The Crucible responded to the death of the Nyxari echo with a low hum. The cables pulled away from my suit, leaving tiny burns across my spine. My neural link flared with a notification:
[FORGE COMPLETE: PROJECT SIGMA-SHARD UNLOCKED]
A panel slid open beneath the console. Within it lay a device unlike anything I had ever seen—even in blacksite prototypes.
It was a weapon.
No—more than a weapon.
It was alive.
The Sigma-Shard hovered in the air, rotating slowly on its own axis. It was shaped like a teardrop of obsidian crystal, etched with moving fractals. It pulsed as I approached, like it recognized me, as if it had been waiting.
"What is that?" Hara asked.
I touched it.
Pain bloomed through my chest—sharp, electric, cosmic. My vision exploded into stars and war. I saw myself, fractured across hundreds of possible futures—some where I died screaming, others where I reigned as a tyrant, corrupted by the very power I now held.
But I chose this path.
And the Shard accepted my will.
It snapped into place over my chestplate, unfolding like a spider, integrating with the VANTHRAX suit. My HUD rebooted. New protocols scrolled across my eyes:
[SIGMA CORE ONLINE]
[REALITY-THREAD RESONATOR ACTIVE]
[WEAPON: STARLANCE ENABLED]
I didn't need a manual. I knew what to do.
Then the Crucible trembled.
"Another breach," Hara warned. "Bigger this time."
The walls split open. A storm of corrupted Paladins poured through, some walking, some crawling, others dragging twisted limbs sparking with glitch-light. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
Time to test it.
I activated the Starlance.
The Sigma-Shard unwrapped from my chest and transformed—liquid geometry forming a six-foot spear of pure gravitational energy. It vibrated at frequencies I couldn't hear, but I felt them—in my bones, in the air, in the way the corrupted units hesitated.
I moved.
The spear sliced through the first line like they weren't even there. No explosions. Just erasure. Their data patterns dissolved on impact, unwritten from existence.
I spun, ducked a volley of disrupter fire, hurled the Starlance—and it didn't just fly, it bent through space. It blinked forward, took out five more units, then snapped back into my hand with a sound like tearing fabric.
Hara deployed an Aegis field to protect the console. "Kai! That countdown's accelerating!"
I glanced at it: 00:12:57:03
Twelve minutes. Not hours.
"The Nyxari breach is destabilizing time inside the Crucible," I said. "We either shut this down or we lose the entire system."
I activated the Resonator. The suit's venting systems flared. Light bled from my skin, from my eyes. The Sigma Core pushed me to the edge of what was human—and beyond.
More enemies closed in.
I welcomed them.
This time, I wasn't running.