Their escape was a frantic race against the collapsing site. They used the confusion, the panicked workers, the malfunctioning drones as cover. Their skiff, when they reached it, was half-buried in fallen crystal dust, but it flew.
As they sped away, they looked back. The Singing Canyons were no longer singing. They were weeping jagged, discordant notes. Smoke rose from a dozen fires. Malakor's great project was in ruins.
But there was no victory on Skodar's face. Only grim exhaustion. They had wounded the architect, but not killed him. And a wounded logical beast was the most dangerous kind.
On the Eclipse, Malakor observed the total systems failure at the Canyons. For the first time, his expression showed something beyond cold calculation: frustrated rage. The hybrid had not just resisted; he had infected the system with his chaos. The data was now contaminated. The Prism was destroyed.
"The variable has proven… toxic," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "The surgical approach has failed. The elegant solution is no longer viable." He turned to his aide. "Scrap Project Chorus. Initiate Contingency Zero. Prepare the Planetary Cleansing Beam. If the specimen cannot be captured and the disease cannot be tuned… then the petri dish must be sterilized."
Contingency Zero. The final, illogical solution. The orbital weapon capable of rendering the entire surface of Arthoje a lifeless, molten scar. It was the admission of total defeat for his philosophy, and he was willing to embrace it out of spite.
"Target: The Dawnspire mountain and the southern continent wilds. Burn it all. Leave nothing but glass and silence."