The golden fissure in the sky above Neo-Lagos widened, not with a sound of ripping fabric, but with a silent, terrifying certainty. From its heart, the Architects' new elite emerged. They were not the chaotic, monstrous enforcers of temporal paradox from the last assault. These were a new class of enemy: perfectly-formed figures of crystalline data, their bodies a lattice of flawless geometry that refracted the light of the sun into a thousand cold, dead points. They moved with an unnerving, synchronized grace, a choreographed ballet of destruction that was far more terrifying than the previous brute force.
Kaela Rho, watching from the Conflux's command hub, felt a cold knot of dread form in her stomach. "They're not organic. They're not even temporal. Tia, what are they?" she demanded, her voice tight with a tension she hadn't felt since her days in the war against the ancient A.I.s.
