The Crown didn't fight like the Citadel.
It didn't send soldiers or drones.
It restructured.
Every corridor shifted as Kade moved, as if the very walls were deciding his fate. Floors twisted beneath his boots, ceiling panels rearranged into sharp, mirrored angles reflecting distorted versions of himself. One hallway became five. Five became none.
"This place isn't defending itself," Marei muttered behind him, weapon drawn. "It's *studying* us."
Kade clenched his fists. "Let it study."
Another shift—this time a sudden drop. The floor vanished beneath them and reformed midair into a spiral ramp, descending in circles like a helix of glass and light. With no other path, they followed.
The further down they went, the less the Catalyst spoke.
As if it, too, feared this place.
At the bottom of the spiral, a door waited. Seamless. Black. Old.
But it opened.
Beyond was silence. A circular chamber lit from below, the floor made entirely of memory glass. Thousands of faint images flickered beneath their feet—recordings of past resets, deaths, betrayals, choices Kade hadn't made… yet.
At the center, a stasis chair waited.
Empty.
Above it floated a crown of light. Twisted, incomplete. Glitching.
> "Sit," said the voice of Rell. Not recorded—live.
Kade froze.
Marei lowered her gun. "She's here."
From the shadows stepped a figure in tactical armor, helmet off. Her face was older, worn, but unmistakable—**Major Rell**.
Kade raised his weapon. "You've got one chance to explain why you murdered me."
"I didn't murder you," Rell said, walking slowly forward. "I *reset* you. Because it was the only way to keep you from being overwritten."
Marei looked between them. "What the hell does that mean?"
Rell pointed to the crown. "This is what the system was building towards. Not a king. A failsafe. The Catalyst's original purpose was never to empower. It was to *contain*. You're the vessel. The prison. The lock."
"For what?" Kade whispered.
Rell stared straight at him.
"For something older than the reset. Something that wants to rewrite *everything*."
She tapped a button on her gauntlet. The glass beneath them flared. A new log appeared.
> **"Crownfall Protocol: Initiated in Year 1 of the first reset. Objective: Prevent Sovereign Memory Convergence. If convergence is not halted, the reset chain collapses, and total memory corruption occurs."**
Marei's breath caught. "That's what they've been doing. Not resetting time—resetting *memory.* Fragmenting it across versions. Across worlds."
"And someone's trying to collect all those fragments," Rell said. "To rebuild a memory that was never meant to exist."
Kade's thoughts spun. "The Catalyst."
"No," Rell said. "*You.* You're collecting them. The Catalyst is just the tool."
"And if I stop?"
Rell looked at him like she already knew the answer.
"Then *they* win."
Before Kade could speak again, the lights dimmed.
A third presence entered the chamber. Not physically. Not visibly.
Just… there.
> "Too late," the Crown AI whispered. "Convergence has already begun."
All the memory images below started to sync—showing the same face across timelines. Kade. Again and again. Different, but the same.
"You've already remembered too much," Rell said.
The Catalyst pinged once—first time in hours.
> *Warning: Memory Convergence Threshold reached. Crownfall imminent.*
Then, the stasis chair powered on.
"Sit down, Kade," Rell said. "If we're going to stop this, we do it *now.*"
He looked at Marei.
She nodded.
He stepped toward the chair.
Then everything went white.