The ceiling screamed as five miles of sapphire crystal cracked under earth-shaking shear.
From beyond the outer inner walls of the Primordial Data Center, a thunderous impact echoed through the iron floor plates, throwing Elder Wu onto his hands and knees.
THOOM.
Through the watching quartz, the dark shape of the Arch-Segfault loomed like an inverted, star-swallowing mountain range of shifting grey static. It was clawing at the work-yard’s outside shields, stripping away megawatt layers of defensive wards with every sweep of its dereferenced limbs.
“Inner wall strength at thirty-four percent!” Shen Yue cried, her multi-threaded array flickering wildly. “The outer walls will fail in under twenty minutes!”
Inside the grand round hall, the two numbed gods remained frozen in their mutual death-grip.
Every three seconds, time hitched backward. A dropped tear returned to Shen Yue’s lash. A falling piece of crystal dust flew back up to the ceiling, only to fall again three seconds later.
If Lin Ke couldn’t break their deadlock before the walls failed, the Arch-Segfault would devour the central processor core. That triggered an unhandled system crash that would permanently erase reality.
