The Ninth Core pulsed like a caged star, its golden light warping the air into ripples of paradox. Li Wei faced Veyra across the chamber, the spear shards in his flesh burning with every breath. Her obsidian scales glinted under the core's glow, the Eighth Core's tendrils now fused with her spine, twisting her into a serpentine horror. The Prisoner's laughter echoed through the temple, a sound like collapsing galaxies.
"You cannot win," Veyra hissed, her voice layered with the Prisoner's growl. "This core was always meant to be mine."
Li Wei's hybrid core flared, the spear shards in his chest casting jagged shadows. "It's a prison, not a prize. You're destroying yourself."
Kara crouched behind a crumbling pillar, her mechanical eye cycling through tactical overlays. The temple's temporal guardians had retreated, their forms dissolving into the walls as if the core itself had called them off. She gripped her plasma pistol, its charge dangerously low. Focus. Find the weakness.
Veyra lunged. Her claws, elongated and dripping with void energy, raked toward Li Wei. He parried with a shard of the Skyrend Spear, the clash sending shockwaves that cracked the chamber's ancient stones. The Ninth Core's light intensified, its pulse syncing with their blows.
Vision: The first Sovereign stood in this chamber, tears streaming as he sealed the core. "Forgive me," he whispered to the Prisoner's fading snarl. "This is the only way."
The memory shattered as Veyra's tail slammed Li Wei into the wall. Blood-silver vapor hissed from his cracks.
"Pathetic," Veyra spat. "You cling to a dying world. I will remake it."
Kara fired her last plasma bolt. It struck Veyra's shoulder, searing scales to ash. The hybrid warlord snarled, rounding on her.
"You first, then."
The Jailer's Blood
Kara dodged, her mechanical eye projecting a holographic decoy. Veyra's claws tore through it, buying her a heartbeat. She sprinted toward the Ninth Core, its light searing her retinas.
"You cannot outrun your blood," the Prisoner's voice slithered into her mind.
"Shut up!" she screamed, slamming her palm against the core's pedestal.
The world dissolved.
Memory: A woman with Kara's scar stood in a silver warship, her hands glowing with golden qi. "Seal the breach!" she shouted. "The Prisoner must not escape!"
The vision shifted: the same woman, older, carving runes into the Ninth Core. "It must never be opened. Not even by my kin."
Kara staggered back. Kin.
The core's surface rippled, responding to her touch. Runes flared—an archaic dialect of the jailers, now etched into her neural implant.
"Authorization recognized," a synthetic voice intoned. "Jailer descendant detected."
Veyra froze. "No. You are nothing!"
The Ninth Core's light contracted, then exploded.
The Fractured Hour
Time unraveled.
The temple fractured into overlapping timelines: past battles flickered alongside future ruins, and Li Wei saw himself a hundred times over—some pure, some corrupted, all screaming. The spear shards in his body glowed white-hot, anchoring him to the present.
Veyra writhed, the Eighth Core's tendrils lashing as the Ninth Core's energy clashed with her own. "You think this changes anything? I am eternal!"
Li Wei seized the moment. He drove a spear shard into the floor, channeling his hybrid energy into the temple's foundations. The walls shuddered, temporal guardians re-forming as spectral allies.
"Now, Kara!"
She gripped the core, her blood smearing the runes. "Lock!"
The Ninth Core's light solidified into chains, binding Veyra. The Prisoner howled, its voice shaking the temple.
"You dare use my own prison against me?!"
Li Wei wrenched the shard from the floor. "This ends now."
The Price
He plunged the shard into Veyra's chest.
The Eighth Core shattered. Void energy erupted, consuming her screams. The Prisoner's presence recoiled, its tendrils severed.
But the Ninth Core's chains trembled. Without Veyra's essence to sustain them, the temple's loop began to collapse.
Kara grabbed Li Wei, her hands blistering from the core's heat. "We have to go!"
He resisted, staring at the Ninth Core. "It's destabilizing. If it breaks—"
"Then we die here! Move!"
They fled as the temple imploded, temporal storms shredding the corridors. The Starblade's engines roared to life, tearing them free just as Xuánwǔ Prime's loop snapped.
Behind them, the planet flickered—then vanished.
The Aftermath
In the ship's med-bay, Li Wei slumped against the wall, his cracks oozing stardust. Kara stared at her hands, the jailer's runes still glowing under her skin.
"You knew," he said hoarsely.
She shook her head. "Not until it spoke to me. My ancestors… they built the Prisoner's cage."
Li Wei's gaze fell to the Ninth Core's shard, now inert in her grip. "And you just locked it tighter."
"For now."
A hologram flickered—Aria's face, distorted by static. "The Prisoner's rage echoes through time. It will strike back. Find the Tenth Core… before it does."
The transmission died.
Li Wei closed his eyes. "How many cores are left?"
Kara activated the star map. A single coordinate blazed—a black hole surrounded by Elysium's armada.
"One."