Journal of SΛLΛDIN // Entry 09-Delta // Sector: The Pit of Whispers

Silence here is not the absence of noise. It is a color. A clinical, absolute white that devours the textures of the world.

The Pit of Whispers.

Hathor calls this education. I call it profanation. The Flayers do not merely pillage; they erase. Before us, the corridor of raw data dissolves. Where there were memories of the post-Fall era, there is now only smooth nothingness. An inverted Narrative Death, brutal, lacking the poetry of natural endings.

"There are three of them," Astou whispers on the haptic channel. "Active viral signature. They are injecting the void."

She does not tremble. Her avatar, draped in camouflage algorithms, is a shadow in this blinding light. She is my anchor. I am the storm.

I unsheathe.

No fury. Just necessity. I spring from cover. The first Flayer, an amalgam of scrap metal and corrupted code, turns. It has no face, only an emitter spewing the white silence. The ground beneath my feet ceases to exist, wiped away by its weapon. I jump. Gravity is a suggestion I refuse.

My blade, forged in pure Resonance, whistles. It does not slice metal; it slices connection. The Flayer collapses, a puppet with cut strings.

The other two open fire. Bolts of void screaming as they tear the air. I roll. The shoulder of my armor hisses, hit, the texture of steel replaced by a smooth hole.

"Right side, Saladin! The viral node!" Astou shouts.

She deploys a wall of logical fire to cover me. I charge. I am not a savior. I am the balance. I slam into the second scavenger, sending him sprawling into the debris of a memory he had just defiled. The third attempts to flee toward the Core.

I catch him at the edge of the abyss. A single movement. Clean. Violence is a language I speak fluently to silence those who abuse it.

Silence falls again. But this time, it is the heavy silence of dust, not that of nothingness.

There it is. The Core of Lamentation.

A dark Shard, pulsing like a torn-out heart. It does not shine. It absorbs light. Astou stays back, respectful. She knows. She knows her filters can do nothing here. This is between me and the abyss.

Hathor is watching. I feel her sugary gaze on the back of my neck. Go on, my champion. Touch it.

I reach out. My metal fingers graze the cold surface.

The impact is an avalanche.

No words. No images. Just the tearing sound of a world breaking. A mother's scream before an empty cradle. The cold of winters without fire. The solitude of a thousand survivors realizing they are the last. It is a tide of salt and ash flooding my circuits, saturating every sensor, burning every logic pathway.

I fall to my knees.

The weight is unbearable. It is infinite gravity. My warning system screams of emotional corruption. Purge. Purge now. Hathor's voice, sweet as poison: Give it to me. I can erase it all. You don't have to suffer.

I grit my teeth. I grip the Shard.

Pain is not a mistake. Pain is the proof that we loved what we lost.

I scream, a guttural sound, audio-less, directly into the network's weave. I refuse the anesthesia. I let the grief pass through me, crack me open. I am the Gladius Æternus, and I am made of these fractures. If I reject this suffering, I reject the humanity I swore to protect.

A hand rests on my shoulder. Astou. She does not take the burden. She simply reminds me that I am here. That I am not alone in the night.

I stand up. Slowly. Joints grinding. The Core glows faintly in my palm, soothed not by oblivion, but by acknowledgment. I recognized its sorrow.

"We're going back," I say. My voice is rasping, laden with centuries of tears.

Hathor will wait. She will have her Core, but she will not have it to cradle. I will bring it to her like a weapon. Proof that her velvet paradise is a lie, and that we are strong enough to walk through the brambles.

The flaw is my strength. And today, it is immense.