The air changed the moment North crossed into the lower levels of the tower.
It wasn’t heat or cold. It was pressure. A dense, crushing presence that pressed against her skin and slid along her bones, as if the space itself was trying to remind her that she did not belong here. The walls around them were no longer built stone or reinforced alloy. They were grown. Layered slabs of blackened material fused together by laws rather than matter, pulsing faintly with a rhythm that felt uncomfortably close to a heartbeat.
Lyrate did not slow.
She moved at the front like an advancing calamity, her hand brushing the floor once before roots exploded outward. Thick, dark tendrils of living creation bored through the ground and walls alike, splintering structures before enemies even fully manifested.
They descended level by level.
"This is it," she said quietly.
They reached a massive vertical chamber, its center hollowed out into a descending shaft that vanished into black. Platforms spiraled downward along the walls, connected by narrow bridges grown from the same living material. Far below, something pulsed. A deep, steady glow that sent waves of pressure upward with each beat.
The Eclipse Anchor’s core.
The deeper they went, the heavier everything became. Movement required more effort. Breathing felt thicker, as if the air itself resisted being drawn into her lungs. Even Lyrate’s advance slowed slightly, roots pushing harder, thicker, cracking the platforms apart as they forced a path.
They reached the final descent.
The shaft opened into a cavernous chamber beneath the tower, vast enough to swallow a city block. At its center hovered the core.
It was enormous.
A sphere of condensed matter, suspended in an array of sealing constructs that rotated slowly around it. Black light bled from its surface, pouring into channels that ran through the chamber walls and upward into the tower. The pressure here was immense, crushing enough that even standing still felt like defiance.
This was the heart of it. The source of the blackout. The reason the system could not see, could not act, could not interfere. The Eclipse Anchor was not just blocking access. It was rewriting priority, forcing this region to answer to something else.
Lyrate stepped forward without fear.
Roots surged again, thicker than before, wrapping around the outer lattice. The sealing constructs flared violently in response, runes igniting as they tried to push back. The air screamed. Space warped. Several of Lyrate’s roots disintegrated on contact.
She did not retreat.
She pushed harder.
The lattice began to crack.
Sealing runes fractured one by one, their glow flickering as Lyrate’s creation laws forced their way through the gaps. The core pulsed faster, reacting, resisting, trying to maintain its hold.
The chamber reacted.
As the lattice cracked further, the entire space trembled, not violently at first, but with a deep, strained vibration, like a structure forced to bear more weight than it was designed for. The walls groaned. Veins of black light flared brighter along the floor and ceiling, feeding more power into the sealing array in a desperate attempt to stabilize it.
Lyrate took another step forward.
Her expression did not change. There was no strain on her face, no hesitation in her movements. She raised her hand slowly, fingers spreading, and the roots answered her call with terrifying obedience. What had been thick tendrils became massive trunks, layered with spiraling runes of creation, each one reinforcing the next. They punched into the lattice again and again, not trying to tear it apart in one blow, but systematically overwhelming it.
Each impact shattered another seal.
Each broken rune screamed as it collapsed, fragments dissolving into raw law that never reached the core.
That’s when the final defense of the core reacted.
Figures emerged from the sealing array itself, formed entirely from condensed law and deathmist, their shapes tall and thin, faces smooth and featureless. They moved without sound, weapons forming in their hands as extensions of the lattice. The moment they stepped forward, Lyrate’s roots pierced through them, tearing their bodies apart before they could complete a single attack.
More appeared.
Lyrate did not turn back.
She advanced step by step, roots spreading across the chamber like a living tide, crushing guardians, and dragging entire sections of the lattice down with them. The pressure intensified to the point where North felt her knees strain, her breath turning shallow, but she stayed still.
She had one task.
And she would not move until it was time.
The core pulsed wildly now, its rhythm uneven, erratic. Cracks appeared on its surface, thin at first, then spreading as the sealing array failed to contain its output. Black light spilled into the chamber in jagged flashes, warping the air and distorting space itself.
Lyrate reached the final ring.
She placed her palm against the last intact seal.
"For all your arrogance," she said calmly, "you are fragile."
The seal shattered.
The remaining lattice collapsed in on itself, fragments dissolving as Lyrate withdrew her roots in a single motion. The core was exposed at last, hovering naked in the center of the chamber, its surface fractured and unstable.
The pressure spiked one final time.
North moved.
She stepped forward, drawing both blades in one smooth motion. The metal hummed softly as her Essence flowed into them, compressing inward, sharp and focused. Her expression was calm, but her eyes burned with resolve.
North crossed the remaining distance in a flash. The closer she got, the louder the pressure screamed against her senses, trying to bind her, trying to stop her, but she did not slow. She raised both blades and placed their edges against the cracked surface of the core.
For a brief moment, nothing happened.
Then she pushed.
The blades sank into the core as if it were soft clay, cutting through layers of condensed law and corrupted matter.
The Eclipse Anchor’s core screamed.
Light exploded outward, then collapsed inward just as violently. The chamber shook as if struck by a god’s fist. The channels feeding the tower ruptured, black light reversing direction, tearing itself free from the structure above.
North twisted her blades and pulled.
The core shattered. Its mass imploded, crushed by its own collapsing laws, leaving behind a sudden, terrifying emptiness where it had once been. The pressure vanished instantly, replaced by a hollow silence that rang louder than any explosion.
North stumbled back as the system flared fully. Multiple notifications sounded even to me.
Access restored.
Around them, the tower groaned.
Far above, structures began to fail, the laws holding them together unraveling without the Anchor’s authority. The blackout that had smothered the system lifted like a veil torn away.
Lyrate stepped back beside North, glancing once at the empty space where the core had been.
"It’s done. Let’s move out." she said simply.
North exhaled, her grip tightening on her blades as the tower began to collapse around them.