CHAPTER 208: A WAR OF LIVING LEGENDS

The Curator Prime’s calm voice echoed in the huge hall. "Begin."

The stone figures came to life. They didn’t just stumble forward like clumsy monsters. They moved with the skill of the real heroes and villains they were based on.

The giant warrior with the axe of light let out a silent roar and charged, swinging his weapon in a huge arc that could cut a tank in half. The four-armed alien became a blur, dashing from wall to wall, too fast to track.

The stone knight raised its humming sword and took a perfect dueling stance.

"Well," Scarlett muttered as she dodged a super-fast punch from the four-armed golem. "This is a new one. I’m fighting a history lesson."

The team fell into a defensive circle. Ryan was the center, a calm anchor in the storm. He used his god Shaper power not to attack, but to control the battlefield.

When the giant warrior’s axe came crashing down, Ryan pointed a finger and a chunk of the marble floor rose up to meet it, blocking the blow with a loud crack.

Zara’s micro-drones zipped through the air, too small for the golems to hit. They couldn’t do much damage, but they could be very annoying.

They swarmed around the knight’s head, bumping into its face and blocking its view. The knight, programmed to be a noble duelist, swung its sword in frustration at the buzzing pests.

Emma was the team’s eyes. "Scarlett, the four-armed one has a weak point in its back, where the arms connect!" she yelled over the noise. "Ryan, the big one is slow to recover after a big swing!"

They were holding their ground, but barely. For every golem they knocked down, two more seemed to step out of the shadows. The sheer number of them was overwhelming.

Suddenly, a side door to the hall burst open. A figure stormed through, moving with a speed that did not seem right for someone who was supposed to be in the medbay.

It was Ilsa Varkov. She still had a white bandage wrapped around her arm, but she held a heavy energy rifle in her good hand. Her face was set in a grim, angry line.

"I was told there was a fight," she said, her voice like grinding rocks. She didn’t wait for an answer. She raised her rifle and fired a blast of energy that hit the giant warrior square in the chest, making it stagger backward.

She charged into the fight, a storm of metal and fury. She was not as fast as Scarlett, but she was a wall. She moved with purpose, her heavy boots stomping on the floor, her shots precise and powerful.

She became a one-woman shield, protecting the team’s flank and blasting any golem that got too close into a pile of gravel.

Even with Ilsa’s help, they were still outnumbered. Carmella , who was more of a pilot and a talker than a frontline fighter, stayed near the back of the group.

She dodged and weaved, firing her small pistol when she had a clear shot, but her mind was racing. Fighting fair was for heroes in stories. She had survived her whole life by fighting smart.

She looked around the huge library hall, her eyes darting everywhere. She wasn’t just looking at the enemies. She was looking at the room itself.

The giant shelves full of data crystals reached all the way to the high ceiling. She noticed thick power cables running along the base of each shelf, feeding energy to the glowing crystals. An idea sparked in her mind; a messy, dangerous, and very fun idea.

"Emma!" Carmella yelled into her comm. "Those big shelves, are they stable?"

Emma took a half-second to check the building plans. "No! They are held up by magnetic locks powered by those cables at the bottom! Why?"

"I have a terrible idea!" Carmella said with a grin. "I need to get to that control panel on the far wall. Cover me!"

The team understood immediately. They focused their fire, creating a small, clear path for her. Carmella took off, running like her life depended on it, which it did.

Ryan and Ilsa found themselves covering her retreat, their backs pressed together as golems swarmed them from all sides. They moved together perfectly.

He would raise a shield of pure energy to block a sword, and she would fire a powerful shot through the gap he created. He moved left, she moved right.

He blocked a high swing, and she ducked under his arm and slammed the butt of her rifle into a golem’s knee, shattering it.

In the middle of the chaos, Ryan glanced at Ilsa. He saw the look in her eyes as she fought. It wasn’t just the look of a soldier following orders. It was the look of someone who had found her one true purpose.

It was a look of fierce, almost holy devotion. She would die here for him, and she would consider it a glorious end.

A stone knight, faster than the others, slipped past Ryan’s defense. Its humming sword sliced through the air, aimed right at Ilsa’s unprotected side. She wouldn’t have time to turn and block it.

Ryan’s eyes flashed with cold anger. He didn’t even shout a warning. He simply flicked his wrist. The air around the stone knight suddenly became as heavy as a mountain.

The golem was crushed from all sides, its stone body collapsing in on itself with a loud crunch until it was just a small, perfectly round ball of rock, which then dropped to the floor with a quiet thud.

Ilsa saw the crushed rock fall. She looked at Ryan, giving him a short, sharp nod. No words were needed. They understood each other completely in that shared moment of violence and protection.

At the far wall, Carmella slid the last few feet, slamming her hand down on the emergency control panel. "Hey history nerds!" she yelled. "Time to close the book!"

She rerouted all the power, shutting down the magnetic locks. For a second, nothing happened. Then, with a deep groan of stressed metal, the first massive shelf began to lean.

It tipped over, crashing into the next shelf, which then fell into the next, and the next, like a row of giant, world-ending dominoes.

Golems were crushed under tons of falling metal and data crystals. The noise was deafening. When the dust settled, more than half of their stone army was gone, buried under the wreckage of the library they were meant to protect. It wasn’t a pretty victory, but it was a victory.

The path to the core chamber was finally clear. They rushed through the door, weapons raised, ready for whatever came next.

The core chamber was a huge, round room. In the center, a massive crystal pulsed with a sickly, dark light. The lie was pouring out of it, a visible wave of wrongness spreading into the galaxy.

The Curator Prime was there, standing perfectly still, as if it hadn’t moved at all.

"You are too late," it said, its voice flat. "The broadcast is complete. The new historical record has been sent and authenticated by the Archive’s systems."

As if to prove its point, a new warning flashed on Emma’s data pad. Her eyes went wide.

"Ryan," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "There are ships arriving. A whole fleet just appeared in orbit."

A message request appeared on the main screen. Ryan accepted it. The face of a stern-looking alien in a crisp military uniform appeared. It looked at Ryan with cold, suspicious eyes.

"This is Admiral Vorl of the Orion Combine," the alien said, his voice hard. "We have just received a verified report from the Archive. It states that your mission is a lie, and that the god Weavers are a weapon meant to drain the life from this universe.

By the authority of the Orion Compact, you are now considered a potential threat. Power down your ship and surrender immediately."