The transition from the Geometry Pocket into open combat was instantaneous.
The moment Elara stepped onto that shimmering bridge and the Bone Vault sealed, the silence was obliterated by Guild boarding claws tearing into the Sea Moth's hull.
On the navigation deck, Captain Veridian met hell with ice-cold precision. The kinetic blast that threw her from the helm bruised ribs and crushed breath, but her tactical mind snapped clean. This fight wasn't about survival. It was about blocking access to the Vault.
"Garth! Ablative shielding! Target the Raider's conduits!"
The Syndicate crew — criminals, opportunists — still fought like cornered wolves.
The first three Arc-plated Enforcers punched through the breach, their suits exhaling refined ether. Veridian didn't try to hack through armor — pointless. She went for the Arc conduits at the spine. Two exact strikes — armor systems shorted — bodies collapsed like dead appliances.
But the real danger wasn't the pawns.
It was HIM.
The Cutter breached with a seismic impact. His Imperial Exoskeleton radiated that poisonous blue-white Guild glow — refined Arc turned into a walking siege engine.
"VERIDIAN." His amplified voice felt like bone fracture.
"YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH THE GUILD'S ARCHIVE EXTRACTION."
He wasn't here to fight them. He was here to extract Elara like a hardware component.
Veridian planted herself between him and the Vault.
"The key's already inside. And the Vault picked her."
The Cutter fired an Arc kinetic pulse that crushed Veridian against the helm. She collapsed, coughing blood, vision glitching. He didn't waste a second on the crew. He went straight for the Vault Bridge.
He reached for the shimmering surface.
He was seconds away.
—
Memory Sphere – Elara
Inside the Vault, Elara stood above the colossal swirling Memory Sphere — pure stored computation — a silent storm of every dead spell dumped here since the Guild was founded.
The Anti-Abacus sang.
She wasn't "thinking" anymore. She was executing.
The Cutter wasn't a hunter.
He was malware.
The Vault wasn't sacred.
It was a system.
She accessed structural controls. No levers. No runes.
Her cognition was the interface.
She found the defensive routine:
hostile Imperial Arc signature = geometry de-alignment
She triggered it.
—
Collapse & Counterstrike
On the bridge, as the Cutter reached for the surface, the Geometry Pocket snapped.
Not shaking — recalculating.
Spatial logic fractured under him.
His Exoskeleton — built to impose order — instantly desynced. The entire stabilization matrix burned itself alive trying to find a coordinate that existed.
Refined Arc plating liquefied.
The suit devoured itself.
The Cutter screamed inside molten logic.
Veridian hauled herself upright through raw will.
"Garth — cut the Raider clamps! NOW!"
The Syndicate crew went feral — ripping at boarding arms.
Elara kept twisting geometry from inside the Vault. The Cutter, desperate, fired magnetic hooks into the Sea Moth — trying to drag the entire ship into collapse with him.
Veridian reached the Raider's clamp coupler and brought her axe down.
The blast peeled the Raider open like a tin can.
The Sea Moth tore free.
The Imperial Exoskeleton — now slag — was swallowed by the abyss.
—
Elara stepped back onto the Bridge. The Vault sealed behind her, geometry resetting into stable formation.
Veridian — bloody, barely standing — stared at her like she was witnessing a new species.
Elara spoke with perfect zero-emotion clarity.
"Threat neutralized. Raider offline. Vault secure."
Veridian laughed — one broken breath.
"You didn't kill him. You used the Rift's brain to unbuild him."
She pointed toward the swirling Sphere.
"We're not leaving. We go deeper. You're not the key anymore, Elara."
She said it without awe — just cold, vicious certainty:
"You're the operator now."
And there was no turning back.