Lyra Nexus's Arc

Chapter 27 of 27

The crew stepped off the code floor and onto open ground. No cover anywhere. Just packed dirt and glowing grass all the way to the castle gate. Lyra set the pace herself. Not fast. Not slow. Steady. The eight of them marched in a line toward the walls, weapons ready. The castle grew as they walked. Its towers rose in dark spires, threaded with streams of running code. Pink, blue, and green light bled through the walls in wide bands. Windows glowed like open eyes. The gate at its base sat shut and huge. Lyra kept her spear low and her feet moving. The boss waited inside, and he could see them the whole way. "He's not firing," Protocol said. She scanned the walls without breaking stride. "He watches us cross open ground and does nothing. Bad host." "He can't reach us yet," Lyra said. "Not until we're close. He waits for us to walk into his range." Aurelia raised her longbow and sighted the gate. "So we walk in," she said. She let the words sit. Then, after a pause: "Into the part where he can hit back." Lyra knew it. Every step closed the gap he needed. The moment they crossed his line, the boss would engage. She could stop the march and lose the whole point of coming. Or she could keep walking and choose the fight herself. She kept walking. Pixela Code broke from the line and ran the last stretch, faster than any of them could follow. Her pink form blurred across the dirt. She reached the gate, pressed a hand to it, and read the seam. Then she sprinted back. "The gate's a trust check," she said, plain and quick. "It opens for his code. Not ours. Cross the line in front of it and he wakes." "Then we wake him," Lyra said. Screenshot moved up beside her, twin hammers loose in her grip. She read a program's work the way others read handwriting. She'd already named the hand that built this place. "Same cut as the gate," she said. "Same hand that erased you. He's right behind it." Lyra looked at Power Surge. "When the gate reads us, break its trust before it decides." Power Surge nodded once. She could rewrite what a system chose to trust. "On the line," she said. Lyra lifted her spear and led the last stretch. The crew closed on the gate, boots striking dirt in time. She crossed the line. The castle answered. The gate's glow flared red, and a low pulse rolled out from the walls, locking onto all eight of them at once. Power Surge slammed her war-hammer against the base and drove her code into it. The gate's trust cracked and split. The doors ground open. Beyond them, in a hall of running light, something rose from a dark seat. The boss stood. The march was over. Now the fight began.