Chapter 50: The Architects’ Table
It had whispered into his thoughts—not alien, but eerily familiar, like an echo of himself coming from elsewhere. A memory he never lived.
Selene stepped closer. "That voice... it was one of the Architects?"
Valerian gave a slight nod. "More than that. I think... they’ve been waiting."
Without another word, he stepped into the gate.
And the world turned upside down.
There was no sense of falling. No sense of ground. Just motion without movement—his body suspended in a tunnel of broken light and glass. Shards of color drifted past like forgotten fragments of a dream. Symbols, memories, equations—pieces of code and history—spun around him. He wasn’t walking, yet something moved him forward.
Then it all dissolved.
He found himself standing in an impossible chamber.
A vast circular hall suspended in a sky without stars. There was no floor, no ceiling—just floating landmasses drifting like puzzle pieces in midair. The air shimmered with quiet power, and in the center hovered a massive round table etched with ancient runes. They twisted and shifted restlessly, morphing languages with every breath, searching for meaning.
Seated around it were five beings.
Each looked like him—but wrong.