They walked down into an elevator shaft plunged deep into the heart of the Monolith. Nyra's console flickered with schematics and encrypted data, leading them to a sublevel named Chamber of Echoes—a place not on any plans officially, a hidden layer in the digital heart of the city.
So, he asked, "Ready?" His hand closed tightly about the pack holding the fragments. He looked around at the various members of his crew. Each and every one of them was ready, his eyes steely with decision.
They stepped back, agony doing no service to the clanging of the elevator swooning into the dark. The Chamber of Echoes was nothing they had imagined. This was not some sterile, tech-imbued interiority of the higher echelons of the Monolith; instead, it was vast and dark, the walls inscribed with strange symbols pulsing faintly with otherworldly light.
In the center of the room, a great circular console was humming with ancient power, the thrumming of age-worn components. Zypher felt itthe sheer weight of data that was embedded within, centuries of secrets held in one machine. He approached it carefully, placing a hand on its cold surface.
Instantly, the room lit up. Screens across the walls lit up pieces of ancient codes and shadowy messages and images that fluttered by too fast to analyze. The weight of untold memories assaulted Zypher's mind-visions of gods standing in Neo-ilka's earliest days, cities rising and falling, bricks laid, one after another, in constructing the Monolith as a testimonial monument to power.
"What… is this?" Kiera breathed, her voice nearly inaudible, a mixture of awe and fear fixated in her eyes as she gazed at the pictures flashing around them.
Nyra slid toward a control panel, her fingers traced over it briefly as she accessed the data flow. "It is recording," she whispered quietly. "A record by the gods' acts… their plans for Neo-ilka, hidden here in the heart of the city."
One image leapt out at Zypher: it was a plan, schematics of the Divinitas weapon in its entirety, glowing slightly with power. Zypher caught his breath. They had pieced together fragments, each of which granted them power, but this was the full design, true purpose of what they were gathering.
But then the voice filled the chamber, echoed off every wall, every screen. Deep, resonant, ancient, and echoing in authority, making their skin prickle.
"So you are here seeking the Divinitas," it declared. Each word snarled with something like judgment. "You bear fragments; do you understand what you carry?"
Zypher glanced around, searching for the point of origin of the speaking voice, but there was nothing—only the screens, and the shadows which seemed to close in around them.
"We understand enough," Zypher said steadily. "Enough to know that Neo-ilka is on the brink, and we have the chance to alter that."
The voice laughed, low and hollow. "Change? You cannot imagine the power you meddle with. The Divinitas was forged to balance things out, but also to control. You may claim its pieces, but you will be bound to its purpose, shackled to the will of the gods.".
Orions leads stepped forward, burning fiercely in his eyes. No man shall have the power over me-not gods and not you. If this is what we must pay to safeguard our world, then so be it.
A heavy silence fell, and then the screens shifted to reveal images of Neo-ilka under siege, dark clouds rolling over the city, machines rising from the ground unstoppable, devouring everything in their path.
This is what awaits," the voice intoned. "The Divinitas has only one true purpose: to enforce dominion. If you wield it, you must be prepared to bear its weight."
The cold was sharp in his bones, but he steeled himself. "We'll face that when the time comes. But right now, we have a choice-to shape the future of Neo-ilka or to let it fall.".
For a moment he did not speak, as if taking his time, contemplating the last words of the voice, unknown. Finally, in a softer tone, it spoke again.
"Very well. The Divinitas is yours to claim, but heed this warning: to wield it is to forsake everything else. You will become part of it, just as it will become part of you.".
When the voice ceased to be, the screens went dark and the pieces in Zypher's pack flared with a brilliance that cast the chamber in an otherworldly sheen. And it was then that he knew their goal had taken on an entirely new purpose: not to find the Divinitas, but to master it, to understand it, maybe even defy the very gods who created it.
They headed out of the heart of the Monolith, aware that they had Neo-ilka in their hands - and the power they wielded was going either to save their world or devour them completely.