The golden ocean didn't just heat up; it ignited. Under the Overseer's command, the "Conceptual Primordial" fluid was being forced into a state of total entropy. The Logic-Lathes, once symbols of infinite creation, began to glow with a violent, ultraviolet light before melting into puddles of screaming data.
[WARNING: INCINERATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE]
[LOCAL TEMPERATURE: 40,000,000 KELVIN (CONCEPTUAL)]
[PHYSICS STATUS: COLLAPSING]
"The ship's mercury hull is evaporating!" Mateo screamed, his hands vibrating so hard they left trails of static in the air. "Kenji, the Star-Eater wasn't designed for a total drive-burn! We're going to be vaporized along with the sector!"
The Overseer stood in the center of the melting platform, perfectly calm. Its form was a void that the heat couldn't touch. "A Smith requires a forge," the Overseer whispered. "But when the forge becomes the sun, the Smith becomes the ash. Goodbye, Kenji Tanaka. You were an interesting deviation."
The Overseer vanished in a flicker of blue light, leaving the team to burn.
"We aren't leaving," Kenji said. His voice was calm, but his white eyes were bleeding violet smoke.
"Kenji, look at the walls!" Elara yelled. The very geometry of the room was drooping like wet wax. "There's no 'Out' anymore! The Overseer deleted the exit coordinates!"
"Then we make our own exit," Kenji said.
He didn't run for the ship. He ran toward the melting Logic-Lathe. He plunged his arms into the white-hot liquid logic.
[WARNING: HP CRITICAL - 5%... 2%...]
[SYSTEM ALERT: THE OUTLIER IS CONSUMING THE SUN]
"Kenji, no!" Priya shouted, her healing mana flaring in a desperate attempt to keep him from turning to carbon.
"Priya, don't heal my body!" Kenji roared, his skin charring and sloughing off to reveal the indigo-gold skeleton of the Stellar-Iron beneath. "Heal the Concept of me! Keep the 'Idea' of Kenji Tanaka alive for ten more seconds!"
Priya understood. She closed her eyes and channeled every drop of her Rank 82 spirit-mana into the Rank 0 Locket around Kenji's neck. She wasn't fixing his flesh; she was anchoring his soul to the world.
Kenji gripped the core of the melting Lathe. He wasn't re-writing the code anymore. He was Folding it.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: DIMENSIONAL CRUMPLE (RANK 1)]
If the Syndicate wanted to incinerate the drive, Kenji would turn the drive into a weapon. He pulled the entire heat of the collapsing Foundry into his chest, funneling it through the Star of Remembrance.
"Everyone! Into the ship!" Kenji commanded.
Bjorn grabbed Elara and Priya and threw them into the Star-Eater. Kenji followed, his body a smoldering wreck of burnt leather and glowing metal. As he hit the bridge, he slammed his hand into the main console.
"Mateo! Don't fly forward! Fly Inward!"
"Inward?! There's nothing there but the explosion!"
"Do it!"
The Star-Eater pivoted and dove directly into the heart of the collapsing Foundry. As they hit the center, Kenji released the heat he had stored.
[RECURSIVE REACTION: FIRE vs. DATA-FIRE]
The two forces canceled each other out for a micro-second, creating a "Null-Tunnel" in the fabric of the Over-Void. The Star-Eater shot through the hole, propelled by the force of a dying world.
Behind them, the Golden Foundry—the birthplace of Version 1.0 through 11.0 vanished in a silent, white flash.
[LOCATION: THE DEEP OVER-VOID]
[STATUS: SECTOR 0 - DELETED]
[LEVEL UP: ??? -> ??? (STAGNANT AT 0)]
Inside the ship, the lights flickered and died. The only illumination came from the glowing indigo veins in Kenji's charred arms. He slumped into the captain's chair, his breathing ragged.
"Did we... make it?" Bjorn asked, his armor scorched and brittle.
"We're in the Deep Void," Mateo said, checking the flickering displays. "We're outside the Syndicate's mapped territory. We're in the 'Unformatted Space' between the drives."
Elara knelt by Kenji. She touched his hand, which was still hot enough to hiss against her skin. "Kenji... you saved us. But at what cost? You've consumed a Rank 200 sector. Your soul is... it's leaking."
Kenji looked at his hand. It wasn't just translucent anymore. It was flickering, showing glimpses of other versions of himself a Kenji who stayed in the Gutter, a Kenji who became the Architect, a Kenji who never existed.
"The more I recycle," Kenji whispered, "the less 'Kenji' there is to hold the parts together."
Suddenly, a new signal appeared on the screen. It wasn't a Syndicate needle. It was a signal made of old, rhythmic pulses—the kind of signal used by the very first Scrapsmiths.
[SIGNAL DETECTED: THE REBEL DRIVE]
"There are others," Kenji said, a spark of life returning to his white eyes. "The Overseer said I was the only deviation. He lied."
From the darkness of the Deep Void, a massive, rusted fortress materialized. It wasn't a ship, but a "Frankenstein-Planet" made of thousands of different drives stitched together by massive, glowing cables.
"Welcome to The Patchwork," a voice crackled over the radio. It wasn't a digital voice. It was a human one, old and tired. "We've been waiting for an Outlier to burn down a Foundry. Come aboard, Scrapsmith. We have a war to plan."
[NEW ZONE: THE PATCHWORK - REBEL HEADQUARTERS]