Kaelen crawled away from the glowing finger, his pride shattered along with his armor. He looked at Zane, who was also struggling under the crushing weight of the Inquisitor's presence.
"Lia... where is Lia?" Kaelen whispered, searching for the woman who had promised him strength.
High above in the chariot, Lia watched with wide eyes. For the first time, she saw a power that made Fang Yuan's "Indigo Threads" look like spiderwebs. She felt a cold, sharp command vibrate in her mind.
"The Architect has sent his reaper," Fang Yuan's voice echoed in her skull, sounding amused rather than afraid. "Lia, it's time to show them that a virus can rewrite the entire system. Give them the 'Void-Sync'."
Lia raised her staff, but this time, the energy she released wasn't violet. It was a strange, oily blackness that seemed to bypass the Inquisitor's "Nullification." She pointed it at both Kaelen and Zane.
"If you want to live," Lia shouted, her voice distorted, "stop fighting each other! The Master offers you a choice: Be erased as failures, or become the Errors that break the God!"
Kaelen and Zane looked at each other. The Prince of Light and the Slave of Shadows.
"Together?" Zane growled, his dragon-eyes bleeding.
"Together," Kaelen answered, gripping his rusted sword.
In that moment, Lia's black energy hit them. It didn't give them back their old powers. It gave them something worse. Something Forbidden