Rena escapes custody using a hidden implant she installed years ago. She races to the central control mainframe of the Spire.
The battle is physical and digital. Rena fights Darkford's AI (AURA) in cyberspace while physically fighting off his security. She rigs the Spire's reactor to feedback into the Rift, which would seal the breach but destroy NuCore's headquarters (and Darkford) in the process.
Darkford confronts her in the reactor room. He steps into a prototype mech-suit—sleek, fast, deadly. The fight is brutal. Darkford breaks Rena's arm, pinning her down.
"You're thinking with your heart," Darkford yells, his faceplate retracted, eyes wild with conviction. "Close the Rift, and we go back to the dark ages! War! Famine! Extinction! Let me finish this, and we become gods!"
Rena looks at the console. She can't reach the "Seal" command.
"We were never meant to be gods, Darkford," she spits out blood. "We were just meant to be decent."
She triggers a manual override—not to seal the Rift, but to overload the specific frequency Darkford uses to control the drones.