Chapter 5: Fight or Flight
The silence of the vast, crystalline chamber shattered with a metallic shriek. From the spiraling ramp, the light was instantly cut off as an Aetherium assault team—not a scout, but five figures clad in heavier, black-and-silver tactical armor—burst into the core chamber. They were fast, disciplined, and their rifles were already leveled, locking onto Reiyo and Silas.
"Source-Bearer located! Secure the artifact!" a synthesized voice boomed through the chamber.
"So much for six hours," Silas snarled. He shoved Kenji behind the pedestal, his own cloak whipping around him. Unlike the Aetherium, Silas carried no steam-era weapon; he held only the small, thin metal stylus he'd used earlier, which now glowed faintly with purple light.
"Kenji, stay low! Reiyo, you made this mess—figure out how to use this chamber!"
The Aetherium opened fire. Streamed shots of compressed steam and kinetic energy ripped through the air, impacting the walls and sending crystalline dust flying.
Silas moved first. He was impossibly fast, a blur of purple and black. He didn't try to stop the shots; he dodged and moved past the fire, engaging the lead Aetherium officer in brutal, silent hand-to-hand combat. The metal stylus carved lines of purple energy into the officer's armor, cracking the composite plates.
Reiyo didn't move toward the fight; he moved toward the source of the knowledge. He ran to the walls, instinctively slamming his knife against a cluster of the silent, black crystalline shards. The knife was quiet, its raw power spent on the skiff, but the shards pulsed in response to the latent Source energy.
The memory... the power...
A sudden, desperate idea struck him. He aimed his knife at the crystal wall and consciously tried to siphon the energy, not from his own body, but from the Library itself.
The response was immediate and violent. The crystal cluster didn't shatter; it flared, releasing a blinding sheet of pure, cold energy—the crystallized memory—that overloaded the targeting systems of two nearby Aetherium soldiers, causing their visors to instantly turn black and their rifles to jam.
"Now you're thinking!" Silas yelled, disarming his opponent with a wrenching snap and using the moment to duck toward the central pedestal.
The remaining Aetherium team adjusted, focusing their fire on the volatile Source-Bearer. Shots rained down, impacting the ground near Reiyo's feet.
"The exit!" Silas shouted, pointing to the shard pulsing with the faint purple light—the one marking the location of the "others." "It's a conduit! Slam your power into it!"
Reiyo, his body still weak but driven by the frantic need to survive, ran. He didn't have enough power left for another earth-shaking blast, so he channeled the last, freezing remnant of the cold power directly into the softly pulsing shard.
The shard didn't just glow; it vaporized with a blinding FWOOM, leaving a clean, circular hole of pure, open space in the ancient crystalline wall. Beyond it was a swirling vortex of purple and black energy, a portal that led somewhere unknown.
"Go! Go! Go!" Silas kicked the last functioning Aetherium officer back and lunged for the portal.
Reiyo grabbed the terrified Kenji and shoved him through the vortex first. Then, without a moment to look back at the Library that held the secret of his soul, Reiyo followed. Silas dove in last, and the crystalline wall immediately reformed, sealing the hole and plunging the Aetherium team back into darkness, with only the scent of ozone and the humming archives for company.
They spilled out onto a windswept plateau, the air still crackling with residual energy. The purple vortex was gone. They were no longer in the Kryll Desert.
The sun beat down on a landscape of rolling, green-and-yellow plains, crisscrossed by high-speed magnetic rail lines—a completely different region of the world. Miles ahead, cutting into the horizon, was the dark, monolithic shape of a fortress built into the side of a massive mountain range.
"Welcome to the Hinterlands," Silas said, rising to his feet, his breathing ragged. "That portal was a one-way trip, and we just burned a massive flare to use it."
"Where... where are we?" Kenji stammered, staring at the distant fortress.
Silas pointed to the fortress, his voice dropping to a serious tone. "That, Source, is where the others are waiting. That is their fortress. We have arrived."