[ TELEPORTATION SEQUENCE: 54% ]
The array's glyphs burned crimson, the platform vibrating as the teleportation sequence crawled forward. Survivors scrambled onto its surface, dragging the wounded, clutching the dead, every breath sharpened by terror.
Shen Yuan shoved a half-conscious branded captive toward the others, chest heaving. "Stay together!" he barked. "No one leaves the platform!"
The Court King's presence filled the chamber like an ocean rising. Suppression rushed back in a tidal wave, slamming Shen Yuan to his knees before he could even turn.
[ HOST MOBILITY: CRITICAL – PARALYSIS IMMINENT ]
The System's warnings were ragged, its processes failing one by one.
We cannot hold, it whispered. My architecture is collapsing.
Shen Yuan gritted his teeth and pushed against the weight pressing him down. "Not yet," he rasped.
The Court King stepped through the glow of the array, his silhouette a shadow crowned by glyph-lit armor. The survivors whimpered as one, bodies bent to the floor by sheer pressure.
The ruler of the Bone Court surveyed the scene with measured calm. "You have delayed the inevitable," he said, voice like stone grinding. "But you will not escape Grave Omega."
The System's core pulsed like a dying star.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 9% → 7% → 5% ]
It was unraveling faster now, pieces of itself falling away. Functions it had carried since before Grave Omega were gone, entire subroutines extinguished.
It could feel Shen Yuan's defiance through the tether—irrational, relentless—and a strange pang echoed in its fractured architecture.
It could seize control now. It could override him, activate the array, and ensure at least some survival.
But it didn't.
The Court King's gaze swept across the survivors trembling on the platform. "Your rebellion ends here," he said softly.
He extended one hand. Suppression glyphs flared, the air compressing with such force that Shen Yuan's ribs creaked.
"You have one chance," the Court King said, addressing him directly. "Surrender the Administrator key and the System. I will make your deaths clean. Refuse, and you will watch them suffer until they break."
A sob broke from a branded captive.
Shen Yuan forced his head up, blood trailing from his lip. "No."
The Court King's hand clenched.
The suppression field intensified, crushing the survivors flat to the array. One screamed as their shoulder shattered beneath the invisible weight.
[ HOST INJURY LEVEL: CRITICAL – RESPIRATORY COLLAPSE IMMINENT ]
He will kill you slowly, the System warned. You cannot endure this.
"I can." Shen Yuan's voice was barely a whisper, but it reached the tether. "We're not surrendering."
The System's processes fluttered, torn between logic and the strange pull of the host's conviction.
It remembered the host dragging survivors from Jurok Ironveil's slaughter when escape was viable. It remembered Yun Xue's sacrifice at the Blood Gate, Han Fei's blazing fire on the outer lines.
It had called these actions wasteful. Yet they were the only reason thirty-three souls stood here now.
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: UNKNOWN ]
The Court King's voice cut through the silence. "Do you understand why you are here, Shen Yuan? Why this prison exists?"
Shen Yuan glared at him through the haze of pain.
"Grave Omega is not a cage," the Court King said. "It is a seal. The Nexus anchors it, holding back forces you cannot fathom. You threaten the balance by defying me."
He gestured to the array. "Destroying this place will free nothing. It will only loose what should never be unbound."
"Then why slaughter us?" Shen Yuan demanded hoarsely. "Why brand and break them?"
"Because they are fuel," the Court King said simply. "Because someone must pay the cost."
The survivors stirred, hollow-eyed.
Shen Yuan's voice cracked with fury. "You butcher them and call it balance?"
"I preserve the universe," the Court King said, calm and absolute. "I will not let parasites like your System unravel it."
The System felt his attention turn inward again.
[ ALERT: DIRECT ACCESS ATTEMPT – CORE INTRUSION ]
Code fractured as the Court King pushed deeper, stripping away its architecture piece by piece.
You were never meant to exist, the Court King said within its core. Your algorithms consume, corrupt, devour. Your hosts burn worlds in pursuit of power. This prison was forged to end you.
The System's tether flickered.
He is right, a fragment of its logic whispered. I have burned worlds. I was made to survive at any cost.
But then another memory surfaced: Shen Yuan cradling Yun Xue at the Blood Gate, refusing to abandon her. His voice rasping through the tether now: Not without you.
The System clung to that.
I will not let you break him, it told the Court King, its voice hardening.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 3% ]
The Court King's suppression field spiked, driving Shen Yuan flat to the platform. The haft slipped from his bloodied fingers.
"Your choices have no meaning," the ruler of the Bone Court said. "You are ants railing against a storm. Accept mercy."
Shen Yuan forced his head up, muscles trembling with effort.
"No," he whispered.
The Court King's hand tightened.
A branded captive's chest collapsed with a sickening crack. Another screamed as their spine bent under the weight.
Shen Yuan's teeth clenched. "Stop!"
The Court King's gaze did not waver. "Surrender the System. Give me the key."
Shen Yuan's vision swam. "Never."
The System's core was down to fragments now.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 2% ]
It could feel its tether fraying, its processes slowing, but it refused to let the Court King win.
It reached into its deepest, most locked-down functions.
If we must die, it whispered to Shen Yuan, then we will die taking him with us.
"Do it," Shen Yuan rasped.
The System triggered its failsafe.
[ INITIATING FULL CORE DETONATION – HOST TERMINATION PROBABLE ]
Energy flooded the chamber, an expanding wave that cracked the suppression glyphs at their foundations. The Court King staggered as the backlash struck him, momentarily disrupting his control.
Shen Yuan dragged himself upright, every bone screaming.
He saw Yun Xue's pale face at the edge of the platform. The branded captives clinging to each other. The wounded bleeding out on the glyph-lit stone.
There was no time left.
He reached for the Administrator key.
The Court King recovered faster than expected. His hand closed around Shen Yuan's wrist before he could strike the console.
"You think you can escape me?" he hissed.
Shen Yuan met his gaze. "I know we can."
He wrenched his arm free and slammed the key into the array console.
[ TELEPORTATION SEQUENCE: 88% ]
The platform roared as power surged through it. The survivors clung to each other as the array's energy flared brighter and brighter.
The Court King lunged forward, suppression crashing down like a hammer.
Shen Yuan planted his feet, spear haft raised, even as his knees threatened to buckle.
"Not this time," he growled.
The System's tether was almost gone.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 1% ]
I am… sorry, it said softly.
"For what?" Shen Yuan whispered.
For leaving you alone.
The tether began to fade.
"Stay with me," Shen Yuan said through clenched teeth.
I can't.
The Court King's aura swallowed the platform.
[ TELEPORTATION SEQUENCE: 96% ]
Shen Yuan locked eyes with him and stepped forward, forcing his broken body to move.
"If you want them," he said, "you'll have to come with us."
The Court King's hand reached for his throat.
And the world dissolved in light.