The scythes were raised. Borin was on one knee, a titan brought low, ready to meet his end.
Arthur stood in the doorway to safety, the life of his city in one hand, the life of his most loyal soldier in the other.
The cold, brutal logic of his old life screamed at him. Run. The mission is paramount. He is an asset, but a compromised one. The geode is the objective. He is an acceptable loss.
It was the same calculation he had made with Patrin. Clean. Efficient. Necessary.
But as he looked at Borin, bloody and defiant, the [LOYALTY] tag burning in his vision was not just data. It was a force. It was the bedrock of everything he planned to build. Armies could be raised, fortresses could be built, but loyalty like this? It could not be bought or manufactured. It had to be earned. And it had to be honored.
To let Borin die here was not just losing a soldier. It was losing the foundation.
For the first time, Arthur's internal calculus produced a result that defied simple logic. Losing Borin was not an acceptable loss. It was a strategic blunder of the highest order.
The politician, the commander, the budding tyrant—they all came to the same, startling conclusion.
He was worth the risk.
"BORIN!" Arthur's voice was a crack of thunder that cut through the hive's hum. "SHIELD YOUR EYES!"
The command was insane. Suicidal. But Borin, on the very precipice of death, did not question it. He trusted the voice of his commander. He squeezed his eyes shut and raised his wounded arm to cover his face.
Arthur stepped back from the doorway, raising the newly attuned geode. The amethyst light was pure, clean, a stark contrast to the corrupt, purple glow of the Heartstone. These creatures were born of the Heartstone's energy. They were its children.
Arthur wondered what would happen when they were shown a different, purer kind of light.
He focused his will, the same iron intent that powered his Absolute Order, and pushed it into the crystal in his hand. He wasn't asking. He was commanding it. Release it. All of it.
The geode seemed to resist for a second, then obeyed.
The warm, gentle thrumming in his palm became a painful vibration. The amethyst glow intensified, becoming a star, then a miniature sun. The air around it crackled, growing hot, the pressure in the cavern dropping as the crystal drew in energy for its one, final act.
Arthur shielded his own eyes.
And then, the world went white.
There was no sound. No explosion. Just a silent, instantaneous detonation of pure, weaponized light. A wave of absolute, incandescent amethyst brilliance erupted from the geode, washing through the cavern in a silent, cleansing tide.
For a split second, the vast, dark world of the hive was illuminated, every chasm and rock formation thrown into stark relief.
The effect on the Sentinels was immediate and catastrophic.
The pure, attuned energy was anathema to their corrupted nature. They reeled back as if struck by a physical blow. Their deep, resonant hum turned into a high-pitched, agonizing shriek of static. The purple light in their fissures sputtered and died, overwhelmed by the amethyst flood. Their geo-adaptive plating, designed to repel physical force, offered no protection. Cracks spiderwebbed across their rocky hides, not from impact, but from a fundamental violation of their very structure.
The dozen Sentinels closest to the blast simply crumbled, their forms dissolving into a fine, black sand.
The light faded as quickly as it had come, plunging the cavern back into a deep, purple-tinged gloom.
The geode in Arthur's hand was now little more than a dull, faintly glowing stone, its brilliant light almost completely extinguished.
But it had worked. All around them lay the twitching, collapsing forms of dozens of Sentinels. The hive was in chaos, its network shattered, its soldiers blinded and stunned.
"Borin! NOW!" Arthur roared.
He sprinted from the tunnel, grabbing the arm of his dazed, staggering warrior. Borin was alive, blinking away the blinding afterimages, his ears ringing.
"What… what was that?" the big man gasped.
"Salvation," Arthur said, pulling him toward the escape passage. "Now move!"
They scrambled into the narrow tunnel. The hive was already recovering. The Sentinels further from the blast were stirring, their lights flickering back to life. The clicking and scraping began again, hesitant at first, then growing in urgency.
They reached the heavy stone door.
"Seal it!" Arthur commanded.
Together, they pushed. The ancient slab of rock groaned in protest. On the other side, the first of the recovering Sentinels reached the opening. An obsidian scythe-limb slammed against the door, sending a jarring shockwave through the stone.
"PUSH!" Arthur bellowed, putting every ounce of his strength into the effort.
Another blow struck the door, then another. The stone began to fracture around the edges.
With a final, desperate heave, the door slid into place, the ancient locking mechanism engaging with a deep, resonant thump.
The pounding from the other side was thunderous, a frantic, furious assault. But the door, for now, was holding.
They were safe.
They collapsed in the new tunnel, the darkness absolute. The only light was the weak, pulsing glow from the geode in Arthur's hand. Borin slumped against the wall, clutching his wounded shoulder, his breathing ragged.
He looked at Arthur, his expression a mixture of awe, pain, and a dawning, terrible respect. "You saved me," he said, the words heavy with meaning. "You risked the mission. You risked the stone."
"The mission is useless without the soldiers needed to see it through," Arthur replied, his voice cold and steady, betraying none of the frantic turmoil of the last few minutes.
He looked down at the geode in his hand. The key to their future. It was still glowing, a faint, reassuring amethyst pulse. The city was saved. Borin was saved. He had played the odds and won.
Then, the Sovereign's Gaze automatically assessed the object in his hand, and the cold dread returned.
[Attuned Geode]
[Energy Capacity: 4%]
[STATUS: UNSTABLE MATRIX. CRITICAL ENERGY LOSS. PRONE TO VOLATILE DISCHARGE.]
He had saved his warrior. But in doing so, he had drained their salvation almost to nothing.
Worse, he had just turned it into a bomb.