Skodar's declaration hung in the air of the Genesis Chamber. "You activated the Gene-Lock. But my scars aren't Prima energy anymore."
Elder Korvax stared, his traditionalist composure cracking for the first time. The Purist warriors around him shifted uneasily, their weapons—designed to disrupt biological energy fields—pointed uselessly at Skodar.
"What blasphemy is this?" Korvax hissed.
Skodar looked at his own hands, where the silvery scars pulsed with a dark, starless light. "Malakor's null-energy. The antithesis of life. I absorbed it at the Calm Spire. My body… integrated it. My scars aren't wounds from gaining power. They're records of what I've survived. And null-energy doesn't care about your Gene-Lock."
He took a step forward. The Purists stepped back. The chamber's normal blue illumination seemed to retreat from Skodar, leaving him in a pool of shadow shot through with silver.
"You speak of purity," Skodar continued, his voice low but carrying to every corner. "Of bloodlines. You called my mother weak for loving a 'degraded' man. But I stood before the architect of silence and showed him a memory of my father teaching me to whittle a toy from Hudoj-pad stems. A useless skill. A pointless memory. And it was that pointless, imperfect memory that made a cosmic horror hesitate. Your purity is a cage, uncle. My 'dilution' is the key that unlocked the universe."
Korvax's face twisted. "You are corruption made flesh! A hybrid abomination!" He raised a ceremonial dagger—not a technological weapon, but a shard of ancient, dark crystal. "This is Void-Shard. The only substance that can permanently sever Prima connections. The ancients used it to punish traitors to the bloodline."
He lunged.
Skodar didn't dodge. He let the dagger strike his chest.
There was no impact. The Void-Shard touched the black-silver glow of his scars… and dissolved. Not shattered. It un-made itself, turning to harmless dust that fell between them.
Korvax stared at his empty hand, then at Skodar's unmarked chest. "Impossible…"
"The Void-Shard cancels life-energy," Skodar said, almost gently. "My scars are the memory of cancellation. You can't cancel a cancellation. You can only… remember it harder."
He placed a hand on Korvax's forehead. Not to attack. To show.
He projected the memory of the Calm Spire—not the victory, but the agony. The feeling of his very soul being scoured by null-energy, of his love for Sukodar becoming a dry fact, of his grief becoming a data point. He showed the moment he chose to bear that cost rather than let it touch his people.
Korvax gasped, staggering back. Tears—real, shocked tears—welled in his eyes. He had expected power. He was shown pain.
"That… that is what you carry?" he whispered.
"Every day," Skodar said. "So don't talk to me about purity of suffering. My blood is 'diluted' with the pain of a universe that wants to be empty. And I chose to carry it so my brother's laughter doesn't have to be."
The fight left Korvax. He sank to his knees. Around him, the Purist warriors lowered their weapons. The Gene-Lock field sputtered and died.
Lyra and the other Queens, their powers returning, secured the chamber. But the victory felt hollow.
Scene 2: The Poisoned Choice
In the aftermath,Korvax was taken to a holding cell, not a dungeon. Skodar sat across from him, the barrier between them transparent.
"Why the suicide poison?" Skodar asked. "You had the Gene-Lock. You had me cornered. Why have that ready?"
Korvax wouldn't meet his eyes. "A true Traditionalist… cannot live in a world ruled by a hybrid. It was always the plan. Victory… or the clean end."
"And the others? Your followers? Do they get 'the clean end' too?"
"They followed the purity of the ideal. They will accept the consequence."
Skodar leaned forward. "That's the problem with your purity, uncle. It only has two settings: perfect victory or perfect death. There's no room for… messy survival." He stood. "You don't get the clean end. You get to live. You get to watch the 'diluted' world you hate… thrive. That's your punishment."
As Skodar walked away, Korvax called out, his voice broken. "What of my sister? Your mother? Does her sacrifice mean nothing?"
Skodar paused. "Her sacrifice was loving my father. That's the story I honor. Not your version of it."
But the encounter left a crack in Skodar's certainty. That night, in the quiet of his chambers, he accessed the Genesis Archives. He found his mother's record. Liana of the First Blood. Her genetic profile showed near-perfect Prima alignment. And his father's record… a simple villager, genetic degradation at 73%.
Yet, his own scan now, post-Malakor, post-null-energy absorption, was something else entirely. A chaotic, vibrant, impossible mix. He wasn't diluted.
He was something new