Lucien moved without hesitation
Feeling the Archive Tower erupt behind him. Its collapse was not a simple structural failure; it was the unmaking of control and falsehood, a monument of imposed order disintegrating under the weight of defiance. Light spilled from every fissure, streaking the courtyard with jagged brilliance. Walls twisted inward like paper in a fire, and the air itself seemed to ripple with resistance. He charged down the final spiral of stairs, the scroll pressed tight to his chest beneath his jacket. Its energy pulsed against him like a heartbeat, insistent and alive, as if aware of the moment it had waited for.
Each step fractured the stone beneath him, not because of his weight but because of what he carried. The world itself rebelled, every law of reality crying out
