The portable generators roared to life. Because they were not using magic, the corrupted red network could not block them. They were creating pure, physical, raw electrical power. Sparks flew from the copper wires. The clean, bright blue electricity shot down the cables and poured directly into the stone pillar. "Now," Solon whispered. His fingers flew across the ancient stone keyboard on the sub-terminal. He typed incredibly fast. "Stop!" Thorpe shouted. The giant red face in the master crystal began to flicker. "Thorpe used a chaotic blood-virus to lock the doors," Solon explained to Caster and Sikoa, typing furiously. Sweat poured down his face. "But blood magic is unstable. It is messy. If I flood the system with pure, clean, organized power... the virus will be washed away. Like pouring a bucket of clean water onto a dirty plate.""Turn faster, Sikoa!" Solon gasped. His chest wound burned, but he ignored the pain. Sikoa gritted her teeth. Her strong, muscular arm spun the ir

"But the node is not above the city," Sikoa pointed out, looking at the depth markers on the hologram. "The light is not on the surface.""No," Solon said softly. The archivist fell back into his chair. He looked like a man who had just read his own death sentence. "It is not in the city. It is miles directly beneath the city. It is exactly where we are standing right now."Sikoa stopped breathing. She slowly turned her head. She looked at the smooth white walls of the Grand Archive. She looked at the floor beneath her dirty boots. They were not just looking at a map of a bomb. They were standing directly inside the bomb. "The central node," Caster said quietly. "The true Blackthorn Gate. Elias Thorpe was right. It is buried right here, at the absolute bottom of the Sage Tower."Caster’s genius mind immediately did the terrible, apocalyptic math. He knew how much energy was flowing through those red lines. He knew the capacity of the central node. "If all that planar energy hits th

"Yes," Caster said. "They stored the exact rule of gravity inside the network. They stored the exact speed of light. They stored the rule that fire must be hot. The network is an invisible skeleton buried inside the earth. It forces the physical world to obey the rules. It keeps reality stable."Solon read the next line of the glowing blue text. Tears filled the pale archivist’s eyes. "But a machine that holds the weight of the universe requires infinite power," Solon read aloud, his voice trembling with sorrow. "Raw mana from the earth was not enough. To power the Memory Vaults... the founders had to use the heaviest magic in existence."Caster finished the sentence for him. "They used their own souls," Caster whispered. The silence in the room felt heavier than the shaking stone walls. "The ancient founders did not just build the network," Caster explained. "They plugged themselves into it. They gave up their own lives. They trapped their own human souls inside the nodes to act a

Caster threw his hand forward. He pushed a concentrated beam of golden gravity directly under Sikoa’s falling body. The invisible golden force caught her in mid-air. It pushed her upward, carrying her across the remaining distance. Sikoa crashed into Caster. They both fell hard onto the stone platform. Caster groaned in pain, the golden light in his eyes flickering out as he let go of the heavy magic. "You crazy old man," Sikoa gasped, pushing herself up. "Open the hatch," Caster ordered, pointing at the iron wheel. Sikoa grabbed the rusted wheel with both of her bandaged hands. She planted her boots. She pulled with every single ounce of muscle in her body. She roared with effort. The rusted iron broke free. The wheel turned. Sikoa grabbed the heavy iron handle and pulled the hatch open. A blast of incredibly hot, dry air blew out of the dark hole. It smelled like ancient dust and pure, raw ozone. Caster looked down into the hole. There was a narrow metal ladder leading st

Caster looked down at his own hands resting on the crystal console. They were not glowing with warm golden light. Thick, heavy, pitch-black smoke was pouring out of his fingertips. It was the necrotic ash. It was the exact same dark, toxic, dead magic that made up the body of the Ash Warden. The pure essence of consequence and death was leaking directly out of Caster’s pores. "No!" Caster panicked. He tried to pull his hands away, but the magic was stuck to the glass. The black ash flooded into the master crystal. The beautiful, perfect crystal console let out a sharp, terrible sound. A deep, jagged crack ripped right down the middle of the glass. The black ash shot into the hologram. The giant blue globe above them instantly turned a sick, bruised purple color. The massive map spun wildly out of control. The dark magic did not follow Caster’s careful, mathematical instructions. It reacted with raw, violent chaos. The spinning, corrupted globe suddenly created a massive spatial