Clara's sobs echoed through the cavern, each breath hitching as if her body was fighting to remember how to be human. Crimson threads writhed from her skin, coiling into the air like serpents unsure of whether to strike or retreat. The colossus loomed behind her, waiting—not with the violence of a beast, but the reverence of a knight kneeling before its queen.
Damien dragged himself upright, blood staining his mouth. His flames flickered weakly, barely more than embers. "Clara… listen to me." His voice cracked, but it was steady, a plea anchored in desperation. "You're still you. You can push it back. You don't have to be what it says you are."
Her head snapped toward him, eyes glowing molten red. But within that glow, a fragile tremor lingered. She whispered, voice splitting into two tones again. "Push it back? Or use it?"
The Architect's undertone deepened, a vibration that shook stone loose from the fissure walls. Why push away perfection? With me, there is no weakness. You felt it when you cast him aside. Power that bends the world. Power that defines truth.
Clara trembled, threads spasming. She raised her hands and stared as a web of light spun itself into existence, each strand humming with destructive potential. She could feel everything—the texture of the stone beneath her feet, the pulsing heartbeat of Damien, the coiled readiness of Yurin's threads, Evelyn's quiet hunger for blood. It wasn't sight. It wasn't hearing. It was absolute knowing.
Her breath hitched. "It's too much."
Damien staggered forward despite the blood on his lips, his flames guttering but his eyes burning bright. "Then reject it! You don't need power to be Clara. You just need—"
—need to survive, the Architect cut in, hijacking her voice. "And survival belongs to those who seize what is offered."
Threads lashed outward suddenly, shattering boulders like they were glass. Damien barely dove aside, flames flaring to protect him from the shrapnel. The fissure rumbled again, widening as though the land itself bowed to the Architect's return.
Yurin did not flinch. His eyes gleamed with an unsettling calm, his own crimson threads unfurling around him in silent orbit. "Good. She's beginning to choose."
Damien whipped toward him, fury igniting. "Shut the hell up! You think this is some kind of game?!"
Yurin's lips curved slightly, though it was less a smile and more an acknowledgement. "Game? No. Destiny." He turned his gaze back to Clara, voice soft but sharp. "Clara… do you feel it? The way reality yields to you? That is not corruption. That is recognition. The world remembers its true master."
Clara squeezed her head between her hands, shaking violently. "Stop—stop talking—both of you!"
But instead of collapsing, she forced herself upright. Her body wavered, but her eyes sharpened. She raised a hand, and the threads responded immediately, weaving into a shape suspended in midair: a blade formed entirely from her will, its edge shimmering with power so raw it seemed to hum against the bones of everyone present.
Damien froze, horror filling his chest. "Clara, don't—"
She turned to him. "I need to know. If I can control it… then maybe I can stop it."
The Architect chuckled, voice wrapping around hers. You cannot control what you are. But you may learn to accept it.
Her grip tightened. She swung the blade downward—not at Damien, not at Yurin, not at Evelyn—but into the ground. The fissure floor split apart, a massive chasm tearing through the cavern like paper. The sheer force of it made the colossus rear back, threads snapping taut to keep its body from falling into the void.
Clara gasped, horrified by her own power. "I… I did that. I didn't even try."
Evelyn whistled low. "Okay, wow. Girlboss moment. You just carved open the earth like you were slicing a cake. Ten out of ten, would watch again."
Damien ignored her, stumbling closer. His flames flared weakly as he extended a hand to Clara. "You're proving you can control it. Please, hold onto that. Don't give in."
Clara stared at his hand, trembling. For a moment, she reached out—her threads pulsing uncertainly.
Then the Architect surged again. Control? You still cling to human illusions. Control implies separation. You and I are one. There is no leash, no master. Only inevitability.
Her hand stopped inches from Damien's. Her crimson gaze flickered with doubt, fear, and temptation. She whispered, her voice fractured. "I don't know if I'm saving you… or damning you by staying."
Yurin's threads flared, circling protectively around her. "Then perhaps it's time you stopped asking whether to fight or embrace. Decide, Clara. Decide, and the world will bend."
The fissure groaned again, the sky above them fracturing with veins of crimson light, as if waiting for her choice to finalize.
Clara lowered her head, clutching the thread-blade tightly. Her voice shook with both her own desperation and the Architect's certainty.
"I… I will try to control it. But if I can't—" Her eyes snapped upward, glowing with terrifying resolve. "Then I'll burn everything before it controls me."
And for the first time, even the Architect fell silent.