Chapter 10: The Shattered Veil

The Starblade shuddered as it exited the quantum slipstream, its hull groaning under the gravitational scream of the black hole. Before them loomed the Dyson Sphere of Yǒngyè—a skeletal megastructure orbiting the event horizon, its fractured solar panels glinting like broken teeth. Li Wei stood at the viewport, his stardust-veined hands trembling. The Seventh Core pulsed in his chest, a discordant rhythm that made the ship's lights flicker.

"Cheerful place," Kara muttered, her mechanical eye cycling through threat assessments. "Radiation levels could melt a battleship. How long do we have?"

"Three hours," Li Wei said. "The sphere's shields are failing. When they collapse, the black hole's pull will shred what's left."

Kara tossed him a breather mask. "Let's make it two."

They docked at a crumbling airlock, its seals corroded by millennia of entropy. The interior was a cathedral of shadows, the walls etched with faded murals depicting robed figures bowing to a star-eating serpent—the Prisoner's sigil.

"Charming decor," Kara said. Her voice echoed oddly, as if the air itself resisted sound.

Li Wei's hybrid core flared, casting jagged light. "Stay close. The Void Wraiths are near."

The wraiths came as whispers first.

Li Wei and Kara navigated a corridor of shattered glass and frozen corpses—Elysium researchers, their faces locked in silent screams. A cold breath grazed Li Wei's neck.

"Sovereign…"

He spun, Snow Dragon's spectral blade materializing in his grip. The wraith hovered before him: a humanoid void, its edges fraying into tendrils of distorted spacetime.

"Kara, don't—"

Too late. She fired her plasma pistol. The bolt unraveled mid-air, fracturing into a hundred glowing shards that rewound themselves back into the barrel.

Kara's Paradox: The wraiths existed outside linear time.

Li Wei slashed, his blade passing harmlessly through the creature. It laughed with Chen Yun's voice.

"You're too late, Master. The Core is already mine."

The wraith dissolved, leaving behind a psychic scar—a memory not their own.

Vision: Director Veyra standing in this very corridor, injecting a bound cultivator with nanobots. The man's golden core erupted, fusing with the black hole's energy to birth the Seventh Core.

"They're her failures," Li Wei realized. "The wraiths… they're corrupted cultivators."

Kara stared at her pistol, her human hand shaking. "We need to move."

The core chamber was a mausoleum of light. The Seventh Core floated at its center—a shard of condensed singularity, its surface crawling with anti-matter runes. Surrounding it were holographic archives, their data streams intact despite the decay.

Kara approached a terminal, her mechanical eye interfacing with the glyphs. "I'll download what we can. Keep those things busy."

Li Wei fought defensively, his hybrid energy destabilizing the wraiths but costing him dearly. Blood—or something like it—trickled from his nostrils, glowing gold and silver.

Across the room, Kara gasped.

Revelation: The archives displayed DNA sequences, cross-referenced with carvings from the Prisoner's prison. A match flared red: Kara's genetic code.

"Li Wei… I'm part of this. My ancestors built the Prisoner's cage."

Before he could respond, the chamber shuddered. Judge Omega descended through a rift in reality, Chen Yun's face grafted onto a body of writhing shadow and steel.

"Hello, Master," it grinned. "Did you miss me?"

The fight was a nightmare of recursion.

Omega wielded Chen Yun's techniques—Falling Petal Strike, Thunderclap Step—but warped by the Prisoner's entropy. Each clash warped time, replaying Li Wei's worst memories:

Chen Yun's death under Elysium's plasma fire.

Veyra's smile as she peeled the First Core from his disciple's corpse.

"You let me die," Omega taunted, its voice a chorus of Li Wei's regrets. "Will you let her die too?"

It lunged at Kara, who stood frozen before the terminal.

Li Wei moved on instinct, channeling the Seventh Core's power. Reality bent.

Sacrifice: He teleported Kara to safety but took Omega's blade through his chest. Nanobots and qi fought to seal the wound, but the Seventh Core's energy raged unchecked.

Kara caught Li Wei as he collapsed, his core flickering like a dying star.

"Why…?" she whispered.

He coughed, blood-silver vapor. "You're the key. The Prisoner's jailer… its destroyer. Not me."

Above them, the sphere's shields failed. The black hole's gravity clawed at the chamber, tearing holograms and wraiths alike into spiraling light.

Omega laughed, dissolving into the vortex. "We'll meet again… at the end."

Kara dragged Li Wei toward the Starblade, the Seventh Core now fused to his dantian. His skin cracked, revealing constellations beneath.

"Stay with me," she ordered, injecting him with Dr. Vex's untested serum.

He convulsed, his final words slurred: "The Eighth Core… it's in her… Veyra's heart…"

The Starblade launched as the sphere imploded, leaving behind a scar in spacetime—and a message from the Prisoner, echoing in Kara's mind:

"You cannot outrun your blood, little jailer."