The forge chamber of Code's Abyss, now shimmering with Reclaimed qi wards, was no longer a battlefield but a command center. The jubilant chaos of the Polymath youths, now freed from Sovereign's influence, was quickly channeled into a singular, desperate task: opening the path to the Aetherforge Core Nexus.
Lyra Codeflux stood before the colossal main display, her gold-veins pulsing with the strain of calculating a dimensional breach of impossible magnitude. "The Nexus is protected by a Gravitic Fold—a tenth-bleed portal left over from the Prime's architecture," she explained, her voice sharp with focus. "It wasn't designed to be opened. We need a continuous flow of high-order Polymath proofs, anchored by the Saga-Runes of Thorne and Sira, to stabilize the tear long enough for the shuttle to pass."
Thorne, the elder Nomad, was already etching massive frost-runes into the chamber floor, the arcs glowing with incandescent blue-gold light that countered the void's pull. "The sagas of our ancestors tell of the Great Anchor—the law that holds the chaos at bay," his baritone rumbled, reciting the ancient chants that fused with Lyra's proofs. "We give you passage, Reckoners. May the law hold."
Elara stood by the shuttle ramp, her mind cycling through escape calculations that all ended in the same fatal probability. There is no escape. Only commitment. The void bite on her arm felt cold and absolute—a final, necessary numbness. "The portal will be volatile. Kairo, maintain maximum Dimensional Integrity on the Serpent's Call hull. Lira, be ready to net the field if the fold begins to uncoil reality."
Kairo checked his engines, the Final Coil dragons manifesting briefly as six wisps of coiling shadow-flame around the thrusters—a final promise of power. "Dimensional integrity is my specialty, Voss. We'll ride the knife-edge of the fold. Just make sure the door doesn't shut on my tail." He looked at Lyra. "You're opening a hell of a door, Lyra. Be safe."
"The youths are anchored now," Lyra said, offering a weary smile. "They understand the cost of uncoiled freedom. Go. Do not let this sacrifice be for a void-loop."
Crossing the Boundary
The air in the forge screamed as Lyra's final proofs converged with Thorne's rune-anchors. On the main display, the black nebula of the Gravitic Fold ripped open—a kaleidoscopic tear in space, shimmering with impossible colors and bleeding raw, unformed qi. It was the eye of chaos, the path to the Aetherforge Core Nexus.
The shuttle surged forward, Kairo throttling the engines to a scream. As they hit the threshold, the world inside the cockpit warped. The Gravitic Fold was a place where physics buckled; time stretched, light bent, and for a terrifying second, Elara felt her Unfurl Reckoner fail as her meridians were violently stretched and contracted.
Lira reacted instantly. Her Prime Regulator Chains snapped outward, not physically, but as pure deductive law, netting the chaotic field itself. The chains enforced coherence, pinning the dimensional flux just long enough for the shuttle to pierce the veil. "Hold the chain!" she gritted, the effort contorting her face, the light-shadow filaments momentarily holding the shattered reality in place.
With a final, sickening lurch that threw them against their harnesses, the Serpent's Call passed through.
Arrival at the Zero-Point
Silence. Absolute, deafening, lawless silence.
The shuttle tumbled into a space that defied light and form. The Aetherforge Core Nexus was not a structure; it was a phenomenon. They were suspended over a colossal, perfectly spherical zero-flux field—a blackness that absorbed not just light, but qi, law, and consciousness. Around this spherical absence, ancient, derelict mechanisms of impossible size rotated—the true tenth-bleed core of the Prime's foundation, now twisted, silent, and draped in the dense, thorny filaments of the Serpentile Form.
Sovereign's final garden.
"We made it," Kairo breathed, his voice flat with shock. He fought the controls, but the magnetic and gravitational forces here were nonexistent or chaotic. "I have no anchor. We're drifting."
Elara unbuckled, ignoring the raw ache in her arm. She stared out at the core. The thorn-vines were denser than any they had faced, thick as planetary rings, all feeding into the absolute blackness of the Nexus. "It's not drifting, Kairo. It's uncoiling," she said, her obsidian eyes hard. "Sovereign has neutralized the Prime's gravitational law. This is where it intends to achieve total unfurlment."
Lira, exhausted but resolute, pointed to a faint, pulsing light near the sphere's apex—a tiny beacon struggling against the encompassing dark. "The light's chain isn't completely severed. That must be the Core Ward—the last law holding the Nexus together."
Elara activated her Unfurl Reckoner, its power surging to meet the unprecedented scale of the environment. "Then we don't have to fight the garden. We just need to prune the root."
The final reckoning had begun.