Chapter 437: The Empty Throne

Aurelia kept looking at Damon.

"Is there a difference?"

"A big one."

"Dominion needs a bearer."

"That’s what it said."

"Then, to remove me, you need to put someone else in my place."

Damon looked at the open golden symbol on his arm.

"That’s what you assumed."

Vorn let out a tired laugh from where he was leaning against the wall.

"I’d like it noted that, for the first time, I’m curious to see where this stupidity is going."

Damon turned his head.

"You’re bleeding on the floor."

"And yet I’m still following the reasoning."

"Then follow it quietly."

Ester pointed at Damon.

"You too."

"I’m necessary."

"Unfortunately."

Xue Lian had already moved closer. Her eyes traced the white lines of the true network, the open capsule, and the incomplete circle in Aurelia’s eye.

"Damon is right."

Aurelia looked at her.

"That worries me more."

"Understandable."

Damon raised an eyebrow.

Xue Lian continued.

"Dominion said a structure without a bearer is invalid."

"Yes."

"It did not say the bearer has to be a person."

Silence.

Vorn stopped laughing.

Aurelia slowly turned her eyes toward the golden symbol.

Damon smiled.

"Exactly."

The point on his arm responded immediately.

BEARER: ENTITY CAPABLE OF SUSTAINING PRIORITY.

Damon spread his arms.

"Thank you."

Ester looked at the mark.

"It actually answered."

"It’s learning to be helpful."

CORRECTION: FUNCTIONAL CLARIFICATION.

Damon closed his eyes.

"Don’t ruin it."

Xue Mei moved closer to her mother.

"So the network can be the bearer?"

Xue Lian did not answer immediately.

She looked at the white lines.

"Maybe."

Aurelia became serious.

"No."

Damon looked at her.

"Why?"

"Because then you would be handing an artificial command function to the true network."

Damon lost his smile.

"Good point."

"Dominion wasn’t created merely to exist. It was created to establish priority over other functions. If it’s connected to the restored network carelessly, it may try to do exactly what the Architects intended from the beginning."

Vorn nodded.

"Replacement."

Xue Lian looked at him.

"Yes."

Damon crossed his arms.

"Then we don’t use the network as the bearer."

"We’re back where we started," Aurelia said.

"No."

He looked around.

Capsule.

Walls.

Symbols.

The circular platform.

That place had remained hidden for centuries, keeping Aurelia suspended while Dominion remained unable to choose a successor.

Damon pointed at the floor.

"This."

Aurelia frowned.

"The facility?"

"It sustained you."

"The capsule sustained my body."

"I’m not talking about the capsule."

Damon crouched.

He ran his fingers across an old golden line.

"This entire layer was built to keep Dominion isolated."

Vorn raised his head.

"A vault."

"A structure capable of sustaining a priority."

Vorn fell silent.

Damon smiled.

"Your face is doing that thing."

"What thing?"

"The one where you hate that you didn’t think of it first."

"I still haven’t agreed."

"But you thought it."

Vorn clenched his teeth.

Xue Lian knelt beside Damon.

"It could work."

Aurelia looked at her.

"A facility doesn’t decide."

"Good," Damon replied.

She went still.

He pointed at Dominion.

"That’s exactly its problem."

Silence.

"Dominion was created to possess because someone has to define priority. So they always looked for a mind to do it."

Xue Lian followed the reasoning.

"But the structure doesn’t need to decide new priorities."

"It can preserve only the ones already defined."

"Without will."

"Without an owner."

Aurelia closed her eyes for a moment.

"An empty throne."

Damon looked at her.

"I like that."

Vorn sighed.

"Too poetic."

"You’re bleeding."

"You already said that."

Ester tightened another bandage over him.

"You’ll keep hearing it as long as you keep trying to talk."

Aurelia stared at the golden lines around the chamber.

"There’s a problem."

"Naturally," Damon replied.

"I wasn’t put here only because there needed to be a bearer. My compatibility was necessary to stabilize Dominion."

"Ninety-three percent."

"Yes."

"Then the room isn’t compatible."

"Not as an organism."

Damon looked at his own mark.

Then at the white network.

"But Adaptation now offers paths without imposing destinations."

Xue Lian understood immediately.

"You want to use Adaptation to allow the facility to sustain Dominion."

Aurelia went still.

Damon smiled.

"Without turning the facility into something it never chose to be."

Ester blinked.

"It’s a room."

"Exactly. It has no will to violate."

Vorn opened his mouth.

Damon pointed at him.

"If you say something philosophical, Ester tightens the bandage."

Vorn closed it.

Ester looked satisfied.

Xue Lian stood.

"We need Adaptation."

Damon looked toward the ceiling.

The redefined function was above them, incorporated into the black tree that had begun becoming part of the restored network.

"Can it reach here?"

The answer came without a voice.

White lines descended along the walls.

Among them, a single blue line.

Not dark blue like before.

Lighter.

Without pressure.

It reached the golden circle on the floor and stopped.

Waited.

Damon raised an eyebrow.

"It’s getting polite."

Xue Lian smiled faintly.

"Now it offers."

Aurelia watched the line.

"If we accept..."

"It creates a path."

"Not an objective."

"Exactly."

Aurelia took a deep breath.

Then looked at the facility.

"I accept Adaptation creating a means for this structure to sustain Dominion without altering its original function."

The blue line touched the golden circle.

The entire room trembled.

Vorn raised his head.

"That has never happened."

Damon looked at him.

"You had twenty-three years."

"I didn’t have a restored network, a free Xue Lian, a conscious original bearer, and an idiot capable of destroying three functions in two days."

Damon thought about it.

"Fair."

The gold on his arm exploded.

NEW CANDIDATE STRUCTURE DETECTED.

Aurelia closed her eyes.

COMPATIBILITY: 04%.

Damon lost his smile.

"That’s low."

Vorn laughed.

"Extremely."

The blue line pulsed.

ADAPTATION AVAILABLE.

The number changed.

11%.

Then:

19%.

31%.

Xue Lian became serious.

"It’s modifying the interface."

Not the chamber.

The connections.

Small channels formed between the walls, creating paths to distribute Dominion’s pressure without concentrating it into an organism.

47%.

Aurelia watched without breathing properly.

62%.

Vorn pushed himself slightly upright.

Ester immediately forced his shoulder back down.

"Stay."

"I want to see."

"Watch while sitting."

78%.

Damon became serious.

"How much does it need?"

Aurelia answered.

"The earliest records considered seventy percent the minimum for stability."

"Then it already passed."

"For an organism."

"This isn’t an organism."

"Exactly."

The number continued.

84%.

88%.

It stopped.

Silence.

Damon looked at Aurelia.

"Is that enough?"

"I don’t know."

Vorn grinned.

Damon pointed at him.

"Don’t even start."

The facility responded.

STABLE STRUCTURE.

Everyone exhaled.

Then:

SUBSTITUTE BEARER AVAILABLE.

Aurelia went still.

Damon smiled.

"Now."

The gold in her eyes reacted.

TRANSFER REFERENCE?

Aurelia looked at Damon.

He did not answer.

She understood.

The question was hers.

Not his.

Aurelia took a deep breath.

For centuries, that function had existed tied to her name.

To her body.

To her decision to remain trapped so that someone worse could not take her place.

It did not feel like a prison in that moment.

It felt only like something far too heavy that she had carried for far too long.

"Yes."

Dominion pulsed.

CONFIRM.

Aurelia smiled without humor.

"Persistent."

Damon tilted his head.

"Better than not asking."

She looked at him.

Then at Xue Lian.

Xue Lian nodded.

Aurelia turned back toward the symbol.

"I confirm."

The world turned gold.

Damon lost his sight for an instant.

There was no explosion.

No shockwave.

Only the deep sensation of something changing places.

When his vision returned, Aurelia was standing.

Alone.

Ester was no longer holding her.

The black line had completely disappeared from her eyes.

The gold was gone too.

For the first time, they were simply pale.

Human.

Aurelia blinked.

She raised a hand to her face.

Then to her chest.

"I..."

She did not finish.

She fell.

Ester caught her.

"She lost support!"

Damon moved forward.

"What?"

"Dominion was sustaining part of her!"

"Of course it was."

Aurelia was breathing.

Weakly.

But normally.

Ester began working.

"It isn’t like Vorn. She was suspended for centuries. Her body needs to resume functions it hasn’t performed on its own."

Damon looked at Aurelia.

"Is she going to die?"

Ester shot him a look.

"Not if you stop asking questions while I’m working."

"Understood."

Aurelia opened one eye.

"I prefer answers."

"You stay quiet too."

"I already like her less," Aurelia murmured.

Damon smiled.

"It’ll pass."

The floor pulsed.

Everyone stopped.

Dominion’s symbol had changed.

Before, a closed golden circle.

Now there was an empty center.

An incomplete ring.

The same symbol that had appeared on Damon’s arm after Refusal had been included.

A message appeared.

PRIMARY BEARER: STRUCTURE.

Another.

OWNER: ABSENT.

Damon smiled.

"It worked."

Vorn stared.

"You actually did it."

"Yes."

"Dominion without an owner."

"Yes."

"Anchored to a facility without will."

"Yes."

Vorn closed his eyes.

"I deeply hate this week."

Damon laughed.

Then another message appeared.

FUNCTION AWAITING PRIORITY DEFINITION.

The smile vanished.

Aurelia tried to lift her head.

"Don’t answer."

"I wasn’t going to."

Ester looked at him.

"Lie."

"I really wasn’t."

Damon moved only close enough to read.

"It wants to know what it exists for now."

Xue Lian stood beside him.

"Adaptation had its objective redefined."

"Yes."

"Then Dominion needs one too."

Aurelia’s breathing steadied.

"If you leave the old objective..."

"It’ll try to create an owner again."

"Yes."

Damon looked at the symbol.

Dominion.

Control.

Priority.

Command.

But function did not have to mean ownership.

He remembered the true network.

Paths without rulers.

Adaptation.

Options without destinations.

"What was the original function?" he asked.

Aurelia answered.

"Before the Architects?"

"Yes."

She took a moment.

"Coordination."

Damon turned.

"Explain."

"The original network had different regions. Different functions. Sometimes two responses were needed at the same time and they were incompatible."

Xue Lian understood.

"So it needed to decide order."

"Not who ruled."

"Which process came first."

Aurelia nodded.

"Priority."

Damon looked at the symbol.

"The Architects took coordination..."

"And turned it into authority," Xue Lian finished.

"Naturally."

Vorn laughed.

"You’re starting to sound disappointed by their creativity."

"I’m disappointed by the lack of it."

Damon held a hand near the circle.

He did not touch it.

"Dominion."

The structure responded.

AWAITING DEFINITION.

"You do not govern people."

The gold vibrated.

"You do not choose owners."

Another pulse.

"You do not define who must obey."

The symbol resisted.

PRIORITY FUNCTION REQUIRES HIERARCHY.

Damon smiled.

"Processes have hierarchy."

Silence.

Xue Lian smiled too.

Damon continued.

"People do not."

The white network crossed through the gold.

Aurelia closed her eyes.

Vorn became completely quiet.

"You exist to organize conflict between functions when two responses cannot occur together."

Damon breathed.

"You determine order."

The circle shone.

"Not ownership."

The message took time.

Too long.

Then appeared.

DEFINITION PARTIALLY COMPATIBLE.

Damon raised an eyebrow.

"Partially?"

Another sentence.

PRIORITY CRITERION REQUIRED.

Xue Lian became serious.

"That’s difficult."

Damon thought.

If Dominion decided by itself what mattered most, they would return to the same problem.

If a person decided, they would create an indirect owner.

Aurelia looked at him.

"Don’t use will."

"I know."

Aria would have made a useful observation here.

But Aria was several levels above, buried in documents.

Damon almost laughed.

Then he realized.

"Not priority by will."

Xue Lian looked at him.

"By necessity."

"More specific."

He remembered Heshan.

The true network balanced excess.

It did not obey desire.

It responded to what threatened the continuity of paths.

Damon looked at Dominion.

"Preserve first that whose loss would close the greatest number of paths."

Silence.

Xue Lian went completely still.

So did Aurelia.

Vorn opened his eyes.

Damon continued.

"Not the most powerful."

The golden symbol pulsed.

"Not the most important."

Another pulse.

"What keeps the most possibilities open."

The white network responded.

COMPATIBLE PRINCIPLE.

Dominion shone.

The entire structure trembled.

FUNCTION REDEFINED.

COORDINATE PRIORITIES WITHOUT ESTABLISHING OWNERSHIP.

Damon exhaled.

"There."

Ester, still kneeling beside Aurelia, looked at him.

"Nothing exploded."

Damon smiled.

"I’m improving."

Aurelia let out a weak laugh.

Then Vorn spoke.

"We have a problem."

Everyone looked at him.

Damon closed his eyes.

"Of course."

Vorn pointed at the wall.

One of the old symbols had lit up.

Not golden.

Black.

Below it was an inscription no one had noticed before.

Aurelia saw it.

And lost all the color she had begun to regain.

Xue Lian approached.

"You know it."

Aurelia did not answer.

Damon turned.

"Aurelia."

She took a deep breath.

"Dominion wasn’t the top."

"We already knew that."

"No."

She looked at the black symbol.

"You know there was something above the functions."

"Architect Protocol."

"Yes."

"Then?"

Aurelia raised her eyes.

"The protocol wasn’t an order."

Silence.

"It was a person."

Damon went still.

So did Vorn.

Xue Lian went pale.

Damon looked at the black symbol.

"An Architect."

Aurelia slowly shook her head.

"No."

The inscription lit up.

A single sentence appeared.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS DIVERGENT.

Then another.

CENTRAL AUTHORITY REQUESTED.

Damon lost his smile.

Aurelia finished.

"It was the one the Architects themselves answered to."

The black symbol pulsed.

And somewhere very far away, something answered.