The Library of Silences did not collapse; it unraveled.
Under the influence of the Scrap of Blinding Truth and Kenji's Master-level Resonance, the inverted pyramid's structural code was being rewritten. The white porcelain and data-slabs weren't shattering, they were de-compressing.
"Everyone, center of the hall! Grab onto the mana-well!" Kenji roared, his arm glowing with a blinding white light that fought the violet hunger of his core.
The twelve Silent Monks hit the floor just as the walls began to move. They raised their silver hands, attempting to cast a [Silence Field: Absolute], but the "Truth" Kenji was wielding was higher in the System's hierarchy. The Monks' spells simply slid off the shifting reality like water off glass.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: MACRO-RECYCLE]
[OBJECT: THE GREAT PYRAMID OF AETHELGARD]
[NEW FORM: KINETIC SHARD-DRIVE]
"Kenji, the whole building is lifting!" Mateo screamed, clinging to a brass railing as the floor beneath them tilted forty-five degrees.
Outside, the citizens of Aethelgard witnessed an impossible sight. The massive inverted pyramid that had been a landmark of the capital for centuries suddenly pulled itself out of the ground. It shed its outer skin of porcelain, revealing a skeletal framework of glowing mana-pipes and recursive iron.
The Library became a jagged, floating arrow of debris, surrounded by a swirling hurricane of millions of ancient scrolls and books.
[WORLD BROADCAST: SEVERE GEOMETRIC ANOMALY IN SECTOR 1]
[ORDER: ALL ORBITAL PLATFORMS FIRE AT WILL]
"The lasers are locking on!" Kael's voice crackled through a static-heavy comms-link. The Scrap-Venture was hovering in the upper atmosphere, dodging fire from the city's defense towers. "Kenji, you're a giant target!"
"I'm not a target," Kenji gritted his teeth, his vision splitting as he saw the world in raw code. "I'm a storm."
He pointed the Star of Truth toward the sky. Using [System Sight], he saw the targeting arrays of the orbital lasers, thousands of miles up as thin, golden threads of probability.
"Mateo! Take the helm of the 'Hurricane'!" Kenji commanded, transferring the structural control to Mateo's Rank-Reader. "Bjorn, Zola push! Give this thing kinetic energy!"
Bjorn and Zola slammed their palms into the mana-well, pouring their Rank 6 essence into the building's core. The "Paper Hurricane" ignited. The swirling books began to burn with a blue-and-white fire, creating a friction-shield that blurred the Library's physical position.
The orbital lasers fired.
Giant beams of golden light slammed into the capital, but because of the [Recursive Paradox] Kenji was maintaining, the lasers passed right through the building as if it were a ghost.
"We're 'Desynced'!" Mateo laughed hysterically. "We're literally between the frames of the world's logic!"
The Library-Arrow pierced the city's outer dome, shattering the "Perfect Order" of Aethelgard. They streaked across the sky, a meteor of forbidden knowledge and scrap metal, heading toward the Neutral Territories.
Inside the shifting halls, the Silent Monks were finally regaining their footing. They didn't use magic this time; they pulled out "Code-Blades" daggers made of pure, un-recyclable obsidian.
"The Monks are still on board!" Elara warned, her ice-blades manifesting with a new, crystalline clarity thanks to the Star of Truth's proximity. "They're moving through the debris!"
"Priya, guard the core!" Kenji ordered. "Elara, with me. We finish this before we hit the border."
Kenji jumped across a gap in the floor which was now just a floating platform of data-slabs and met the lead Monk mid-air. The Monk was a Rank 8 Grand Master, and even without his magic, his physical stats were monstrous. He moved with a grace that Kenji's Master-rank body could barely track.
The Monk's blade slashed Kenji's shoulder, the obsidian edge ignoring his armor.
[WARNING: CODE-WOUND DETECTED]
[HEALING SUPPRESSED]
Kenji didn't flinch. He used the pain to focus. He grabbed the Monk's wrist and used [System Sight] to look at the Monk's "Stitched Eyes."
"The truth is," Kenji whispered, "you're not silent by choice. You're silent because you're afraid of what you know."
Kenji didn't attack the Monk's body. He "Recycled" the iron mask.
The mask didn't break; it turned back into liquid ore and flowed into the Monk's mouth and eyes. The Monk let out a muffled, gurgling sound not of pain, but of Shock. For a second, his Rank 8 composure shattered.
Elara seized the moment, freezing the liquid ore into a solid block of ice, anchoring the Monk to the floor of the flying building.
One by one, the team repelled the Monks, tossing them into the slipstream of the hurricane.
"We're crossing the border!" Mateo yelled. "The 'Hurricane' is losing structural integrity! We're falling apart!"
"Abandon ship!" Kenji grabbed Elara. "Kael, pick us up!"
The Scrap-Venture dove out of the clouds, its cargo bay doors wide open. The team leaped from the crumbling remains of the Library just as the building finally "Re-synced" with reality.
Without Kenji's paradox to hold it together, the Library of Silences exploded in a final, massive discharge of mana and paper. A "Knowledge Rain" fell over the Neutral Territories thousands of secrets and forbidden histories scattering into the hands of the common people.
Kenji hit the deck of the Scrap-Venture and rolled, the Star of Truth clattering beside him. He looked back at the smoke on the horizon.
[QUEST COMPLETED: THE HEART OF THE LIE]
[FAME: THE ARCH-HERETIC (+50,000)]
[WORLD STATUS: THE GREAT UNVEILING HAS BEGUN]
"You didn't just steal the Star," Elara said, breathing hard as she helped him up. "You gave the world the archive. Every secret the System ever hid... it's out there now."
"Information wants to be free," Kenji said, coughing up a bit of dust. He looked at his hand. The Hunger was still there, but now, it was accompanied by a terrifyingly clear vision of the future. "And the Architect just lost his monopoly on the truth."
"Where to now?" Kael asked from the cockpit.
Kenji looked at the five Stars now orbiting his core in his mind's eye. Two remained.
"We need the Scrap of Absolute Gravity," Kenji said. "And for that... we have to go to the Floating Isles of Aether, where the Sky-Lords think they're above the law."