The world around them trembled like a dying heartbeat. The Nexus—once an infinite lattice of radiant light—now flickered in fragments, as though reality itself was shattering.
Lyra stood frozen, staring at the spot where Veylan had been. The others were shouting, but their voices seemed muffled, distant.
"Lyra!" Kaelen gripped her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "We have to move! The whole place is coming down!"
Rhyss was already at a glowing archway that had materialized in the chaos—a possible exit. "Whatever Veylan did, it's holding the Architect back, but not for long!"
Ceyra tapped a control node embedded in the platform's surface. "This is a one-way door. Once we leave, we can't come back."
Lyra's voice cracked. "Veylan—"
And then, like a breath on her skin, she heard it:
"Go."
Inside the Nexus Core
Unseen by the others, Veylan's consciousness drifted through a sea of light. Their physical form was gone, but their essence persisted, tethered to the Nexus itself.
They could feel everything: the pulses of dying stars, the whispers of forgotten civilizations, the Architect's shadow gnawing at the edges of creation.
And beneath it all… something else. A presence, ancient and dormant.
"Who are you?" Veylan asked the void.
It answered in a voice like cascading galaxies:
"I am what the Architect fears. I am Infinity."
Escape
The archway ahead of Lyra and the others began to shrink. Kaelen pulled her toward it. "We're out of time!"
The ground behind them split open, and from the fissures poured streams of the Architect's spawn—jagged silhouettes of living darkness, hundreds of them.
"Run!" Rhyss shouted, opening fire with a plasma rifle.
The group sprinted across the collapsing platform. One of the creatures leapt at Ceyra, but Kaelen intercepted it, throwing it into the void.
They dove through the archway just as the Nexus imploded behind them, sealing shut with a thunderous boom.
Aftermath
They landed hard on cold metal. The world around them was stark and unfamiliar—a massive chamber lined with alien machinery, humming with power.
Rhyss groaned. "Where the hell are we?"
Before anyone could answer, the chamber's central console flickered to life.
Veylan's masked face appeared in the projection, flickering but unmistakably alive.
"Listen carefully," the echo of their voice said. "I've awakened something inside the Nexus. The Architect will come for it. And when it does… you must be ready."
The projection vanished.
Lyra's hand tightened around her weapon. For the first time, her grief hardened into resolve.
"Then we fight."
Somewhere, far beyond, in the dead silence of space, the Architect's laughter rumbled like thunder.