The sky was not just breaking; it was bleeding.
Golden light poured from the fractures in the atmosphere, a blinding radiance that turned the night into a perpetual, terrifying noon. Through the cracks, ships emerged great, wing-like vessels made of living metal and pure geometry. They didn't fly; they descended with the inevitability of a falling star.
The Architects had arrived.
And they weren't here to negotiate.
Inside Room 402, the hospital walls shook with a low-frequency rumble that vibrated in Arden's bones. Lily sat on the bed, her eyes white, her body a conduit for a power that was tearing the universe apart.
"They're scrubbing the timeline," Lily said, her voice layered with the echo of a thousand years. "They see the anomaly. They see us. And they're going to reformat the drive."
"How do we stop them?" Kael shouted over the deafening hum of the invasion.
