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Chapter 31- The Weight Of The Verdict
The Final Arbiter did not land.It hovered.The street bent beneath it, stone warping as though gravity itself had been rewritten. The remaining Adjudicators stood motionless, heads bowed—not in reverence, but submission.Matteo raised his blade.“Is that thing supposed to scare me?” he asked.The First Confessor didn’t look at him. “Yes.”The Arbiter spoke—not loudly, but with such density that every syllable pressed against the bones.“ECHO: MATTEO.”“YOU STAND OUTSIDE ACCEPTABLE VARIANCE.”Matteo tilted his head. “Funny. You sound like every tyrant I’ve ever killed.”The Arbiter’s form shifted—rings of light aligning, lenses opening.“YOU HAVE INTERFERED WITH JUDGMENT.”“I saved people.”“IRRELEVANT.”The Confessor inhaled sharply. “Arbiter, this city was never meant to be cleansed. The protocols—”“PROTOCOLS HAVE EVOLVED.”Matteo glanced at her. “Is it always this polite when it decides who lives?”The Arbiter descended slightly.“YOUR EXISTENCE INTRODUCES UNRESOLVABLE UNCERTAINTY
Chapter 30 - The Cost of Mercy
The projection hovered between them, trembling slightly as if the World Engine itself were uncertain.A narrow street appeared in midair—cracked pavement, leaning buildings, a chapel door splintered down the center.Matteo recognized it instantly.“The safehouse,” he said.The First Confessor nodded once. “They found it.”Matteo’s jaw tightened. “How long do we have?”The World Engine answered before she could.“INTERVENTION WINDOW: TWENTY-SEVEN SECONDS.”Matteo took a step toward the sphere. “Pull me in.”The First Confessor turned sharply. “No. That isn’t how this works.”“I don’t care how it works.”“You should,” she snapped. “Direct intervention marks you as an anomaly. The system doesn’t forgive anomalies.”Matteo didn’t look at her. His eyes were fixed on the projection. A shadow moved across the street—tall, silver, unmistakable.An Adjudicator.“Then let it hate me,” Matteo said. “I’ll live with that.”The World Engine’s rings rotated faster.“INTERVENTION WILL REQUIRE OVERRID
CHAPTER 29 — THE FIRST JUDGMENT
The World Engine pulsed once.Then again.Matteo felt it through the soles of his boots.The First Confessor turned her head slightly. “They’re active.”Matteo looked up at the sphere. “All of them?”“Yes.”“How many?”She hesitated. “Enough to end cities.”Above them, a low metallic hum deepened, vibrating through the chamber walls. Matteo clenched his fists.“Then stop them.”Her voice was calm. Too calm. “I can’t.”Matteo turned on her. “You built this place.”“I guarded it,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”The sphere shifted. Rings of light rotated outward, projecting fractured images into the air.A street.An Adjudicator stepping forward.A man raising his hands.A child screaming.Matteo swallowed hard. “Turn it off.”The World Engine spoke—its voice layered, distant, everywhere.“JUDGMENT PROTOCOL ACTIVE.”Matteo stepped closer. “Who authorized that?”“ECHO AUTHORIZATION PENDING.”The First Confessor’s jaw tightened.“Say it,” Matteo demanded.“You’re the authorization,
CHAPTER 28 — THE WORLD BELOW THE WORLD
Darkness swallowed them.Not the sudden darkness of extinguished light—but a falling darkness, rushing past Matteo in roaring wind and fragments of shattered stone. His body spun. His grip on the First Confessor tightened until his fingers screamed in protest.Then—Impact.The world slammed into him.Pain exploded through his spine. Breath fled his lungs in a violent rush. He rolled instinctively, coming to rest against cold metal that rang hollow beneath his weight.For a long moment, he could not move.He lay there, staring into nothing, listening to his own ragged breathing and the distant groan of ancient structures settling far above.When he finally sucked air into his lungs again, it burned.“Alive?” a voice rasped nearby.Matteo turned his head.The First Confessor lay a few feet away, propped against a slanted wall of blackened steel. Blood traced a thin line from her temple, glowing faintly where it touched the floor.“Barely,” Matteo managed.The darkness around them began
Chapter 27
The Prototype moved.Not fast.Not slow.It unfolded.Its body reconfigured itself with a wet, metallic sound that turned Matteo’s stomach. Plates slid aside, revealing muscle beneath—real muscle—veined with glowing blue circuitry that pulsed in time with the chamber’s heartbeat.This wasn’t a machine pretending to be alive.It was alive.The Adjudicator’s head tilted toward the First Confessor. Its face—once human—had been stripped of expression, mouth sewn shut with threads of living metal. Its eyes burned white-hot.“PRIORITY CONFIRMATION COMPLETE,” it said.“ARCHITECTAL ERROR LOCATED.”Matteo stepped in front of the First Confessor, blade raised.“You want her,” he growled. “You go through me.”The Confessor hissed sharply behind him. “You do not understand what you stand against.”“Then explain it after I kill it.”The Prototype’s gaze slid to Matteo.It paused.Analyzed.Its voice lowered—less mechanical, more… curious.“YOU ARE NOT LISTED.”The chamber lights flickered.Matteo
Chapter 26 - The Waking Of The First COnfessor
Matteo woke to silence.Not the easy silence of an empty street or a church before dawn.This silence was thick—like a living thing—pressing against his ears, his lungs, his thoughts.The ground beneath him was cold metal. Not stone. Not earth.Metal.He opened his eyes.The ceiling above him curved like the inside of a great iron ribcage, dimly lit by veins of pulsing blue energy that ran along the walls like arteries. The air tasted sterile, ancient, and humming with a soft vibration that set his teeth on edge.He tried to sit up.A spike of pain lanced across his ribs. The explosion had slammed him harder than he realized.He gritted his teeth and pushed upright.That’s when he saw her.A body lay a few feet away—unmoving, half-buried in shadows. Pale skin. Long hair matted with dust. Clothing he didn’t recognize—dark, ceremonial, woven with silver threads that shimmered faintly in the low light.His heart faltered.Symbols covered her arms, faint and glowing—curved lines shaped li
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