The walls convulsed like a living thing, each pulse of energy threatening to tear them apart. Lyra's vision blurred; she couldn't tell what was real anymore—Kaelen's face, the hall, the avatar—everything fractured into a storm of possibilities.
Then, through the chaos, she saw it.
A single flaw.
Amidst the endless streams of perfect code and shifting light in the Architect's form, there was one fragment—an imperfection, like a note out of tune. It flickered faintly behind its chest, barely perceptible, as if the Architect were hiding it.
"Kaelen!" she shouted through the cacophony. "Its heart—look at its heart!"
He followed her gaze and caught the anomaly. "Ceyra, can you destabilize it?"
Ceyra's jaw clenched. "Maybe. But it'll take everything I have."
The Architect tilted its head, eyes like twin suns boring into them.
"You see nothing. I am flawless."
The pillars pulsed violently, and suddenly hundreds of versions of Kaelen and Lyra appeared around them, each whispering conflicting truths:
"You're too late."
"You're already dead."
"This is what you wanted."
Kaelen roared, swinging his blade through the illusions. "Ignore it! Focus!"
Ceyra stepped forward, their form beginning to shimmer, threads of energy unraveling from their body. "I'll expose the flaw. When I do, strike."
Lyra reached for them. "Ceyra, you won't survive that!"
Ceyra gave a faint, almost human smile. "I was never meant to survive this war."
They lunged toward the Architect, their body dissolving into pure light.
The Crack Appears
The Architect hissed—a sound like a dying star—as Ceyra's essence pierced into its core. The flaw in its chest widened, sparks of instability cascading outward.
"Now!" Ceyra's voice echoed, fading.
Kaelen and Lyra moved as one—his blade a streak of steel and energy, her blaster a lance of searing light—both aimed directly at the exposed heart.
For the first time, the Architect faltered.
And then—
The chamber exploded in blinding white.
When Lyra opened her eyes, silence surrounded her. The hall was gone. The Architect's avatar was gone.
Kaelen lay beside her, barely breathing.
And Ceyra… was nowhere to be seen.
A voice—faint, fractured—whispered in her mind:
"It's not over. I am not one. I am many."