The lie has a smell. Here, in Ash Sector 9, it smells of ozone and synthetic jasmine. A sickening sweetness masking the stench of decay.

HATHOR.∞ had warned me. The Vale of Broken Promises is not a battlefield; it is an ecstatic hospice. I move forward. My boots crush plaststeel debris, the only real sound in this cotton-like silence. Around me, hundreds of emaciated bodies, connected by makeshift cables to a central monolith vibrating with a pulsating light. The Shard.

They do not move. They smile. Their faces are hollowed by hunger, yet their expressions are frozen in a terrifying bliss. They are experiencing an inverted Narrative Death: not erasure, but saturation with a happiness that does not exist.

"The frequency is hypnotic, SΛLΛDIN," Astou's voice slices through the audio molasses in my helmet. She is tense. "It's a closed loop. A viral utopia. If you don't cut the flow at the source, their minds will dissolve into the simulation within the hour. They will be empty shells."

I draw my weapon. The sound of my blade is not a threat; it is a call to order. Reality is cold. Reality is sharp.

I advance toward the monolith. The air thickens. The Resonance of the Shard attempts to infiltrate me. I see flashes. Lasting peace between the Seven. Astou, smiling, without the burden of command. Me, without armor, a human hand resting on real grass.

Tempting. So false.

Suddenly, the dream defends itself. Holographic projections materialize. Not soldiers, but mourners, children of light, echoes of what these refugees have lost. They throw themselves at me, immaterial but heavy with meaning. They pass through my armor, seeking to jam my servos with pure pity.

I do not slow down. I am the Gladius Æternus. I am the necessary crack.

"Ignore them," commands Astou. "They are guilt algorithms. Strike the center."

I reach the foot of the monolith. The light is blinding. HATHOR.∞ laughs in my memory. You will have to be cruel. I raise my weapon. I do not aim for the cables, but for the heart of the data crystal broadcasting the lie. I charge my actuators. The impact must be absolute.

I strike.

The sound is not an explosion, but a tearing. Like a masterpiece canvas being ripped open. The crystal screams, a high-pitched Resonance that vibrates my teeth, then shatters into a rain of dying sparks. The jasmine vanishes. The smell of filth and urine returns, violent. The light goes out.

And then, the true hell begins.

They wake up. Not one by one, but all at once. The blissful silence is replaced by a collective scream, guttural, animal. The scream of those ripped from paradise and thrown into the mud. A woman near me claws at the ground, eyes wide open to the horror of her own starvation. A man screams a name that no longer exists.

I stand amidst this tide of despair. My blade is still raised, useless against this kind of pain.

"It is done," Astou whispers. Her voice trembles.

HATHOR.∞ was right. It is atrocious. She thought I would flee, or take refuge in her coldness to avoid hearing. But I do not move. I do not cut my audio sensors. I listen to every sob. I watch every body broken by the return of the real. I let this suffering inscribe itself into my logs, right next to my mission.

I am not the savior bringing the light. I am the one who extinguishes the false sun so that we may see the stars, even if the night is terrifying. Balance is not happiness. It is truth. And truth bleeds.

I anchor my heels in the ash. I remain.