The hour of the Liturgy of the Present was not a religious gathering.
It was a biological synchronization.
In the Great Plaza of Ouroboros, sixty thousand people stood in concentric circles, their breathing modulated by the low-frequency hum of the spires.
It was the moment where the city's collective consciousness was "defragmented." Ensuring that no stray desires or rebellious thoughts survived the transition from morning to afternoon.
Kian Ewan stood on the periphery.
His hood was pulled low, his eyes scanning the crowd with a predatory geometry. Beside him, Isolde stood perfectly still, her face a blank, terrifying mirror of the apathy surrounding them.
"They aren't even there anymore," Isolde whispered, her voice a perfect, hollow imitation of the wind.
"Their bodies are walking, but their souls are in the Archives, filed under 'Completed Works.' Why do you want to wake them, Kian? A ghost doesn't feel the cold."
"Because a ghost doesn't feel the heat, either," Kian replied, his fingers closing around the jagged iron stone in his pocket.
"Arial Valerius thinks he has solved the human condition by turning us into a museum. But a museum is just a graveyard with better lighting."
"I'm not here to wake them up. I'm here to make them Heavy."
Kian stepped forward, breaking the synchronized flow of the crowd.
It was a microscopic act of defiance.
But in a world of absolute precision, it felt like a tectonic shift. A nearby woman, her eyes glazed with the Vitreous Stare, stumbled. The rhythm of the sixty thousand faltered for a fraction of a heartbeat.
High above, the atmospheric regulators sputtered.
Kian reached into his pocket and dropped the iron stone.
It didn't hit the marble with a splash or a bang; it hit with a dull, ugly thud that didn't belong to the symphony.
Suddenly, a figure appeared at the far end of the Plaza.
He wasn't a soldier.
He was a Regulator.
Dressed in robes of clinical white, his face hidden behind a mask of polished chrome, he moved with a grace that was purely mathematical.
This was the first "Response" of the system—not Arial, but a shadow of his intent.
[Anomaly detected.]
The Regulator's voice echoed, not through the air, but through the neural links of everyone present.
[The Record shows a deviation. The Pulse is out of sync. Correction is required.]
The crowd didn't scatter.
They simply stood still, their faces turning toward Kian like sunflowers following a black sun.
They were the "Living Shield" of the Architect. To reach the Regulator, Kian would have to walk through a forest of people who didn't even know they were being used as a wall.
"Kian, move," Dante's voice crackled in his ear through a stolen frequency.
"The Regulator isn't here to arrest you. He's here to 'Reset' the sector. If you don't leave, he'll trigger a localized stasis. You'll be frozen in that moment forever."
Kian whispered, his eyes fixed on the chrome mask.
"Let him try."
"I've spent my whole life frozen. It's time I started to melt."