we are not capable right now."

  "And since you have a grudge against Markus," Amara said, staring at the entity.

  "Stay with us," they said in perfect unison. "I know you can't refuse this. Because you have no other option. You are stuck with us."

  "The Price of Stagnation."

  In the real world, the wind howled across the glass plains. Markus, who had been a silent statue observing the frozen siblings, finally moved.

  He sat down on his conjured chair, crossed his legs, and looked at them with a gaze that stripped them to the bone.

  "Interesting," the Monarch said. One word. A verdict.

  But inside the mental space, there was no applause.

  The Greed Vessel didn't rage at their refusal. It didn't scream or bargain. It went eerily, terrifyingly silent. The nebula stopped swirling. The stars dimmed.

  In the System Space, the golden light of Sam’s avatar flickered and died out for a second, replaced by a cold blue error light. Nine froze, her digital eyes widening as she processed the new calculation.

  They looked at Amara and Aryan with pure horror.

  "Your remaining lifespan..." Sam whispered, his voice trembling. "It has been cut in half."

  "What?" Amara was the first to react. Her hands clenched tight, her nails digging into her palms as she whipped her head toward the dimming Greed.

  The entity didn't laugh. It simply stated a fact of biology.

  "I told you to restructure yourself," the Greed said, its voice sounding distant, as if already bored with them. "You chose to keep the small vessel. A small vessel burns faster to contain a large fire. That is the price of your 'safety'."

  SNAP.

  The mental world shattered like a dropped mirror.

  GASSSSSSP.

  Aryan and Amara jolted awake in the real world, their lungs sucking in the cold air of the Training Ground. They collapsed onto the floor, sweat pouring off them as if they had run a marathon in seconds.

  The rope binding their hands and legs was still there, tight and heavy.

  But before their eyes, a red System Window flashed, searing the number into their retinas.

  “SYSTEM ALERT”

  Host Decision: Rejection of Evolution.

  Vessel Integrity: Compromised.

  Metabolic Burn Rate: Doubled.

  Time Remaining: 44 Days

  "The 44-Day Ultimatum."

  "You are out of your mind!"

  Aryan’s voice cracked, the scream tearing from his throat as he glared up at the impassive Monarch.

  "Either way, you and Markus just want us to die! One wants to experiment on us like lab rats. The other wants to occupy the experiment itself! You two fit together perfectly! Why didn't you just haunt each other and leave us alone?"

  He was panting, his chest heaving against the ropes that still bound him to his sister. The shock of the "Big Bang" was fading, replaced by the hot, familiar rush of rage.

  Inside their heads, a golden laughter bubbled up.

  "Hahaha! Anyway, at least you are back for good now, Kid," Sam chuckled, his voice sounding relieved rather than mocking. "You are shouting. That means you are back. The vegetable phase is over."

  Amara didn't shout. Her anger was colder, sharper.

  "Had we risked what the Vessel said... let alone forty-four days, we wouldn't be here right now," she whispered, her eyes dark.

  She leaned her weight back, pressing her spine against Aryan’s. They sat back-to-back on the cold glass floor, a three-legged knot of defiance.

  "We will find the cure, Aryan," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "As long as I am here, you are not seeing Death."

  She looked at her trembling hands.

  "When the curse only included me, I gave up searching. I accepted it. But now... things are different. They keep bullying us. First the Society, then the System, now the Vessel." She gritted her teeth. "I just wish I could kill them all."

  "No, Amara," Aryan said softly, reaching back to grip her shoulder. "You have been holding on good. Raw power would only have crushed us the moment we entered here. Just like the future I saw. We are doing a great job. We survived the negotiation."

  "Indeed, Kids," Sam interrupted, puffing out his digital chest. "See? Even this Great Sam is caring for you now. This is the greatest reward you can get for all the hard work you have done. What do you say, Sis Nine?"

  "He is right," Nine added gently. "Do not lose hope. You rejected the easy path of destruction. That is a victory."

  The wind blew across the training ground, cooling their sweat.

  Markus, who had been quiet, stood up. He walked slowly toward the exhausted pair. The glass clicked beneath his boots.

  He didn't summon a chair this time. He sat down on the floor directly in front of them, bringing himself to their eye level.

  "Okay," the Monarch said, his voice dropping the lecture tone. "Let's forget about the training for a moment. Let us talk about your cure."

  He looked at the number floating in the System window above their heads: 44 Days.

  "Having only forty-four days to live makes this urgent," Markus said calmly. "Especially considering you have absolutely no idea what the cure is, or where to even look for it."

  He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with knowledge.

  "But I do."

  "The Eight Seals."

  Markus looked at them, his eyes scanning their bodies as if reading a blueprint.

  "The cure you are looking for is not a potion. It is not a pill," Markus said. "It is a Seal."

  He held up eight fingers.

  "Your bodies contain eight specific Seals. Call them gates, locks, or limiters. In a normal human, these don't exist. In you... they are the only thing holding you together."

  He pointed to their chests.

  "When the Greed Vessel entered you, it didn't knock. It tore the First Seal open forcefully. Your body cannot bear the weight of a Cosmic Entity sitting inside an unfortified room. The 'leak' is your life force draining out through that broken door. That is why you are dying. Doing what the Vessel wants—exploding—would just shatter the remaining seven Seals instantly."

  "A Seal?" Aryan asked, brows furrowing. "Whose Seal? Who put them there? What are you talking about?"

  "That is the question of your lineage," Markus replied, ignoring the specific 'who' for now. "But here is the proof."

  He gestured between the two siblings.

  "Had the Seal only been on Amara, her curse—her ticking clock—would not have traveled to you like a virus, Aryan. The fact that her lifespan synced with yours proves one thing: You share the same architecture. You both have the Eight Seals."

  Aryan let out a long, ragged breath. He looked at Amara, then at the sky.

  "That explains it," Aryan muttered, running a hand through his sweat-drenched hair. "Honestly... less than five days ago, I didn't even know I had a blood relative other than my mother. I didn't know I was part of... whatever this is."

  He looked at Amara with a pained expression.

  "I keep meaning to ask you about it. About us. But not now. Now doesn't seem like a good time for a family reunion either."

  He tapped his temple, signaling the presence of the intruder in their minds.

  "We really need to talk, Amara. Just us. But no one is giving us the time to do so. Not the death clock, not the Monarch, and certainly not the parasite listening to every thought we have."

  Amara nodded grimly. The lack of privacy was almost worse than the pain. They were never truly alone.

  Markus watched them, his expression unreadable.

  "Privacy is a luxury for the living," Markus said coldly. "Right now, you are merely surviving. If you want the time to talk, you must buy it."

  "The Two Halves of Greed."

  "But I saw she had only eighty-eight days to live when I first met her," Aryan challenged, his eyes narrowing. "That was before we killed Anay. If the Greed Vessel entered us during the fight with Anay, your logic regarding the Seals doesn't hold. Because I didn't get the life span of 88 days as soon as I cooperated in the kill too.”

  "That is because the Greed Vessel entered her long before she killed Anay," Markus replied smoothly, shifting his gaze to Amara.

  Amara stiffened. She looked at Aryan, then back at the Monarch.

  "Indeed," she admitted, her voice low. "Before the gala... before I met you that night, Aryan. I was on a solo hunt. I slew an unknown-rank demon. It had lost its sanity completely, raving like a lunatic. That is when I got the 'curse.' I never told anyone."

  She glared at Markus, her eyes cold.

  "You sure know a lot about my private hunts, Markus. It feels less like observation and more like you planned it."

  Markus didn't deny it. He didn't even blink.

  "That unknown demon carried the First Half," Markus revealed. "The Vessel was split. That was the first fragment that entered you. It was unstable, leaking life force slowly. That was your eighty-eight days."

  He pointed to the memory of the dead Anay.

  "The Second Half was inside Anay. When you two killed him together, you completed the puzzle."

  "So..." Aryan pieced it together, horror dawning on his face. "The half in Amara and the half in Anay... they reunited. And because Amara and I formed a Soul Bond at that exact moment..."

  "It overrode your biological defenses and tore the First Seal apart," Markus finished. "Two halves became one whole. Two bodies became one system. The weight of the complete Greed Vessel crashed down on a foundation that wasn't built to hold it."

  "Indeed," Markus said, leaning back. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face. "And that is what makes things interesting."

  Aryan froze. He stared at that smile—a predator looking at a new species of prey.

  "Interesting?" Aryan repeated, stepping back slightly. "That word shouldn't come from you. When you find something 'interesting,' people usually die."

  He glared at the Monarch.

  "You are up to no good, Old Man."