The Aurora's Spear vanished into white light as Lyra's hand closed around the Infinity Seed.
Kaelen shielded his eyes, but the brilliance wasn't just light—it was thought, memory, will, flooding into every mind aboard. He heard voices that weren't his, saw visions of worlds that never were.
"Lyra!" he shouted, his voice ragged. "What are you doing?!"
Her body lifted from the floor, hair whipping in unseen winds, eyes glowing with a thousand constellations.
"I am not… only me anymore," she whispered, her voice echoing like a chorus. "I am what was lost. I am what you've been fighting for."
The Architect's Avatar staggered, its obsidian form warping like molten glass.
"Impossible," it hissed. "The Seed is mine!"
It lunged.
But Lyra raised her hand, and for the first time, the Avatar stopped. Frozen mid-strike, it writhed against invisible chains of light.
Ceyra gasped over the comms. "She's… rewriting its code. Restructuring the laws holding it together!"
Kaelen could only watch as the rift beyond the ship surged violently. The colossal silhouettes inside roared in unison, sensing their pawn's demise.
On the Oraculum Station
Azhira collapsed to her knees, trembling. "She's awakened it. The Seed's true nature…"
Selene frowned. "Which is?"
"Judgment," Azhira breathed. "It was never a weapon—it was a verdict. On all sentient life."
Back aboard the Aurora's Spear
The Avatar shattered like glass, its fragments dissolving into the void. But as it died, the rift flared wider, pulling harder, hungrier.
"Lyra!" Kaelen yelled. "You stopped it, but the rift's still growing! Shut it down!"
She turned to him slowly, her starlit eyes unreadable.
"Do you trust me, Kaelen?"
He hesitated—just long enough to see something beyond her gaze. Not just Lyra, but the Seed itself, looking through her.
"…Always," he said.
She smiled faintly—and then hurled herself, Seed and all, into the heart of the rift.
The galaxy screamed.