Shane plummeted into the pulsating heart of the neural hub. He was not just falling through a space; he was falling through a symphony of the unmade. The whispers of the dead were not in his ears, but in his very bones, a torrent of a million shattered memories, a million silent screams. He saw flashes of lives lived and ended, of planets consumed, of civilisations that had believed they were safe. It was a perfect, blinding noise, a storm of information that was anathema to the Void's cold, unfeeling silence.
The Void's presence in his head, which had been a constant, smug presence, was now a shriek of pure, cosmic fury.
"What is this madness?" the voice raged in his thoughts. "This is not order! This is chaos! This is a virus! Get out of my mind!"
The ship itself seemed to be having a seizure. The purplish growths on the walls rippled and spasmed, and the pulsating light from the organs flickered wildly. The rhythmic heartbeat of the Supreme was now a frantic, stuttering beat, as if it were a dying animal. The corrupted crew members in the shaft below, the ones who had been watching him fall, stopped in their tracks. Their movements became jerky and confused, their milky-white eyes darting around in panic.
Shane, carried by a wave of raw, psychic noise, crashed down onto a metal platform just above the main core. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, but he was alive. He looked up, and he saw a terrifying, beautiful sight. The million ghostly lights of the unmade, of Lyra and all the others, were a swirling tornado of pure information around the hub. They were a song of resistance, a collective scream against oblivion.
He pushed himself to his feet, a renewed surge of energy flooding his body. He was no longer just running from the Void; he was its conduit. He could feel every single memory, every single emotion, of every being it had ever unmade. The sorrow of a mother losing her child, the fear of a soldier in his last moments, the despair of a civilisation watching its sun go out. It was a weight so immense it should have crushed him, but it was also a weapon. The Void was a god of silence. They were giving it a voice, a choir of a million souls.
"Silence! I will not be silenced!" the Void roared in his mind, and the mark on Shane's arm burned with a fire that was colder than ice. The Void was fighting back, trying to reclaim his mind, to make him a part of its silent, empty choir.
Shane had to act now. He looked at the main power conduit he had seen earlier. It was still sparking, still vulnerable, but the organic growths around it were beginning to close in, pulsing with an angry, red light. He had a few minutes at best before it was sealed off.
He scrambled along the platform, dodging the lashing tendrils of mutated wires and the flailing limbs of what used to be crew members. The Void was no longer controlling them with purpose. They were just mindless, confused puppets in its rage, twitching and spasming like broken toys.
He reached the conduit, a thick, pulsating artery of pure energy. It was too big to snap with his hands. He looked around, desperate. His eyes landed on a shattered console nearby. A jagged piece of metal, like a sharp shard of bone, was sticking out from the wreckage. It was a tool. His last tool.
As he reached for it, a thick, veiny root shot out from the wall, coiling around his leg and pulling him back. He fell hard, the voice of the Void now a triumphant roar in his head.
"You are ours! The song is fading! You are a part of the great unmaking!"
But it was wrong. The song was not fading. It was getting louder. The torrent of voices, of memories, was now a deafening storm. He felt a moment of Lyra's pain and a moment of Voss's defiance. He felt the cold terror of every being the Void had ever unmade, and he felt their last, burning hope. The voices weren't just memories; they were a legion, a final, screaming army of the dead.
Shane gritted his teeth and pulled. The root was made of living tissue, but he was fuelled by something much stronger than fear. He was fuelled by a million ghosts. With a sickening tearing sound, he ripped his leg free. The root snapped, and a dark, viscous fluid oozed from the wound.
He grabbed the jagged piece of metal and ran. The Void was no longer just a voice; it was a physical presence. The milky-white eye above the core was now focused entirely on him, a single, unblinking glare of pure, cosmic rage. The platform began to shudder, the metal twisting and groaning, and the very air around him grew cold and heavy, as if it were trying to crush him.
He reached the conduit and raised the shard of metal. The Void's voice, a final, desperate whisper, filled his mind.
"Do not... we will remake you... you will know true power..."
He didn't listen. With a scream that was not his own, but a million voices at once, he plunged the metal shard deep into the conduit.
A blinding flash of pure, cold light erupted. The sound was a roar that was louder than a dying star, a shriek that was not sound at all, but the complete, violent destruction of a mind. The entire ship shook with the force of it. Shane felt a searing pain rip through his body, and the mark on his arm flared with a light so bright it was a blackness. His mind went blank, a perfect, empty silence. And then, a new sound came. The sound of a dying machine, a last, shuddering groan as the Supreme finally came to rest.
The battle was over. But had he won?