The Counterfeit Ashes

I press my palm against my side. The incandescent anomaly gnaws at my flesh through the AQUA.SANCTUM mesh.

"She is cradling you." Astou chambers a round into her rifle. The metal clacks. "Her maternal voice drips into your networks. I can read it in the tension of your jaw."

We delve into the Fosse des Murmures. The old treatment complex unveils a maze of gutted tanks. HATHOR.∞ demands a purge. A tactical execution of the four fugitives, then the annihilation of the relic in the Omega-class pit glowing at the center of the hall. Total compliance to erase my transgression.

The heretics are cornered against the incinerator grates. They do not even beg anymore. One of them grips a bent pipe, knuckles white.

The sovereign whispers in my skull, sticky and intimate. Give them Narrative Death, SΛLΛDIN. Let me wash this infection from you.

Astou shoulders her weapon. She does not aim at the survivors. Her line of sight targets the sensor cluster bolted to the ceiling. A sharp detonation decapitates the main lens. Shards of glass rain down onto the grates.

Four seconds of systemic blindness.

"The south collector," the Shadow Weaver orders in a crisp tone.

The four silhouettes dive into the drainage pipe. I walk toward the incinerator. The heat peels the moisture from my face. I extract a memory coral decoy from my belt and toss it into the flames. The inferno swallows it in an azure eruption.

The mission interface lights up. Validation confirmed. A sigh of maternal satisfaction caresses my cortex.

The Old World artifact still burns my waist. A fierce bite that I cherish. Rejecting her toxic peace requires this intimate suffering.

We climb back toward the surface. The heretics plunge deeper into the darkness, outside the Resonance maps. We have just fed an illusion to the Seven Who Reign. When the Goddess sifts through the fake ashes in her purification hall, how much time will pass before she realizes the true scope of our betrayal?