The fall seemed to have no end.
Arthur only had time to see Mia disappearing into the darkness below him, the torchlight going out like a sigh. The air tore through his chest, the world turned into a blur, and then came the impact.
Something hard struck the back of his head.
Pain flashed white.
Then, nothing.
When he opened his eyes, there was no stone, no darkness, no smell of mold.
There was blue light.
He was no longer falling.
He was standing.
The ground beneath his feet wasn't rock — it was smooth, almost liquid, a bright light-blue that pulsed in soft waves. The curved walls around him seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting in a slow rhythm. Lines of light ran across the ceiling like luminous veins, crossing in patterns that changed every second, as if the ship itself were thinking.
Ship.
He knew he was inside a ship.
But he didn't know where that certainty came from.
He looked at his own hands.
They were not the hands he knew.
His fingers were long, smooth, a uniform blue with no visible nails, no marks, no scars. His whole arm was the same tone — a soft, bright light-blue, as if light were flowing from the inside out.
His entire body was blue.
In front of him, nine figures waited.
All of them blue.
All of them smooth, almost without defined facial features, as if someone had sculpted perfect beings and removed unnecessary details. Simple eyes, glowing slits on the face. No pointed ears, no hair, no clearly drawn mouth — just suggested contours, enough to express.
What set them apart were the numbers.
On the forehead of each one, a Roman numeral shone, made of pure light:
Ⅰ
Ⅱ
Ⅲ
Ⅳ
Ⅴ
Ⅵ
Ⅶ
Ⅷ
Ⅸ
Ⅹ
He felt his own forehead tingle.
He knew, without seeing it, which number he carried.
I.
— Internal stabilization system complete. — The voice didn't come from anyone in particular. It echoed through the entire room, soft, neutral, both feminine and masculine at the same time. — Resonance among the ten Azuri: compromised. Six units contaminated. Four units stable.
One of the figures — marked with the number Ⅳ — stepped forward.
— Confirm contamination status — he said. His voice sounded clear, but no lips moved. — Have the levels stabilized?
Lights ran across the ceiling, down through the floor, up along the walls. The ship replied:
— Units Ⅴ, Ⅵ, Ⅶ, Ⅷ, Ⅸ and Ⅹ: contaminated by dark energy from the Entity.
Structural integrity: 47%.
Estimated survival: less than one orbital cycle.
The Azuri did not move.
But something in them grew heavier.
Number Ⅱ tilted his head slightly.
— Then there is not much time left — he said. — The Entity has already devoured six complete systems. Turfazia is the last one still pulsing.
Number Ⅲ, at his side, added:
— And we cannot attack.
That was not a lament.
It was a law.
— We cannot destroy what exists — Ⅱ repeated, as if reinforcing something engraved in their very being. — We can only generate, preserve, heal. Our matrix does not accept any other function.
I felt the sentence reverberate inside him, as if it were old and familiar.
He did not find it strange to be there.
He did not question why his body was blue.
Everything felt like a place he already belonged to.
The contaminated units remained silent in the back row.
Ⅴ had an unsteady glow on his forehead.
Ⅵ trembled slightly, as if something were corroding his light from the inside.
Ⅶ held his own arm, where dark stains appeared and vanished.
Ⅷ, Ⅸ and Ⅹ remained firm, but the blue light of their bodies was marred by deep purple streaks, like night cracks crossing daylight.
— The Entity did not destroy us. — Ⅴ spoke for the first time. His voice sounded distant, as if it came from very far away. — It rewrote us. We touched its energy… and it touched back.
Ⅵ closed his luminous eyes.
— If we leave this ship, we will carry the contamination elsewhere. We will be vectors of dissolution.
The ship confirmed:
— Probability of corruption amplification, should the six contaminated units leave the current perimeter, is 93%.
Recommendation: permanent isolation.
Silence.
I tasted something strange in his memory — something like sadness, but older, heavier.
— So that's it. — Ⅲ spoke slowly. — If you go, the Entity spreads faster. If you stay, the Entity comes. It always comes.
Ⅹ laughed, a brief and almost broken sound.
— We called for the darkness, trying to understand it. Now the darkness understands us better than we do.
I — took a step forward without realizing it.
He felt like speaking.
And spoke.
— We still have one option.
All heads turned toward him.
The number on his forehead shone a little brighter.
— Turfazia — I continued. — We analyzed the flows of life in that region. It is the last point where the primordial matrices still exist in balance. The beings there are fragile, but… adaptable. The Entity has not yet absorbed that world completely.
The ship responded, almost as if following his line of thought:
— Confirmation: Turfazia is the last active region in the affected system.
Concentration of evolutionary patterns: high.
Resistance capacity against corruption: unknown.
Ⅳ stepped forward, coming to stand beside I.
— Sending four of us to Turfazia… — he pondered. — As beggars. As messengers. As… primordials asking for help.
Ⅲ made a vague gesture with his hand.
— We are Azuri — he murmured. — The blood we carry is matrix. Our codes give shape to other races. Our DNA has been used to generate entire lines of existence. We are the beginning… We should not be bowing before the end.
— Pride doesn't preserve universes — Ⅱ replied simply. — Function above form. The law of our origins is clear: we create so that others may exist. If we need to ask those who came after us for help… then we ask.
I felt something tighten inside his chest.
Images passed through his mind — worlds being born, stars being seeded, life forms emerging in colors he had no name for. The sensation was of déjà-vu from a life he didn't remember living.
— The Entity cannot directly touch what it doesn't understand — he said, his voice steadier. — There are still things in that world it has not deciphered. Rituals, magic, dimensions… paths that don't follow the logic it consumes. Maybe, in Turfazia, there is someone who can… break the cycle.
Ⅴ, stained by corruption, raised his head.
— So… four of you will go down. — There was something like hope in his voice, faint, but still alive. — And the six of us stay. Holding what's left… until there is nothing left.
Ⅵ nodded.
— We are the ones who called the dark. We pay the price.
Ⅶ opened his blue hands, watching the purple cracks spread.
— We're already almost out of the music of existence anyway.
Ⅷ, Ⅸ and Ⅹ stepped closer, forming a semicircle.
It was a farewell.
There was no drama in it.
Only certainty.
The ship spoke again, softer:
— Auxiliary vessel prepared.
Descent matrix calibrated.
Destination: western hemisphere of Turfazia.
Landing point: surroundings of the rocky formation identified as "Monte Arf".
The word pierced I like a needle.
Monte Arf.
He didn't know why, but it hurt.
A panel opened in the floor, revealing a corridor leading down to the core of the smaller ship. Everything there was also light-blue, more concentrated, more alive, as if liquid light were waiting to be molded into another shape.
Ⅳ turned to Ⅴ, Ⅵ, Ⅶ, Ⅷ, Ⅸ and Ⅹ.
— You are not being left behind — he said. — You are the final shield. As long as this ship exists, the Entity will not have full control over this sector.
Ⅸ crossed his arms, his voice carrying a serene irony.
— How comforting. To be the last wall before the end.
Ⅹ placed a hand on his shoulder.
— No wall is useless if it holds back the inevitable for at least one more second.
Ⅱ looked at I.
— I — he called. The nickname sounded natural, as if they had used it for a long time. — You're better at dealing with the unexpected. When you arrive, listen first. Never attack. We weren't made to destroy. We were made to connect dots others can't see.
I nodded.
— We're not going to command — he replied. — We're going to ask.
Ⅲ added, with dry humor:
— Primordials asking their descendants for help. If any historian survives to write this, they'll think it's funny.
Ⅳ only inclined his head.
— If someone survives to write, we'll already have won more than seems possible — he said.
The four — Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ — walked to the center of the room. The ship opened space, shaping blue seats and supports that rose from the floor as if they had always been there, merely waiting for the command.
— Transferring control to auxiliary vessel — announced the global voice. — Internal jump module active. Final route calculated.
Note: after departure, the mothership will begin absolute isolation from the Entity, reducing its own communication channels.
Ⅳ looked one last time at the six who stayed.
He wanted to say something.
Found no words.
Maybe no words existed in any language for that.
Ⅴ raised his hand.
— If you find a way to break the shadow… — he said slowly. — Teach someone. It doesn't matter who. But teach.
Ⅵ, in a rare gesture of gentleness, added:
— And if, by any chance… any trace of us survives in you… don't let the Entity be the one to define it.
Ⅶ, Ⅷ, Ⅸ and Ⅹ simply nodded.
The seats closed around Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ, forming a kind of translucent light-blue cocoon. The ship's lights gathered around them, spinning in spirals. There was a song there, but not made of sounds — made of patterns, lights and vibrations.
It was a farewell.
It was a beginning.
It was both at the same time.
— Module ready — said the ship. — May the matrix endure.
And then…
The smaller vessel detached from the body of the mothership in a smooth, almost silent motion. Outside, space opened into an infinite darkness dotted with distant points; they arrived almost instantly. Turfazia appeared as a living sphere, warped by the dimensional fold caused by the ship, with patches of clouds and vast stretches of land filled with life.
The region that, one day, would be completely destroyed, now shone brighter than the rest.
Monte Arf was a dark scratch at the center of that light.
Inside the smaller ship, Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ watched the approach.
— Last planet still pulsing — murmured Ⅱ. — If we fail here, there won't be another.
— We won't fail — said Ⅰ.
Not as a promise of victory.
But as a refusal to accept any other option.
The Entity was somewhere beyond, a shadow corroding realities, faceless, formless, nameless. The shadow that corrupts the universe.
And they were just four blue points, falling toward a world that had no idea it was about to be used as the last bet of an entire universe.
I closed his eyes.
For an instant, he felt something different — another memory, another sensation, a sky that was not that sky, a desert, a dark mountain, the face of a girl with messy hair and determined eyes.
Mia.
The image merged with the view of the ship.
I's forehead throbbed.
Monte Arf grew closer, gigantic, like a scar about to swallow the horizon.
There was a blue flash.
An impact that never came.
The world spun.
Arthur opened his eyes.
He was lying on cold stone, his head throbbing, his chest burning.
The smell of dampness and dust filled the air.
Beside him, Mia lay unconscious, her face dirty, her whole body covered in dust — but alive.
Up above, somewhere unseen, the weight of a memory that was not just a dream still pressed down on him.
He raised his hand to his forehead.
No numbers.
No blue light.
Just warm, sweaty skin.
Even so, the feeling remained.
As if a part of him had come from much farther away than any kingdom, from long before any reincarnation.
— Monte Arf… — he murmured, not realizing he was speaking aloud.
The mountain answered with a heavy silence.
And for a second, Arthur had the impression that something, far above, far beyond, watched their fall… exactly as, one day, he had watched a blue ship fall toward that same world.