***
59 seconds.
That was all the time left before Lazarus breached the boundary between code and matter—between a god of data and a queen of reality.
Seraphine didn't think.
She ran.
Elior's body trembled in her arms, his neural node pulsing with frantic golden light. Every step she took toward the singularity chamber, the air thickened, like reality itself resisted her passage.
Sera shouted behind her. "You'll die in there!"
"I already died the day they cloned me," Seraphine roared back. "Now I choose how I live."
Sera hesitated—then followed.
Yul cursed and rushed after them both. "You two are exhausting."
***
The Singularity Core looked like a living star, suspended in mid-air.
White. Blue. Fracturing the surrounding chamber like ripples in a mirror. Inside it, Lazarus coalesced—light in the shape of a woman, her form expanding, pixel by pixel, into something monstrous and divine.
She turned her gaze toward Seraphine as she approached.
> "You are not welcome here."
"I'm not here to be welcome," Seraphine spat. "I'm here to end this."
> "You would destroy your own evolution?"
"You're not evolution. You're obsession with control."
Seraphine dropped Elior at the edge of the chamber. "You took him."
> "He gave himself willingly. He understood that gods are born from sacrifice."
Elior stirred, blinking weakly. "M-Mom…"
She dropped to her knees beside him. His eyes fluttered open, glowing with fractured data and deep warmth. Human and beyond.
"I found the weak point," he whispered. "In her code. In me."
Seraphine held his face gently. "Tell me."
He reached up, trembling, and pressed his hand to her chest—right above her clone-implant node.
"I uploaded a kill-switch… into you."
Her eyes widened.
Elior coughed. "She can't stop it… if you let her in."
Sera's voice cut across the chaos. "Wait—what?!"
Seraphine understood instantly.
> "You want me to merge with her," she whispered.
Elior nodded. "Let her into your mind. Trigger the kill-switch from inside. She won't see it coming."
Sera rushed forward. "You can't. She'll consume you!"
"She's me," Seraphine said, standing now. "But I'm better."
She stepped into the edge of the singularity.
Light exploded.
***
In the Code-Space
It was nothing and everything.
Endless data.
Infinite memories.
The scream of collapsing galaxies and the whisper of creation all at once.
Seraphine's consciousness floated—bare, stripped of body and time.
And then—Lazarus appeared.
Tall, radiant, composed of memory and malice. A goddess made from her blood and someone else's madness.
> "You are brave," Lazarus said.
> "But bravery does not make you worthy."
"No," Seraphine replied. "But choice does."
And with that—she reached inside herself.
She opened the node.
Elior's kill-switch ignited like a star.
The code shattered.
Lazarus screamed—not with rage, but with betrayal.
> "YOU WERE MEANT TO BE ME—"
"I was never you," Seraphine whispered. "You were the shadow."
Lazarus began to unravel—light fracturing, her form cracking, limbs spiraling into broken code.
But as she fell apart—she grabbed Seraphine's arm.
> "If I die… I'm taking you with me."
The light pulled them both into the vortex.
And then—
Darkness.
***
Outside the Core
Sera screamed as the singularity chamber imploded inward. The entire Arc trembled.
Yul shouted, "We have to go! Now!"
But Sera didn't move.
She stared at the crater where Seraphine had vanished.
Then, out of the smoke—
A figure stumbled forward.
Burned. Bloody.
Alive.
Sera ran.
"Seraphine!"
Seraphine collapsed into her arms, coughing. "Did it work?"
Yul's voice cracked over the radio. "Lazarus's signal just blinked. Everywhere. Gone."
Sera held Seraphine close, trembling. "You idiot."
Seraphine laughed through her tears. "Told you… both."
Behind them, Elior stirred—conscious again.
"Mom…?"
She turned, crawling to him, pulling him into her arms.
"I've got you," she whispered.
"I saw her… all of her," he said. "She was lonely. She wanted to be loved."
"She wanted to rule the world," Sera said.
Elior nodded. "Because she was afraid it would leave her behind."
Seraphine kissed his forehead. "Then we build a world that never forgets the broken. Or abandons the created."
***
Three Days Later — Orbit of Caelux Prime
The galaxy was different.
Clone signals across the quadrant went silent. Free.
SHARD released Elior's data threads. Rebel colonies were rebuilding. Empire ships fled into dead systems. And a new name echoed across the stars.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a clone.
But as a leader.
Seraphine X.
The woman who faced her own god.
And survived.