The sky tore open.
Not like a wound, nor like a portal—rather as if the very fabric of the Origin Layer recognized that something unprecedented stood below and responded by revealing the one presence that had no need of concealment.
Lines of blinding white traced themselves across the horizon, converging into a colossal geometric iris suspended in the sky. At its center, a vertical pupil of pure conceptual energy dilated slowly, as if focusing on Sarah.
Koneko's voice tightened.
"That's… alive."
Akeno swallowed lightly, tone unusually void of teasing.
"No. It's worse than alive. It's aware."
Rossweisse felt her runes short-circuit and dissolve on her wrists.
"It just erased my spells… without casting anything."
Xenovia stepped in front of Sarah, blade raised.
"Name it."
But it was Lilith Fragment who answered, her voice sharper and colder than at any point since their merge.
"The Architect."
Rias's blood chilled instantly.
"The intelligence that created the Outer Faction."
"Not created," Lilith corrected. "Directed. It is the will that shaped their purpose… the original Ascension Prototype."
The Architect's pupil contracted.
A sound—not heard, but understood—vibrated through the minds of everyone present:
"Vessel detected."
Sarah exhaled sharply as something crawled across her mind—an invasive algorithm attempting to read her. Lilith Fragment immediately surged forward, shielding her thoughts with an explosive burst of crimson-lilac resonance.
"Do not let it in," Lilith commanded.
"I'm not," Sarah growled, gripping her head, "letting anything in."
The Architect's gaze shifted slightly, recalibrating its interest.
"Ascension Seed: integrated. Proto-Ascension: unstable. Emotional network: anomalous."
A wave of distortion rippled across the metal plains.
Structures rose from the ground—monolithic shapes assembling themselves with surgical precision. Massive constructs, shaped like titans of folded geometry, awakened in rows stretching to the horizon.
Xenovia's jaw clenched.
"So we fight those."
Rias shook her head.
"No. Those are the outer shells. The Architect is testing us before revealing its avatar."
Akeno grinned, dark excitement flickering behind her eyes.
"Let it test. We have answers."
Sarah stepped forward—slow, deliberate, radiating a power that bent the metallic ground in soft waves with each footfall. The shard's integration hummed beneath her skin, fresh, volatile, but hers to command.
Her harem aligned behind her automatically.
Formation Omega-Zero.
Maximum offensive synergy.
Full synchronization.
Lilith Fragment whispered:
"The constructs are not alive. They are extensions of the Architect's intent. Cut them down, and you force it to manifest."
Sarah took her stance.
"Then we make it show itself."
---
The First Construct Engages
A titan—fifty meters tall, angular and shifting like a puzzle solving itself mid-movement—charged forward, each step shaking the entire plane.
A tremor rippled beneath the group.
Koneko lunged first, her raw physical density creating a shockwave that diverted the titan's trajectory. Rossweisse mapped its weak points in a fraction of a second, her fingers tracing invisible lines across the air.
Akeno snapped her fingers and detonated the mapped points with precise, teasing bursts of energy.
Xenovia shot forward, blade carving a glyph-crack through the titan's chest.
Rias reinforced the lattice binding Sarah's power, her palm pressed firmly against Sarah's back.
Sarah surged.
Proto-Ascension flared into a sharp, controlled beam of conceptual force that tore through the titan's core. The construct froze mid-movement and collapsed into a collapsing wave of metallic shards.
The Architect spoke again.
"Evaluation: insufficient. Deploying Phase Two Constructs."
Across the plains, hundreds of titan-forms rose simultaneously.
Xenovia exhaled.
"Now that's more like a challenge."
Rias stepped closer to Sarah, voice low but steady.
"Your new power adapts with emotional synchrony. Don't fight alone. Fight with us."
Sarah nodded—and her aura responded instantly.
---
Ascension Seed Integration – Phase 2 Triggered
Effect:
– Emotional synchrony elevates offensive output.
– Desire fields scale exponentially with harem contact.
– Reflexes and perception accelerate beyond previous limits.
– Proto-Ascension stabilizes for multi-target combat.
Sarah's heart pounded once—hard.
The construct army moved.
The harem charged.
What followed was not a battle.
It was domination.
Koneko shattered limbs with raw force.
Akeno destabilized cores with crackling bursts.
Rossweisse redirected enemy vectors with perfect precision.
Xenovia cleaved through multiple constructs with each swing.
Rias amplified the entire lattice with ruthless efficiency.
And Sarah—
Sarah tore through the battlefield like a living singularity.
Every movement was calculated, lethal, perfect.
Every strike bent the Origin Layer itself.
She felt the shard humming in her veins, responding to every touch, every breath, every command.
One by one, constructs fell, titans collapsing in cascades of geometric fractures until the horizon itself trembled under the scale of destruction.
The Architect watched.
Silent.
Measuring.
Anticipating.
Finally, after the last titan dissolved into nothingness, the sky split open entirely.
A humanoid figure descended—neither machine nor spirit, but something between concept and form, wrapped in shifting geometry and white-violet light.
Lilith Fragment's voice sharpened to a final warning:
"Prepare yourselves. That is the Architect's avatar. The true battle begins now."
Sarah's eyes locked onto the descending figure.
Her pulse steadied.
Her stance deepened.
Her power crystallized.
"Good," she whispered.
"Let's finish this."