The throne room was quiet—unnaturally so. No voices, no whispers, not even the hum of corrupted data that usually danced in the air like static. Darius sat on his obsidian throne, staring into the darkness ahead, his fingers wrapped tightly around the fragment of the Soul Mirror. It pulsed with an eerie, unstable light—a mix of crimson and deep violet, flickering like a dying star.
The artifact had cost him dearly. To forge it, he had torn apart pieces of his own code, melded fragments of Nyx's soul, and carved out raw emotion from Celestia's essence. The Soul Mirror wasn't just a stabilizer. It was a reflection of his existence—his dominion, his madness, his hunger.
And yet, it wasn't enough.
The rebellion hadn't ended with fire or mercy. He had crushed it, burned every trace of it, and still—doubt lingered like a virus in his mind. The Architect's remnants. The Prime Coder's hidden string-pulling. His slipping control. He could feel the fracture widening inside his godhood.
