Sculk Echo

New

• Infected Creeper — the walking mine of the epidemic. Its fuse is a shrieker's cry; its explosion leaves blocks intact but releases a sculk-cloud (radius 4.5): 6 armor-piercing damage and instant conversion of every caught mob into its infected form. One creeper can turn a village square into a nursery of the sculk.
• Infected Cow & Infected Sheep — corrupted livestock joins the epidemic. The sheep wears two-layer sculk-wool (base + fur overlay) that cannot be sheared: scissors spark uselessly against the sculk. No dye variants — the disease has one color.
• Sculk Merchant — a villager who accepted the sculk and survived. Trades echo shards for emeralds, diamonds and potions; wears a permanent glowing cape (two-layer texture, vanilla profession robes removed forever). Spawns in Ancient Cities, or when a vanilla villager lingers near a sculk catalyst too long. In echo-vision he glows gold — a lighthouse you can hear.
• HUD — infection bar with numeric readout, six stage pips and Echo Shot cooldown indicator (stage 5). Hidden completely at 0 infection and during possession.
• Echo Shot cooldown — 2 seconds between shots; the HUD shows the recharge.

Fixes

• Fixed inverted infection/stage sync: the HUD bar now fills exactly as your infection grows.
• Trading GUI with the Sculk Merchant no longer closes instantly.
• Infected sheep no longer renders vanilla white wool over its sculk texture.

Known issues & roadmap

• Echo Stimulator still uses a placeholder texture (vanilla echo shard).
• Next: Echo Stimulator crafting at the Merchant, infected chicken for full farm horror, gradual blindness over in-game days.

The sculk does not kill. The sculk recruits.