"Lyra," Elijah said. "London is falling. If London breaks, Adam will destroy the Spire. But I cannot leave the throne."“I know,” Lyra replied in his mind. “You are the heavy engine. You make the power. You make the rules. But engines do not move across oceans.”Lyra raised her hand made of absolute darkness. “I will take the reserve army to London,” Lyra promised. "How?" Elijah asked. His Overclocked brain could not find a mathematical solution. "The airships are too slow. You can teleport yourself through the shadows, yes. But you cannot carry 500 heavy soldiers with you. The Void-Bleed will tear normal humans apart."Lyra’s faceless head tilted slightly. Even without a mouth, Elijah could feel her smiling. It was a cold, arrogant, beautiful smile. “I am the Mistress of the Bleed,” Lyra corrected him gently. “The Void does not tear things apart when I tell it to behave. Watch me, Sovereign.”Lyra did not walk to the door. She simply sank into the shadow of the throne and vanished.

“You see it now, my King,” Lyra sent her thoughts across the ocean, sliding smoothly into Elijah’s mind. “You see the math.”Elijah sat on his throne. “I see it, Lyra. You moved a mountain through a needle.”“You are the machine, Elijah,” Lyra thought. She watched as a giant mud-hound tried to leap at her. She lazily waved her hand, opening a portal in front of the hound, and dropping it into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. “A machine needs rigid rules. A machine needs heavy iron parts to work. You are the iron. Marcus is the iron.”Lyra floated down closer to the battle. Her Shadow Legion was pushing the demons back into the ruins. “But a machine with only iron will break itself,” Lyra continued, her cold voice whispering in the King’s ear. “Iron grinds against iron. It creates friction. You need something soft to make the parts move perfectly.”Elijah pushed more magma heat into the walls of the Spire, burning the Colossus. “You are not soft anymore, Lyra.”“I am not meat,” Lyra

The lines bent at sharp ninety-degree angles. They formed geometric shapes. Triangles, squares, and hexagons floating perfectly in the air. In a matter of seconds, the silver box had unfolded into the shape of a flower. But it was not a biological flower. It had no soft petals. It had no leaves. It was a flower made entirely of computer code and sharp metal lines. It looked exactly like the glowing silver circuitry that covered King Elijah’s dark skin. “This is not the Crimson Rot,” Lyra calculated rapidly. “The Archon of Wisdom tricked us. The red meat was just a cocoon. It was just a disguise to hide the real weapon.”"Is it a bomb?" Captain Thorne asked. He took a step backward, raising his shield. “No,” Lyra answered. “It has no explosive energy. It is something else.”Suddenly, all across the muddy park, the ground began to click. Hundreds of silver boxes pushed up through the wet dirt. All at the exact same time, they unfolded. Hundreds of sharp, geometric silver flowers bl

Lyra waited until the last soldier was through. She looked down at the hundreds of silver geometric flowers blooming in the mud. They hummed their sad, beautiful song. It was a masterpiece of psychological warfare. “You are smart, Sofia,” Lyra thought coldly. “But you cannot infect a glitch.”Lyra dropped through the portal and instantly closed the Void-Gate behind her. Inside the Obsidian Spire, New York. 50th Floor. The 500 soldiers of the Shadow Legion crashed onto the hard, polished black glass floor of the training hall. They rolled over each other, panting and shaking in terror. Outside the building, the giant Colossus of Rot was still pounding on the gray shield. The whole room vibrated with the heavy impacts. But inside the room, it was a different kind of horror. Captain Thorne knelt on the floor next to Kael. He was pumping his hands onto Kael’s armored chest, trying to force the man’s lungs to work. "Come on, Kael! Breathe!" Thorne yelled, tears mixing with the dirt o

[SCANNING... NO BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION DETECTED.][VITALS ARE HEALTHY. NO TOXINS DETECTED.][HOWEVER... COGNITIVE BRAINWAVES ARE FLATLINING.]Elijah’s Overclocked brain analyzed the data. The humans were physically perfect. But their minds were shutting down. "Why?" Elijah asked. [THEY HAVE LOST THE WILL TO LIVE. THEY HAVE DETERMINED THAT SURVIVAL IS ILLOGICAL.]Elijah felt a cold, terrible shock in his chest. The 3% humanity inside him panicked. "Where are they going?" Elijah demanded, watching the silent crowds shuffling down the halls. Elijah traced their path with his golden eye. They were walking toward the central shafts of the building. They were walking toward the Essence Wells. The Essence Wells were located on every tenth floor of the Obsidian Spire. They were large, circular pools built into the floor. Inside the pools, a gentle, dark violet fire burned. It was the Erasure Flame, but Elijah kept it at a very low temperature. The people used these wells to dispose of