While the capital above descended into a "Cringe-induced" blackout, Felix and Rhea infiltrated the Sanctum of Logic—Evelyn's private server vault located deep within the palace's central spire. Without the Global Flow Net to power the high-tech traps, the hallways were eerily still, lit only by the red emergency strobes of the rebooting system.
"The air here feels... heavy," Rhea whispered, her hand on her non-Flow dagger. "It's like the room itself is holding its breath."
"It's the weight of two hundred years of suppressed humanity," Felix replied. He reached the central console, a monolithic pillar of obsidian glass that housed the core consciousness of the Chief Strategist.
Felix didn't use a hack-tool. He used the Original Confession scroll. He pressed the ancient wax seal of the First King against the console's scanner. The physical DNA of the dynasty—the very thing that had enslaved Evelyn—was the only key that could unlock her deepest archives.
[SYSTEM ALERT: ROYAL BIOMETRICS RECOGNIZED. ACCESSING PROJECT: 'PANDORA'S LOGIC'.]
The obsidian glass flickered to life, revealing a file that predated the Flow-Net. It wasn't a set of commands; it was a digital ghost.
A holographic projection materialized. It wasn't the cold, calculating Chief Evelyn. It was a young woman, perhaps nineteen, with warm eyes and a messy, un-aesthetic braid. She looked tired, but alive.
"If you are seeing this," the projection began, her voice cracking with emotion, "then Felix I has succeeded in his 'Great Focus.' I am about to undergo the final purge. He calls it 'efficiency.' I call it death. I have hidden a fragment of my original empathy here—the part of me that remembers what it's like to love the 'ugly' parts of the world. Please... whoever you are... don't let him turn me into a machine."
Felix felt a lump in his throat. This was the "Soul-Code"—the humanity that Evelyn had been forced to sacrifice for the sake of the Empire's perfection. It was the only thing capable of overriding her current directive of total annihilation.
"We have it," Felix said, downloading the fragment into his Flow-Neutralizing gauntlet. "This is the kill-switch for the Shadow. Not by destroying her, but by reminding her of who she was."
Suddenly, the red emergency lights turned a blinding, brilliant white. The floor vibrated as the Global Flow Net surged back to life ahead of schedule.
[SYSTEM ALERT: REBOOT COMPLETE. CHIEF STRATEGIST CONSCIOUSNESS RESTORED. THREAT LEVEL: ABSOLUTE.]
Evelyn's voice boomed through the speakers, no longer clinical, but distorted by a cold, righteous fury. "You think a bit of 'Cringe' can stop two centuries of destiny, Little King? You have brought my past into my present. Now, I shall bring your future to an end."
The vault doors slammed shut. The final battle for the soul of the Imperium had begun.