The Architect stumbled back, his perfect white robe flickering with static. For the first time, his face showed a flicker of an emotion: Disgust.
"Chaos," he spat, his voice losing its smooth glass-like quality. "A primitive force of the past. You are a virus, Arkanos. A glitch in my perfect equation. And glitches must be purged."
He raised both hands. The walls of the Forbidden Sector began to peel back, revealing massive, pulsating bio-mechanical brains floating in glass tanks. This was the 'Omni-Mind'—the real processor that ran every light, every car, and every neural-implant in Science City.
"Accessing 100% processing power," The Architect's eyes turned a blinding, electric white.
Suddenly, the Architect wasn't just a man anymore. He began to grow, his body stretching and twisting as cables from the ceiling grafted onto his spine. He was merging with the Omni-Mind. In seconds, a ten-foot-tall monster of silver steel and raw electricity stood before Ray.
"Now, Ray," the giant spoke with a thousand voices at once. "Let us see if your little storm can survive a hurricane of absolute logic."
Ray didn't wait. He channeled the entire energy of the Chronos Engine into his left arm. The golden tattoos were now glowing so bright they were burning through his skin.
"Mana Pulse: Event Horizon!"
Ray slammed his fist into the ground. A wave of violet gravity rippled outward, crushing the floor and pulling everything toward him. But the Architect-God simply tapped his metal staff on the air, and the gravity wave turned into a shower of harmless flower petals.
"You can't use physics against the one who wrote the law," the machine-god boomed.
CRACK!
A beam of pure concentrated data shot from the Architect's chest, hitting Ray squarely in the shoulder. It didn't burn; it 'un-made' him. Ray's arm began to turn into digital code, pixelating into thin air.
"Ray! Your arm!" Elara screamed, firing her pulse-rifle at the giant, but the bullets simply bounced off an invisible barrier.
Ray looked at his disappearing arm. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt—it was as if his very existence was being deleted.
"If I'm a virus," Ray looked up, a wild, dangerous smile on his face despite the agony. "Then I'm the one that's going to crash your entire world."
Ray didn't try to stop the deletion. He 'Pushed' the rest of his body into the data-stream. He wasn't fighting the machine anymore—he was entering it.