Victory had never felt so much like a prelude to ruin.
The silence left by the Man in the Machine's departure was a physical weight, heavier and more oppressive than the drone of the monolith had ever been. The only sound was the sea—the true, unfettered sea—singing its ancient, complex song against the shores of the barren island. It was a hymn of freedom, but to the three figures standing amidst the wreckage of the Architect's prison, it sounded like a dirge for a future not yet lost.
The obsidian monolith was inert, a dead tooth jutting from the wet rock. The Listener drone lay on its side, a dead insect. They had won. They had freed the Sixth Note, the Frozen Sea of Memory, without sacrificing themselves. They had answered logic with a story, and the story had proven stronger.
Yet, the Architect's final words hung in the air, poisoning the triumph.
*The Heart of the World is mine. Come and silence it.*
