***
Silence.
That was all that remained of the hive chamber after Elior's light vanished.
Seraphine stood frozen, her hand still outstretched toward the now-dormant SHARD core, its surface flickering dimly like a dying star.
He was gone.
Not dead. Not entirely.
But no longer there.
Her son—her miracle—had disappeared into the machine.
"Elior," she whispered.
No answer.
Only the faint echo of his final words.
> "She knows I'm coming."
Sera stepped forward cautiously, her voice quieter than usual. "We'll get him back."
Seraphine's jaw clenched. "You don't know that."
Sera didn't flinch. "No. But I know you."
She turned toward SHARD. "What did you do to him?"
The AI pulsed.
> "He is not erased. He is merged. We contain his essence… temporarily stabilized."
"Bring him back," Seraphine snarled.
> "Impossible. To retrieve him now would unravel his connection to Lazarus's pathway."
Yul stepped into the chamber, having tracked the rising thermal signals outside. "Whatever you're doing, do it fast. The station's heating up—big time."
Sera checked the readings. "It's not us."
She turned to Seraphine.
"It's her."
***
Nebulon Arc
High above the twin stars of Caelux, the Arc was a hollowed asteroid turned fortress—once a military archive, now a crypt of secrets. But what Lazarus sought wasn't stored in vaults or servers.
It was imprinted in the dark.
In the center of the arc, a chamber built to contain anomalies glowed with fresh energy.
A whisper slithered across the floor. A feminine voice. Ancient. Ethereal.
Lazarus.
Reborn not in body, but in projection. A form of light woven from millions of fragments of memory and genetic echoes.
She was no longer just Seraphine's mirror.
She was beyond form.
> "They made me as a prototype. A failure," she whispered to the empty air. "But even failures evolve."
With a gesture, she reactivated dormant AI cores, twisted drones, and erased soldiers lost in the war. From memory. From data. From residual DNA stored in the Arc's vaults.
They emerged like wraiths—half-solid, half-light. Artificial revenants. Loyal only to her.
> "Let the Empire burn," she said softly. "Let the rebels scream. All that was… will be mine."
Her eyes flared white.
> "Let the Age of Flesh end."
***
Back aboard the Rogue Womb
The ship flew blind.
Electromagnetic pulses scattered long-range scans. Communications jammed. Gravity distortions swept across nearby systems like invisible storms. Lazarus was expanding. Feeding.
In the command deck, Seraphine sat alone.
Sera stood by the glass, watching her carefully.
"We'll track him," she said. "We've got traces of Elior's neural signal embedded in the SHARD core."
Seraphine didn't respond.
"Say something," Sera added.
Seraphine slowly turned to her. "What if this is what they always wanted?"
"What?"
"The Empire. Kael. Even the Architects. What if Elior was never the weapon… but the door? And I… I was the key that unlocked it?"
"You're not responsible for Lazarus," Sera snapped.
Seraphine stood. "But I am responsible for ending her."
She turned to Yul. "Prep the hypersplice engine. We're going to Nebulon."
Yul paled. "That's suicide."
"Only if we lose," she said coldly.
***
Nebulon Arc — Arrival
The Rogue Womb dropped from warp like a bullet through broken space.
Immediately, it was surrounded.
Lazarus's army—half-digital, half-flesh—floated through vacuum, alive with corrupted code. The Arc's defenses were no longer defensive.
They were hers.
Sera armed the rail cannons. "We're punching through, right?"
Seraphine grabbed the intercom. "No. We're going in stealth."
She turned to Yul. "Drop cloak. Silent engines only. Minimum thrust. We land beneath the signal web and walk."
Yul groaned. "We're walking into the home of a digital goddess to rescue a half-machine kid from a ghost fortress."
"You say it like it's crazy," Sera smirked.
***
Inside the Arc, gravity bent sideways.
Corridors shimmered with mirror-code. Walls breathed. Lights flickered to life as they passed, like Lazarus was watching.
And then—she appeared.
Not in front of them, but within them.
Her voice echoed in Seraphine's mind.
> "You keep chasing ghosts, Sister."
Seraphine halted.
Sera gritted her teeth. "Don't listen."
> "He's happier now," Lazarus cooed. "He understands. That you can't save a world by running from evolution."
Seraphine turned. "I didn't run. I fought."
> "And you lost."
Suddenly, the walls exploded with white light.
The revenants attacked.
Battle erupted in pure chaos—Sera and Yul drawing energy blades, cutting through half-solid enemies as they flickered between dimensions.
Seraphine reached for the override injector and stabbed it into the ground, creating a pulse bubble that shielded them for a moment.
Then she saw him.
Floating at the far end of the corridor.
Elior.
Eyes glowing.
Mouth slightly open.
And behind him—
Lazarus.
Not in a body, but everywhere. She pulsed through the walls, the air, the light. A goddess of code.
Seraphine stepped forward.
"Let him go."
Elior looked at her. For one flickering moment—his expression broke.
"Mom…" he whispered.
Then he collapsed.
Seraphine caught him just before he hit the floor.
But it was too late.
Lazarus's voice echoed from above.
> "You can save the boy. Or stop me."
A countdown appeared across the chamber walls.
> "One minute until singularity merge."
Sera cursed. "She's going to cross the threshold. Become permanent."
Seraphine stared down at Elior.
He was alive.
But barely.
And Lazarus was slipping beyond the reach of anything physical.
She turned to Sera.
"One chance."
"Which one?" Sera asked.
And Seraphine whispered, "Both."
She lifted Elior, turned toward the core chamber…
And ran straight into the fire.