Silas moved through the decaying sector like a ghost. He led them not through the main corridors, but through a web of service ducts and maintenance shafts that Ren, for all his knowledge, had never known existed. He pointed out patches of shimmering, corrupted data on the floor that he called "static traps," warning they could cause temporary paralysis. He identified the nests of smaller, skittering glitches—mindless Aberrations that swarmed and consumed anything that got too close.
He was, Ren had to admit, incredibly good at being a rat. It was a skill Ren respected.
Valeria followed, her expression a mask of professional vigilance, but Ren could see the tension in her shoulders. She was out of her element. Her training was for orderly corridors and predictable threats, not this chaotic, rule-breaking nightmare.
As they drew closer to the comms relay, the very air began to feel sick. The informational ghosts Ren had seen earlier became more frequent, more aggressive. Flickering afterimages of running figures, their faces contorted in silent screams, darted across their peripheral vision. Walls would momentarily display lines of corrupted text—fragments of last-ditch emergency broadcasts.
…unknown entity… core logic… cascading failure…
…don't listen to the voices…
…Gods, it's in the system…
"The main hub went haywire a few hours after the Fracture," Silas whispered, his voice barely audible over the high-pitched whine that now permeated the air. "It's not just one or two glitches in there anymore. It's like the whole place is… dreaming. And the dreams are hungry."
He led them to a high catwalk overlooking a vast, cavernous chamber. Below them was the Sector 37 Primary Communications Relay.
It was a cathedral of technology, dominated by a massive central spire that rose from the floor to the ceiling fifty meters above, surrounded by rings of humming data banks and broadcast arrays. The air crackled with raw, uncontrolled energy.
And it was infested.
At least a dozen Hardlight Phantasms drifted through the chamber like silent, ghostly sentinels. Their glowing, featureless forms were a stark and terrifying sight. But what made Ren's blood run cold was the thin, shimmering threads of violet light that connected each Phantasm back to the central spire.
There, wrapped around the core of the relay, was something else. It was larger, denser, a chaotic vortex of light and shadow with a single, unblinking eye of pure violet at its center. It was the source. The heart.
"A Conductor," Valeria breathed, her voice tight with disbelief and horror. "It's merged with the relay's core processor."
Ren looked at her. "What's a Conductor?"
Silas answered from his other side, his usual smirk gone, replaced by a look of genuine fear. "A boss monster, kid. It doesn't just wander. It thinks. It controls the others."
The strategic problem was absolute. They couldn't fight their way to the control panel. Valeria's barriers were useless against the Phantasms, and there were too many for Ren to deconstruct one by one, even if he could withstand the catastrophic [System Lag] that would follow. A direct assault was suicide.
Valeria seemed to realize this, her face paling. Her mission—to contact the Core—was impossible.
But Ren wasn't looking at the control panel. He was looking at the Conductor. He was looking at the threads. His perception shifted, the physical world fading as the shimmering tapestry of Covenants came into focus. He saw the complex, stable weaves of the relay spire, and the chaotic, corrupted knots of the Aberrations.
And he saw the truth. The Phantasms had no core Covenant of their own. They were hollow. Their violet threads were not anchors; they were puppet strings, all leading back to the single, impossibly complex, and deeply corrupted Covenant of the Conductor at the heart of the spire.
They didn't have to fight the army. They only had to kill the king.
Their objective had changed. They couldn't use the relay. They had to destroy it.
Ren slowly raised a hand, pointing towards the vortex of energy clinging to the central spire. His voice was a low, steady whisper that cut through the humming dread.
"There. That's the heart."
Valeria and Silas turned to him.
"The others… they're just puppets. We have to cut the strings."