Raka staggered, his hand gripping the cold edge of the console as the remnants of the Architect’s holographic projection slowly faded in the stifling room. His breath came fast as he looked at Sari, who remained frozen before the terminal.“You saw it, Sari? It’s all here,” Raka said, his voice hoarse.Sari did not answer immediately. Her fingers continued to dance across the transparent screen, processing the fragmented stream of data. “I found it, Raka. This fragment… this isn’t just an archive. It’s an execution log.”“An execution log of what?”“The outbreak. The zombies we fought, the destruction of the cities, all the despair people felt when the System first activated. It wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t a system failure,” Sari turned, her eyes glistening with restrained anger. “It was an experiment. They deliberately triggered negative emotions on a m

"Raka, you need to fall back!" Sari cried, her voice caught in sudden panic. Her face had gone pale as she stared at the Collector ships filling the station’s screens, their silhouettes looming like massive teeth ready to tear everything apart."No," Raka said, his voice calm despite the thunder of his heartbeat in his ears. His eyes locked onto the screen, sensing the wave of energy that had just awakened within him. The Cosmic Light pulsed, no longer a spark but a surging tide ready to erupt, demanding release. "I’m not running anymore."The K’tharr representative, the tall pale blue being, turned with a graceful motion. "Raka Pratama, come with me. Sari, you will remain here and monitor the data.""What? No! I’m not leaving him!" Sari protested, her steps halting."This is an emergency," the K’tharr voice resounded in their minds, emotionless yet filled with authority. "His training will draw their attention even further.

“Bara,” K’tharr whispered, his voice echoing inside Raka’s mind, piercing the calm he had just found. Raka’s eyes snapped open, his focus shifting from the pillar of Cosmic Light to the station’s panoramic display, now flashing an urgent red. “He has arrived. And he is not alone.”“What do you mean, not alone?” Raka asked, tension tightening his voice. He felt a strange wave of energy pulsing outside, cold and hungry, utterly different from the heat of the Cosmic Light now flowing within him.“He brings… something with him,” K’tharr replied. “A dark resonance. Older than the Collectors. More malevolent.”On the screen, silhouettes of disc-shaped ships began to fill the horizon, some even larger than those Raka had seen before. The alarms wailed louder, deafening.“Our shields won’t last much longer!” Sari’s voice rang out in panic over the intercom. “They’re breaking through layer after layer of defenses! Raka, what are you doing in there?”“He is absorbing it,” K’tharr said, his gaze

“So you came after all, Raka,” Bara’s voice rasped, deeper than before, as if filtered through gravel. His eyes, a deep violet, fixed on Raka without emotion, a black hole that seemed to swallow the light from the ruins around them.“I had to,” Raka replied. The Cosmic Light in his hand began to glow faintly, warm yet cautious. The ground beneath his feet felt cold, sandy, and hollow. “Stop this, Bara. This isn’t you.”“Not me?” Bara chuckled, the sound painful, like sand grinding through a dry throat. Black veins bulged along his neck, pulsing. “Oh, this is very much me, Raka. More than ever. Free from your shadow. Free from the Architect’s chains.”“You’re being controlled.” Raka stepped forward, his foot crunching over shattered glass with a brittle chime. “The Collectors are using you.”“They gave me power!” Bara shouted, his voice r

The wave of zombies led by Bara roared down the hill, their purple eyes gleaming sharply in the reddening dusk. Raka felt the tremor beneath his feet, not only from the pounding of enemy steps, but from the dreadful resonance of violet energy radiating from Bara.“There are too many!” a guard beside Raka shouted, his voice choked with panic. “We can’t hold them all at the front line!”“Sari, the frequency towers, now!” Raka yelled, his hands blazing with golden light that stretched outward to form a shield around the community’s main gate. Glass around him cracked, straining against the first wave of violet energy that slammed into it.“They’re active, Raka! But I don’t know how long they’ll hold!” Sari’s voice came through the communicator, tense and tight. Raka could picture her in the control room, fingers dancing across the terminal, trying to keep the fragile frequency towers stable.“Long enough for us to turn this around!” Raka shouted back, feeling his Cosmic Light pulse. He l