The blade of light hung inches from Orion's chest, humming with a frequency that set the ironwood deck beneath their boots vibrating. In the absolute stillness of the frozen amphitheater, the choral voice of the automated warden did not fade; it resonated through the vault like the tolling of a cathedral bell, demanding an accounting of a world that had burned ten thousand years ago.
Behind Orion, Kaelen's breath hitched inside his pressurized helmet. The senior Lightweaver scholar knew the merciless architecture of pre-war security protocols. The Level-Omega warden was not a sentry that could be reasoned with through diplomacy or sentiment. It was an unyielding mathematical engine, programmed during the final, terrifying hours of the Golden Epoch to treat any unrecognized kinetic signature as a parasite trying to feast on the remains of a dying empire.
