The Starblade hurtled toward the galaxy's core, its engines straining against the gravitational tides of collapsing stars. The Eleventh Core pulsed ahead, its signal a siren song that warped the fabric of reality. On the viewscreen, Elysium's final bastion loomed—a fortress forged from the bones of dead planets, its spires bristling with weapons and glowing with the sickly light of corrupted qi.
Li Wei sat in the co-pilot's seat, his body a latticework of crystalline fissures. Stardust seeped from his cracks, pooling on the floor like liquid constellations. The spear shards in his chest hummed with a dissonant harmony, their energy blurring the line between his qi and the Prisoner's void.
Kara monitored the sensors, her mechanical eye flickering as it parsed the fortress's defenses. The jailer runes on her skin glowed faintly, a reminder of the price she'd paid to destroy the Tenth Core. "Shield density is off the charts. They've woven Prisoner-flesh into the architecture."
Li Wei's voice was gravel. "Then we cut through it."
The fortress was a monument to madness. Its walls pulsed with organic circuitry, and the air reeked of iron and decay. Elysium's remnants—soldiers grafted with Prisoner-flesh and half-Ascended drones—patrolled the halls, their movements jerky and inhuman.
Kara disabled a sentry with a neural spike, her jailer runes flaring as she interfaced with its systems. "They're not just guarding the Core. They're feeding it. Every kill here makes the Prisoner stronger."
Li Wei crushed a drone's core in his crystallized hand, its void energy dissipating like smoke. "Then we don't let them die."
They fought silently, Kara hijacking drones into temporary allies while Li Wei shattered their reinforcements. But with every step closer to the Core, the fortress changed. Hallways twisted into spirals, walls bled black ichor, and the voices of long-dead jailers whispered from the shadows.
In the heart of the bastion, the Eleventh Core floated above a dais of fused bones. It was unlike the others—a perfect sphere of antimatter, its surface reflecting a void deeper than the black hole's maw. The Prisoner's presence hung thick in the air, its voice no longer a distant echo but a physical force.
"You are late, Sovereign."
Li Wei staggered, the spear shards in his chest vibrating violently. The Core's light revealed a figure beside it—a shadow with his face, its eyes twin vortices of entropy.
"You see it now, don't you?" the shadow hissed. "You are my key. My vessel."
Kara aimed her pistol, but the weapon dissolved into dust. "Li Wei—don't listen!"
Li Wei's mind splintered.
Vision 1: The first Sovereign, kneeling before the Eleventh Core. "I will not become you," he swore—but his hands trembled as he sealed the Prisoner away.
Vision 2: Himself, standing over Kara's corpse, the spear shards piercing her heart as the Prisoner laughed.
Vision 3: A galaxy unraveling, stars snuffed out like candles as the Prisoner's tendrils consumed all.
The shadow lunged, its form merging with Li Wei's cracks. "We are the same. Let me in."
Kara slammed her palm against the dais, jailer runes blazing. "Not today."
The runes spread like wildfire, etching themselves into the fortress's flesh. The Eleventh Core shuddered, its antimatter glow dimming as ancient protocols awakened.
"Kin of the Wardens," the Core intoned. "State your command."
"Seal it," Kara gasped, blood trickling from her nose. "Lock the Prisoner away—forever."
The shadow screamed, tearing free from Li Wei. "You dare—!"
Li Wei seized the moment. He drove a spear shard into the Core, channeling every shred of his hybrid energy. Light and void collided, the explosion shredding the fortress's walls.
The Starblade escaped the blast radius by a heartbeat. In the cargo hold, Li Wei lay motionless, his body nearly fully crystallized. Kara crouched beside him, her runes burned black.
"Why?" he whispered.
She pressed her forehead to his. "Because you're not him. Not yet."
A hologram flickered—Aria's voice, distorted but triumphant. "The Prisoner is sealed. But the cores… they're waking up. All of them."
On the star map, eleven points of light ignited across the galaxy.