Chapter 34: The Gears of Extinction
The transition to the Third Gate was not a burst of light, but a grinding, deafening roar of metal against metal. As Cyan and his followers stepped through the rift, the fluid colors of Xylos were replaced by a world of oppressive grey and burning orange. They emerged onto a platform of rusted iron that stretched as far as the eye could see, suspended over a bottomless abyss of whirling cogs and hissing steam.
This was Aethelgard: The Eternal Engine, the Third Gate of the Architects. Here, the very concept of "Nature" had been eradicated. There were no trees, no sky—only a ceiling of interlocking gears that blotted out the stars, illuminated by the rhythmic glow of molten mana flowing through pipes like the blood of a dead god.
[System Notification: Entering the Third Gate - Aethelgard.]
[Atmospheric Warning: Oxygen levels at 15%. Corrosive vapor detected.]
[Status: The Laws of Physics here are governed by 'Clockwork Logic'.]
"This place... it feels dead," Elara whispered, her shadow-cloak flickering as if the mechanical air were trying to snuff it out. "I can't feel the soul of the world here, Master. It's as if they built a tomb and called it a realm."
"It's not a tomb, Elara. It's a factory," Cyan replied, his dual-colored eyes scanning the horizon. He stood at the edge of the iron platform, his silver hair contrasting sharply with the soot-stained air. "This is where the Architects build the foundations of their worlds. Every mountain, every river, every blade of grass in the lower dimensions—it was all designed here, piece by piece."
Suddenly, the platform beneath them shuddered. From the darkness of the lower gears, massive mechanical eyes—cold, blue, and unblinking—opened by the thousands. The "Eternal Engine" had sensed the virus.
"PROTECT THE PROTOCOL," a voice boomed, not from a single entity, but from the resonance of the gears themselves. "ANOMALY DETECTED. PURGE SEQUENCE: PHASE ONE."
From the pipes above, liquid mercury began to pour, solidifying in mid-air into thousands of arachnid-like drones. These weren't the graceful prisms of Xylos; they were brutal machines of war, equipped with saw-blades of concentrated mana and laser-cannons that fired beams of "Zero-Entropy."
"Isabella, Clara—formation!" Cyan commanded, his voice cutting through the mechanical din.
The battle erupted with a violence that shook the iron foundation. Clara moved like a whirlwind of silver light, her spear shattering the metal carapaces of the drones, while Isabella erected emerald shields to deflect the searing entropy beams. Azrael took to the air, his eight dark wings clashing against the ceiling of gears, his obsidian blade sparking as he sliced through reinforced steel.
But the machines were relentless. They didn't feel fear, and they didn't tire. For every drone destroyed, the Engine simply recycled the scrap and forged a new one in seconds.
"We're being pinned down!" Lilith snarled, her shadow-snakes tearing at a massive mechanical centipede. "Master, we can't keep this up. The air is becoming toxic, and the mana in the atmosphere is being drained by the Engine!"
Cyan looked up. At the very center of the ceiling gears, he saw the Prime Mover—a massive, golden pendulum that swung with the precision of a heartbeat. That was the Core. But guarding it was something far more terrifying than drones.
A massive silhouette descended from the Prime Mover. It was a Colossus of Iron and Light, four times the size of Azrael. Its chest contained a rotating furnace of white-hot mana, and its "face" was a singular, massive lens that projected a beam of absolute deletion.
"I am the Sentinel of the Third Gear," the Colossus spoke, its voice a grinding of tectonic plates. "You carry the scent of the First Saint and the Prisms of Xylos. You are an accumulation of stolen data. I shall return you to zero."
The Colossus raised its arm, and the lens on its chest began to glow with a blinding, terrifying white light.
"Master, get down!" Isabella screamed.
But Cyan didn't move. He stood in the path of the beam, his mantle billowing. "You talk of 'Zero', machine. But you don't know the true face of Nothingness. You were built to create. I was born from the Void that devours your creations."
Cyan unleashed his new skill: [Shattered Reflection].
As the deletion beam fired, Cyan didn't dodge. He split. In a heartbeat, a hundred shadow-clones of Cyan appeared across the battlefield. The beam passed through one, but the others remained. Each clone carried a fraction of Cyan's power, and each one began to chant a different, discordant verse of a forbidden spell.
The Colossus's lens flickered, its logic unable to process the sudden multiplication of the target. "ERROR. DATA DISCREPANCY. TARGET QUANTITY: UNKNOWN."
"Your logic is your prison," the real Cyan whispered, appearing directly behind the Colossus's head.
He plunged his hand into the Colossus's neck, not seeking to destroy the metal, but to Corrupt the Code.
[Skill Activated: Law-Breaker - Viral Overload.]
Cyan forced his violet mana into the machine's central nervous system. He didn't just break it; he showed the machine the "Sin of Futility." He showed the Eternal Engine that even a machine that runs for eternity will eventually succumb to entropy.
The Colossus began to shake. The blue light in its eyes turned a chaotic, flickering purple. Its movements became erratic, its arms smashing into the surrounding gears, causing the entire Third Gate to groan in agony.
"I... SEE... THE... END..." the Colossus groaned, its mechanical voice breaking.
"Then embrace it," Cyan said, ripping the Core of the Third Gear—a glowing, golden cylinder—out of the Colossus's chest.
The machine collapsed, falling into the bottomless abyss below. With its guardian gone, the Prime Mover stopped swinging. The gears of Aethelgard ground to a halt. The hissing steam died down, and for the first time in eons, the Third Gate was silent.
[System Notification: The Third Gate - SILENCED.]
[Core of Aethelgard Acquired.]
[New Skill Unlocked: 'Mechanical Usurpation' - You can now control and reshape inorganic matter at will.]
Cyan stood atop the fallen Colossus's wreckage, holding the golden cylinder. He was covered in soot, and a small cut on his cheek bled a dark, violet ichor. He looked at his followers, who were exhausted and battered.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice softer, more human for a fleeting moment.
"We... we endure, Master," Isabella replied, leaning on her staff. "But the gates are getting harder. The Architects are learning our patterns."
"Let them learn," Cyan said, looking up at the now-still gears. "They think they can stop me by making the world more complex. But every machine has a flaw, and every god has a fear."
He turned to the bridge of light—Lyra's bridge—which was now waiting for them to ascend further.
"Three down," Cyan said, his eyes turning back into the cold, dual-colored voids of a King. "The Fourth Gate awaits. It's the Gate of Whispers. Prepare your minds... because that is where they will try to turn us against each other."
As they began their ascent once more, the rust from the Third Gate began to climb up the bridge of light, a visible stain of the corruption Cyan was carrying into the higher heavens.