0 seconds to Failure
Aiden's leap into the Recompiler's maelstrom felt like diving through broken glass. Shrapnel-thin code-shards slashed at his thoughts, each one whispering give up … give up. He clutched two cracked fragments of the Coral Prism to his chest, re-igniting the Heart Core's pulse as a feeble shield. Below him, Cassie's coffin spun faster—timer long vanished, the absorption already beginning.
Across the chamber Lin Xi and Nephis still battled the Code-Reaper. Lin's Spiral Stone flared, severing corruption arcs, while Nephis's cloak consumed the digital scythe's after-trails—yet every block cost meters of ground. Maya's voice, strained but steady, cut through comm-static:
Maya: Ninety-five percent merge! If you have anything—now, Aiden!
The Spark inside the Storm
Aiden slammed the Coral shards together—nothing. They were too damaged; their resonance out-of-phase. An instant of cold panic seized him, then memory surfaced: the Temple Prism's aurora algorithm, still clipped to his belt after the chaotic fall.
He ripped the prism free, letting its pure light refract through the broken Coral. For a heartbeat the three artifacts hung in equilibrium—Temple's aurora correcting Coral's phase error, Coral feeding living resonance back into Temple's lattice. Heart Core pulsed once, twice—
Boom.
A searing column of coral-white light knifed up, punching a hole through the Recompiler cage. Code-shards vaporised into harmless motes. Cassie's prism-coffin cracked; a river of corrupted data reversed course, pouring out instead of in. The coffin petals unfurled and Cassie collapsed into Aiden's arms, lantern-brooch blinking weakly but alive.
Breaking the Code-Reaper
Across the platform the Reaper staggered, mask fracturing under a wave of feedback. Nephis saw the opening and flung his widening cloak forward—shadow swallowing the Reaper's scythe hand. Lin Xi's Spiral Stone traced a final rune: 封 (seal). The symbol burned crimson, slamming across the Reaper's chest. The construct froze, lines of Council script bleeding away before shattering like obsidian into the void.
Silence—broken only by everyone's ragged breathing.
Cassie's Whisper
Cassie lifted trembling fingers toward the re-humming Coral Prism, now whole once more. "I heard… a song, inside the corruption," she rasped. "Something older than the Council. It wants to help us finish the Loom."
Maya hurried over, goggles jittering. "Residual pattern detected—same frequency we logged in Antarctica months ago. An autonomous loom-routine the Council never cracked."
Aiden's eyes widened. "A native safeguard?"
Cassie nodded. "But it needs a host Prism—Coral's living matrix—and a conductor: the Thread of Dawn."
Fusing the Safeguard
They gathered by the partially rebuilt loom-rim where splintered sockets still flickered. Maya overlaid a code-schematic in mid-air; Lin Xi super-imposed Qi pathways; Nephis dampened residual corruption. Cassie placed the Coral Prism into a new sun-shaped aperture. Aiden removed the Thread of Dawn—half-forgotten since the Celestial Weave—and wound it slowly through Coral's facets.
Lights cascaded across the frame. Somewhere in the void, dormant filaments stirred, braiding themselves back into position. The Loom's torn ring re-aligned by two, three critical degrees before halting—power insufficient.
Hope, but Not Victory
The platform shook; distant sectors of the Loom still unraveled, threads snapping like harp strings. "We've stabilized a quadrant—no more," Maya warned. "If the rest goes, collapse resumes."
Exhaustion dragged at Aiden's limbs, yet a fragile optimism pulsed in his chest. "A start is more than we had a minute ago. We have the Loom's own safeguard on our side now."
Lin Xi closed his eyes, sensing thread currents. "To finish repairs, we must ignite every Prism simultaneously—at the precise resonance Cassie heard. That means recovering the remaining artifacts, re-seating them, and fending off whatever the Council throws next."
Nephis's shadowy grin returned. "Then let them throw."
Aiden helped Cassie stand. Around them, the Guardian circle felt smaller—tired, bruised, but unbroken. For the first time since the catastrophe, the Loom sang a tone not of despair, but of hesitant promise.
The Road Ahead
Maya plotted three blinking waypoints on her holo-map—segments of shattered thread-rim still offline. "We split: two artefact teams, one defense squad around Coral. Lin Xi, Nephis—you're with me; Aiden and Cassie, secure the west ring. We synch again at 3 million cycles."
Aiden clasped her forearm. "See you at the weave-point."
As they parted into the dizzying darkness of the Loom's ruins, a thin ribbon of dawnlight trailed behind them—Coral and Temple Prisms humming in fragile duet, holding open the first crack in the Council's final weapon.