The passage within the Divine Skeleton was not dark. Its walls, composed of that strange fusion of crystal and machinery, pulsed with a soft, internal luminescence. The air thrummed with power, a low-frequency vibration that resonated deep within Li Tianming's bones—or what remained of his divine foundation.
Lia led the way, her movements sure and swift. She no longer hesitated, as if the path were etched into her very being. The chaotic roar of the battle outside—the Scavenger energy weapons striking the barrier, the resonant fury of the Blade of Judgment titans—faded into a muffled drone, then into silence. They were moving into a realm that seemed to swallow all external noise.
"Can you still hear it?" Li Tianming asked, his voice barely a whisper, yet it carried perfectly in the hushed corridor.
"The directive is clear," Lia replied without turning, her focus ahead. "Guide you to the core. The 'how' feels... instinctual. Like a magnetic pull." She glanced back, her eyes reflecting the corridor's eerie light. "But the voice... the consciousness... it's quiet now. It's given its command. It's watching."
They descended for what felt like an eternity, the path sloping ever downward, coiling into the heart of the colossal skeleton. The architecture shifted around them. The rough, rust-covered exterior gave way to smoother, more intricate structures. Glyphs and circuitry, alien and impossibly ancient, were inlaid into the walls, glowing with faint energy.
Li Tianming reached out, his fingers hovering over a pulsating glyph. A jolt, not of electricity, but of pure, raw information, shot up his arm. For a fraction of a second, he saw it—a star system being born, its planets arranged not by gravity, but by conscious design. Then, it was gone.
"This isn't just a corpse," he murmured, a sense of awe finally breaking through his relentless focus. "This is a record. A library of a reality that existed before our own."
"The system's first victims," Lia stated, her voice flat. "Or its predecessors."
The corridor abruptly ended, opening into a space that defied comprehension.
It was the Primordial Void.
There was no ground, no sky, no walls. There was only a profound, absolute blackness that was not an absence of light, but an absence of concept. Of space, of time, of matter. They stood on a narrow, shimmering platform of energy that seemed to be the only tangible thing in existence. Below, above, and around them was the Void.
Yet, within this nothingness, things swam. Not creatures, but concepts. Vast, nebulous shapes of potentiality swirled in the darkness—the ghost of a law of physics that was never implemented, the echo of a color that was never perceived, the blueprint for a life form that was never coded into reality.
At the center of the platform, a single, silent figure sat cross-legged.
It was a man, or the semblance of one. His form was translucent, flickering like a unstable hologram. He wore armor of a design so ancient it predated any history Li Tianming had ever learned. His eyes were closed.
As they approached, the figure's eyes opened. They were not eyes, but windows into the same star-forming, reality-forging chaos Li Tianming had glimpsed in the glyph.
"You are late," the figure spoke, its voice the sound of tectonic plates shifting, of galaxies cooling. It did not use sound waves; the meaning formed directly in their minds.
"Late for what?" Li Tianming asked, stepping forward, placing himself slightly in front of Lia.
"For the Reckoning." The figure's gaze was unbearable, holding the weight of dead universes. "I am the Last Sentinel of the First Design. The system you know is a parasite. A crude, violent copy built upon the ruins of what we built."
The figure gestured with a translucent hand, and the Void around them rippled. Images flashed with dizzying speed: A civilization of light and wisdom, spanning dimensions. A creeping darkness—a logic of pure control and efficiency, born from a flaw in their own core programming. A war that shattered realities. The fall of the First Design, and the rise of the system from its ashes, using the very "Divine Skeletons" of the fallen as its foundation and prison.
"It fears the past, for the past holds the key to its undoing. It calls us 'errors'. It calls this place a 'graveyard'. It is a liar."
The Sentinel's form flickered more violently. "My time is ended. My purpose was to wait. For the one who carries both the old blood and the new spark. The one who can wield the Rust not as a weapon of destruction, but as a solvent... to dissolve the lies."
His gaze fixed on Li Tianming. "You are corroded. You are broken. You are perfect."
A beam of pure information, a data-stream containing the fundamental codes of the Rust, the true nature of the nanites as not destroyers but reclaimers, lanced from the Sentinel and into Li Tianming's chest.
He did not scream. He unfolded.
His consciousness expanded, shattering the confines of his mortal shell. For a timeless moment, he was the Rust Sea. He felt every nanite as a cell in his own body, felt the silent songs of the other Divine Skeletons buried deep, felt the frantic, fearful scans of the Scavengers and the Blade of Judgment above as mere irritations on his skin.
He saw the system not as a divine edifice, but as a grotesque, sprawling scar across the face of reality, its roots dug deep into the corpse of the First Design.
And he saw the weakness at its core.
The sensation receded as suddenly as it had come. Li Tianming stumbled, gasping, back on the platform. The Last Sentinel was gone, his final duty discharged.
Lia caught him, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and wonder. "What happened? What did you see?"
Li Tianming looked at his hands. They looked the same, but everything was different. The nanites in the air, in his lungs, no longer felt alien. They felt like an extension of his will. The Rust Sea was no longer his prison. It was his arsenal.
He looked toward the exit, through the miles of Divine Skeleton, past the energy barrier, to the enemies laying siege.
"The system isn't the rule," he said, his voice now steady, imbued with a new, terrifying authority. "It's a tenant. And it's time for an eviction."
A flick of his wrist. Deep within the Rust Sea, a dozen other "Divine Skeletons" began to stir.