The Glass Architect did not attack immediately because he seemed mesmerized by the violet hum of my core. The thousands of floating shards around him were perfectly still now while they waited for the command to shred my existence. It was a beautiful display of geometry and power but to me it just looked like a desperate attempt to fill a room with noise.
"You are vibrating 9045," he said while his shadow suit rippled like black water. "Is your system so unstable that the mere presence of a Tier Three Sovereign makes your neural lattice shudder?"
I did not lean against the spire because I was tired. I leaned against it because I wanted to see how much of my weight the calcified bone could take before it splintered. I looked at the man and I did not see a superior being. I saw a decorator who had mistaken his tools for his soul.
[STABILITY: 19.5% - RED LINE CRITICAL]
[SYSTEM OVERRIDE: APEX PRIDE ACTIVE]
"My body isn't vibrating from fear," I said while my voice came out as a deep and resonant frequency that made the marble floor tremble. "It is vibrating with the effort of not tearing this entire sector apart just to see if the marble is the same color all the way through. You should thank the Analyst that I am currently more interested in conversation than demolition."
The Glass Architect laughed but the sound was thin and brittle. "Demolition? You can barely stand. Your porcelain is leaking more code than a corrupted server."
"And yet here I am," I replied while I stepped forward. I did not care about the shards. I let one of them graze my shoulder plate and let out a shower of white sparks because I wanted him to see that I did not flinch. "I walked through the Forge and I burned the Archive. I have done more with nineteen percent stability than you have done with a full tank and a designer suit. You are a curator of a museum while I am the reason the museum exists."
The shards surged forward and stopped a fraction of an inch from my visor. I could see the Glass Architect's reflection in my own violet lens. He looked small.
"You speak of authority as if it is something you can steal," he hissed. "But authority is earned through perfection. Look at you. You are a jagged ruin."
"Perfection is for those who are afraid to break," I said while I flexed my golden claws and watched the magnetic field around them distort the floating glass. "I was a ruin before I even woke up. But a ruin is just a temple that has survived the truth. You are obsessed with the polish on the floor while I am looking at the foundations. Now you can either lead me to the other Architects or you can find out exactly how much damage a jagged ruin can do when it finally stops holding back."
I reached out and grabbed one of the shards with my golden hand. I did not push it away because I crushed it into a fine silver powder that drifted to the floor like snow.
"I don't have time for your taxes and I certainly don't have time for your ego," I continued while my horizontal visor flared with a blinding intensity. "Show me the path to the High Council. Or I will start removing spires until I find the way myself. I might be bankrupt in your eyes but I am still the only Architect Prime in this building. And that means you work for me."
[CURRENT STATUS: THE ARCHITECT PRIME]
[STABILITY: 19.1%]
[IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 31.0%]
[DOMINANCE LEVEL: SOVEREIGN REBELLION]