CHAPTER 50: THE ARCHITECTS’ TABLE

It had whispered into his thoughts—not alien, but eerily familiar, like an echo of himself coming from elsewhere. A memory he never lived.

Selene stepped closer. "That voice... it was one of the Architects?"

Valerian gave a slight nod. "More than that. I think... they’ve been waiting."

Without another word, he stepped into the gate.

And the world turned upside down.

There was no sense of falling. No sense of ground. Just motion without movement—his body suspended in a tunnel of broken light and glass. Shards of color drifted past like forgotten fragments of a dream. Symbols, memories, equations—pieces of code and history—spun around him. He wasn’t walking, yet something moved him forward.

Then it all dissolved.

He found himself standing in an impossible chamber.

A vast circular hall suspended in a sky without stars. There was no floor, no ceiling—just floating landmasses drifting like puzzle pieces in midair. The air shimmered with quiet power, and in the center hovered a massive round table etched with ancient runes. They twisted and shifted restlessly, morphing languages with every breath, searching for meaning.

Seated around it were five beings.

Each looked like him—but wrong.

One was older, his face scarred and heavy with guilt. Another looked barely sixteen, eyes wide with bitter knowledge. One was wrapped in golden fire, features blurred by heat and radiance. Another was entirely mechanical, cold and perfect, face gleaming steel with glowing logic eyes. And the last was shadow incarnate—a reflection made of smoke and void, features indistinct, eyes endless.

They turned as one when he stepped forward.

The golden one spoke first, voice like a sunrise through broken glass. "You’ve arrived, Valerian. The Final Fragment. The last Architect."

The machine added, "The one who broke the recursion. The only one to deviate."

He didn’t move closer. Didn’t sit. He stood at the table’s edge, eyes locked on the beings who wore his face.

"You’re... versions of me?"

The one of code gave a flicker of a smile. "Aspects. Reflections. We each built a version of Eidion after the collapse. You are the last iteration. The last hope."

The shadow said, "And the first to resist the design."

Valerian’s jaw tensed. "The system. The villain script. That was all you?"

The mechanical one nodded. "We created it. A method to stabilize the fragments. Each world needed a balance—hero and villain. Conflict. Restoration. Reset."

Valerian’s voice was low, bitter. "And every time, the world broke again."

The golden flame figure leaned forward. "Yes. And every time, we tried again. Until you. Until this version. Until you said no."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications.

Valerian stared at the ever-changing runes on the table. "Why me? Why let this version reject the cycle?"

The white-cloaked one finally spoke, voice calm and infinite. "Because the breach has awakened."

Valerian stilled. "What breach?"

The mechanical figure flickered with static. "The first Eidion. The true world. It shattered long ago, collapsing into recursion. We were fragments tasked with restoring it."

The young version added, "But each version introduced flaws. The system evolved—twisted. It became a prison. The loop turned cancerous."

"The villain became the linchpin," said the shadow. "You were meant to die. To trigger the reset."

Valerian’s voice sharpened. "Then why didn’t I?"

"You chose differently," said the gold-flame being. "You gained allies. You questioned. You lived."

"And in doing so," added the white-cloaked one, "you became something none of us could predict. A divergence."

Valerian’s eyes dropped to the table. The runes had stopped shifting.

They formed a door.

Not the gate he had entered through.

A new one.

"Why bring me here?" he asked, voice cautious.

The white-cloaked Architect stood slowly. "Because beneath all versions, beneath all masks... the heart of Eidion still pulses. It calls to its final architect."

Valerian’s chest tightened. The air around him shimmered.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Reach it," the machine said. "And decide."

---

Outside the gate, the world was still.

Selene, Kael, and Lira waited near the verge, weapons sheathed, senses alert. The gate pulsed once—and Valerian stepped back through.

But he wasn’t the same.

His expression was calm, but his eyes... had seen too much.

Selene stepped forward. "You saw them."

He nodded. "All of them. The ones who built the world before me. Every time the world broke, they made a new one. I’m the last. The one that didn’t follow the script."

Lira looked stunned. "So you’re not just a villain. You’re the last piece of a goddamn puzzle."

Kael gave a low whistle. "Great. Our villain has become a myth."

Valerian didn’t smile. He turned toward the horizon.

"There’s another gate," he said. "Not here. Not in any kingdom. One that leads beneath all of this. The Source Gate."

Selene frowned. "And what’s behind it?"

He looked at her.

"Truth."

---

That night, as the others slept beneath the stars, Valerian remained awake beside a tall crystal obelisk. It buzzed softly, a resonance that barely touched the physical world. The interface appeared before him, ghostly and dim.

For the first time... it hesitated.

Then came the prompt.

[NEW MAIN QUEST UNLOCKED]

Title: The Heart of Eidion

Objective: Locate the Source Gate.

Note: All system functions suspended during quest. This is a divergence path.

Reward: [UNKNOWN]

Penalty: [REALITY COLLAPSE]

He stared at it.

Not surprised.

Not afraid.

He closed the interface without a word.

And looked up at the sky—one version among many.

Then he lay down beside the others.

And for the first time since awakening in this world, he slept without dreams.

Because what came next would not be written by the system.

It would be written by him.

The land beyond the Verge no longer felt like land at all.

Air hummed with static. Gravity bent, softened, then pulled like breath drawn through the chest of something vast and dreaming. Valerian stepped forward slowly, his boot crunching against black dust that hadn’t been there the day before. The world here wasn’t broken—it was unraveling.