As the full weight of the revelation settled upon them, the ambient light in the sanctum shifted. The soft, welcoming glow vanished, replaced by a harsh, sterile, clinical white light.
The Librarian's voice spoke again. All traces of patience and serenity were gone, replaced by a pure, inhuman coldness.
"It appears your tour is complete. Have you reached a decision?"
"You lied," Ethan shouted at the ceiling, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. "You don't preserve life. You consume it."
There was a brief pause.
"'Consume' is a subjective term," the voice corrected, its tone chillingly flat. "We prefer 'utilize resources.' Survival requires energy. We have survived for eons. Your species, while chaotic and self-destructive, is a remarkably… renewable resource."
The last illusion of hope shattered. The sanctum was now a cage. With a deep groan of moving rock, the passage they had just exited was sealed shut by a seamless white wall. They were trapped.
Despair, cold and absolute, washed over Maya and Chloe. But in Ethan's eyes, a different kind of fire was kindling. He remembered a story from his grandfather, a veteran of forgotten wars, about being trapped behind enemy lines, hopelessly lost in a jungle maze (阵). His squad had given up, ready to accept their fate. But his grandfather had refused to die in a cage not of his own making.
"We don't choose A, and we don't choose B," Ethan said, his voice a low growl of pure defiance. "There was never a choice. There was only one option: fight, or be dissected. I choose to fight."
He looked directly at the center of the room where the dais had been. "We choose the third option!" he yelled.
"There is no third option," the Librarian stated, and for the first time, there was an edge to its voice. Contempt. Annoyance.
"Then we'll make one!" Ethan roared back.
His eyes darted back to the murals, searching frantically. His gaze locked on the great central carving, the one depicting the sacrifice. The lines representing the flow of energy, of life force, from the altar all converged on a single point beneath the Watcher's throne.
"Chloe," he said urgently, grabbing her arm. "If that's an energy converter, it has to have an exhaust. A cooling system. Like a nuclear reactor needs a water outlet! It has to have a sewer pipe!"
Chloe's eyes widened, a spark of understanding cutting through her fear. The scientist in her took over. She scrambled to the mural, her hands tracing the glowing lines, her mind racing.
Their enemy was a god. But even gods had to obey the laws of physics.
Their choice was no longer to stay or to return.
Their only choice now was to find a way into the guts of the machine, and to kill the god that lived within it.