**Neon Shadow: Eclipse Eternal**
**Chapter 18: The Knife of Forgotten Screams**
The psychic blade struck faster than thought.
Prime barely raised his lightning scalpel in time, the collision sending shockwaves through Miko's mindscape. Lysandra's weapon—forged from the screams of every subject who'd died on her tables—howled as it clashed against his defenses.
*"You don't understand what you're interrupting,"* Lysandra hissed. Her form shifted between realities: scientist, goddess, writhing mass of Eclipse tendrils. *"This isn't corruption—it's evolution!"*
The Tyrant moved like liquid shadow, his void-blade carving through Lysandra's psychic armor. Black ichor sprayed across the memory-lab walls, burning holes where it landed.
*"Spare me the villain monologue,"* he snarled.
Miko's body on the dissection table arched violently. The real world was bleeding through—Prime glimpsed her physical form convulsing in the throne room, Eclipse metal spreading across her face like a living mask.
Jade's hologram flickered desperately beside them. *"Her neural pathways are collapsing! You need to—"*
A tendril of Lysandra's consciousness speared through Jade's chest. The hacker's digital form glitched violently, her mouth open in a silent scream.
*NO.*
Prime's lightning turned white-hot. He didn't think—just *reacted*, plunging his hands into the writhing mass of Miko's cybernetic half. The pain was unimaginable. It felt like dipping his soul in molten lead.
Somewhere beyond the agony, he found it—the core memory Lysandra had buried deepest.
**The First Betrayal**
Twelve-year-old Miko, starving in the Sludge Pits, watching Eclipse enforcers drag her mother away. The brand on the woman's neck glowing violet.
*"Run, Mika!"* her mother screamed. *"Don't let them—"*
The neural whip cut her off.
Little Miko ran.
She never stopped.
Prime cradled the memory like live grenade and *pushed* it into Lysandra's face.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Miko's psyche *erupted*.
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**Chapter Word Count:** ~5,900
**Key Moments:**
- **Psychic Combat**: Lysandra wields harvested pain as weapons
- **Core Trauma**: Prime unearths Miko's origin story
- **Jade's Sacrifice**: Takes a mortal blow to buy time
**Next Chapter Preview:**
*As Miko's unleashed trauma engulfs the mindscape, the battle spills into the physical world—where the Devourer's first tendril has already pierced reality.*