The Two-Dimensional Blade bit into his shoulder and kept going. Clean. Final.
Lersagefis split in two and toppled apart. Only after he hit the ground did his optics register what had happened.
His head turned toward me, horror naked in the glow.
“You… why can you…?”
“Because I swore I would,” I said. “I promised I’d split you lengthwise.”
He shrieked, voice cracking. “Shoot! He dares strike the god’s envoy—kill him!”
I’d never heard him scream like that.
The hall snapped out of shock.
Gunfire erupted—some aiming at me, some at Danser.
I was ready.
First I dropped the Destroyers and Firecallers. Then I picked off the rest of the shooters, one by one.
These were antique machines. Against me, their movements looked slow and stupid—like watching a bad recording at half speed.
If they wanted to fight, fine.
What I feared was a stampede.
Danser fired from behind a pillar and bellowed, “Drop your weapons! Stand still! You’ve been lied to!”
Minks shouted too. “We’re only here for Lersagefis and his avatars! If you’re not involved—drop your gun and don’t move!”
Most of the room answered with bullets.
My shots landed like edits. One leg. Another. Knees collapsed. Bodies thudded.
I could have ended it in under thirty seconds if I let myself, but I kept aiming low. If even a handful were unrewritten awakeners, I didn’t want a massacre.
From the floor, Lersagefis realized what was happening and screamed again.
“Run! Run! The true god Fininanga will punish them!”
Most of the robots scattered while firing. A few froze, uncertain.
Too late.
Danser and Minks each locked down a passage. Two exits were close together behind me, so I held both alone.
A robot over three meters tall suddenly charged straight at me.
I hesitated—because he’d already dropped his gun in surrender.
Then I understood.
I put him down with a burst, but the moment his bulk blocked my view, a robot that had been playing dead slipped into the tunnel.
Coordination.
Fine.
There weren’t many left.
I disabled the last of the resistance and sprinted after the runner. I caught him quickly.
When I returned, Danser and Minks had finished their sides.
The floor was carpeted with broken bodies. Only seven robots stood upright, weapons discarded, hands visible.
Minks stared at the wreckage. “No way. Are all the ones down there really Lersagefis’s avatars?”
“Not surprising,” Danser said. “If they weren’t avatars, they were brainwashed past the point of saving.”
He glanced at the seven. “These ones stay here until we know what they’re. Lersagefis was slippery.”
“Understood.”
I moved to Minks. “The situation’s stable. Can you do one more run? Bring Eisen—and Dover.”
“Sure.” Minks opened his chest compartment. “Pinecone can do it. He’s faster than I’m.”
The little mechanical mole slipped out, listened for a second, then vanished down a passage in a blur.
“Thank you,” I said. “Both of you.”
Now there was only the source of it all.
Lersagefis’s remaining half was still crawling toward an exit.
I grabbed him, hauled him back, and slammed him onto the stone dais—right in the center of the Brotherhood’s circular emblem.
“Fix Dover,” I said, voice low and sharp. “Maybe I’ll consider sparing you.”
Lersagefis shook his head and chuckled. “No. Once consciousness is overwritten, it’s irreversible.”
Heat flashed through my systems.
I drew the Two-Dimensional Blade and buried it into the stone beside his head.
“Talk,” I said. “Or I’ll shave you down until you’re nothing but a stick.”
He simply shut off his optics, limp and smug, like a martyr waiting for applause.
I wanted to finish him.
I couldn’t.
Then Minks ran up with the Prism-Etched Scepter. “Don’t ask him,” he said. “Overwrite him. Make him your avatar. You might get your answer that way.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I took the scepter, opened the spherical light canopy at the tip, and pressed it to Lersagefis’s head.
Minutes passed.
Nothing.
Lersagefis laughed like a human. “Save your strength. If you aren’t the chosen one, you can’t use the Prism-Etched Scepter.”
Maybe I’d missed a step.
I ran my fingers along the shaft until I found a small, almost-hidden dial. I turned it.
Beep.
The scepter changed.
Parts along the body began to rotate, slow and deliberate.
Then a data needle spiraled out of the tip and punched into Lersagefis’s skull.
The white light snapped to red.
Red felt worse—sharper, hungrier.
I tried to shut it off. Too late.
Lersagefis convulsed. Sparks skittered from his joints. Smoke leaked from seams.
“Ah—! I see it! I see the Source God!” he screamed, and then his voice thinned and faded. “I’m coming back to you… back to the code’s origin…”
He went silent.
I checked him.
Terminated.
Danser jogged over, alarm in his posture. “What was that red light? I could feel it from across the room.”
Minks lifted the scepter, turning it over. “No idea. Looks like this staff still has secrets.”
They kept talking.
I wasn’t listening.
I sat hard on the stone, the same thought looping in my head like a broken track.
Did I just lose Dover?
Danser went quiet for a moment, then asked, “Dover got rewritten before you recovered the Prism Gem… or after?”
“Before,” I said.
Danser’s optics brightened. “Then there might still be a way.”
“How?” I snapped, suddenly alive again.
Danser turned and called to the seven who’d stood down. “Babasa. You. Get over here.”
A battered robot limped forward. He was missing so many parts his neck couldn’t even hold his head straight; it hung at an angle.
He looked worse than Eisen had at his lowest.
Danser pointed at me. “Tell him what you told me. Start from when the bishop called you into his room.”
“Yes, Danser.” The robot swallowed his fear. “I’m Babasa… Protein Separator. The bishop would call people in from time to time. He said it was a ritual—direct communion with the god. A supreme honor.”
Danser cut him off. “Skip the intro. The ritual.”
“Yes. I went once. When the staff’s white light covered me, I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in a mine tunnel more than ten kilometers away. My leg was broken. I was missing parts.”
“It took me five days to crawl back. The bishop seemed surprised I returned. I asked what the Source God had done to me. He said the god had requisitioned some components, and I would be rewarded later.”
Babasa’s voice thinned. “But I saw my parts on him. And the reward… never came. After that, he never chose me for the ritual again.”
“And you just… lived with it?” Minks said, disgusted. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Babasa lifted his ruined arms in a helpless gesture. “Would you’ve believed me? Look at me. What could I do?”
Danser pulled me aside and lowered his voice.
“Here’s my guess,” he said. “After I stole the Prism Gem, the scepter got weaker. Lersagefis couldn’t hold too many minds at once. That’s why he had to run ‘rituals’—refresh the overwrite.”
“And anyone who wasn’t useful or threatening, he stopped maintaining.”
I stared at him. “So your plan is… do nothing?”
“Exactly.” Danser nodded toward the bodies. “We wait. And the same way, we can sort these ones out too.”
A breath I hadn’t realized I was holding finally escaped.
If he was right, it was the best news I’d had in days.
We started gathering the surviving robots—those we’d disabled and the seven who’d surrendered—lining them up in neat rows for watch and testing. Minks even numbered them in order, like a warehouse inventory.
If Danser’s theory held, time would do the rest.
I stared at the line of bodies.
Something felt wrong.
I checked again. Then I searched the corners of the hall.
Still nothing.
A cold spike went through me.
Danser and Minks noticed my shift. “Wyatt?” Danser asked. “What is it?”
“Bad,” I said. “Really bad.”
I looked from one exit to the next.
“Did either of you see Pickbao?”