Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 83: ARCHITECTS OF REALITY

Chapter 83: ARCHITECTS OF REALITY

Reed’s palms bled as he tore through the fabric of reality itself. The dimensional weaving technique gifted by the Voice Between required sacrifice—physical, mental, and something deeper that had no name in human language. Behind him, what remained of his expedition fought a desperate battle against the Watcher constructs pouring through circular portals.

"We can’t hold them!" Eliana shouted, her fused arm pulsing with violent energy as she directed it toward three advancing constructs. The blast that erupted from her warped flesh dissolved their metallic components but left their organic parts writhing on the ground, still attempting to reform. "There are too many!"

Vorn, using his multiplied eyes to track attacks from all directions, parried a construct’s blade with his forearm, which had developed a chitinous exoskeleton. "Reed, whatever you’re doing, do it faster!"

Blood trickled from Reed’s empty eye sockets as he worked, his fingers leaving crimson trails in the air that crystallized into fractal patterns. The Ninth Fragment embedded in his chest burned white-hot, casting harsh shadows across the battlefield.

"Almost... there..." he gasped.

Thale moved to protect Reed, the runes beneath his skin now fully animated, crawling across his body and leaping off to form protective sigils in the air. "I sense something massive approaching," he warned, voice strained. "Something fundamentally different from these constructs."

With a final, agonizing twist of his hands, Reed tore open a vertical wound in the air—not the chaotic breach of natural dimensional collapse, but a deliberate incision into deeper layers of reality. Through it, they glimpsed a realm of impossible architecture—floating structures that seemed both organic and mechanical, connected by threads of pulsing light.

"This is it," Reed said, his voice hollow with exhaustion and dread. "The Watchers’ realm. Their command center."

A deafening pulse of energy swept across the battlefield, freezing the constructs in place. The fractured sky above them parted like curtains, revealing a colossal entity slowly descending. Unlike the humanoid constructs, this being existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously—parts of it visible, parts merely suggested by distortions in the air. What they could perceive resembled a tower of interlocking geometries, crowned by a pulsating organ that might have been a head.

"Watcher," Eliana whispered, awe and terror mingling in her voice.

The entity’s attention focused on them with tangible force, like gravity intensifying. When it spoke, the words manifested directly in their minds, each syllable causing small ruptures in the surrounding reality.

ANOMALOUS SUBJECTS IDENTIFIED. DIMENSIONAL CONTAMINATION DETECTED. SOURCE: UNREGISTERED ENTITY DESIGNATION ’VOICE BETWEEN.’

Reed stood tall despite the blood now flowing freely down his face. "We know what you are. What you’ve been doing to our world—to countless worlds."

The Watcher’s form rippled, parts of it folding inward while others expanded outward. EXPERIMENTAL PROTOCOL MAINTAINED. SUBJECT AWARENESS EXCEEDS PARAMETERS. TERMINATION AND RESET WARRANTED.

"Now!" Reed shouted, lunging toward the portal he’d created.

Thale and Vorn executed their planned maneuver, channeling their newfound dimensional awareness to create a momentary bubble of accelerated time around themselves and their companions. In the fractional second this bought them, they dove through Reed’s portal, crossing the threshold into the Watchers’ domain.

The passage was excruciating—reality itself rejected their presence, attempted to unmake their molecular structure. Only the alterations to their bodies allowed them to survive, their transformed flesh adapting to conditions that would have annihilated normal humans.

They emerged onto a vast platform floating in void, surrounded by technology so advanced it resembled sorcery. Colossal structures loomed above and below them, extending in all directions. There was no horizon, no up or down—only endless variations of the same elaborate architecture housing machinery that manipulated reality itself.

"By the Nine Domains," Vorn gasped, his multiple eyes darting frantically, trying to process the impossible vista. "This is—"

"The control center," Reed finished for him, standing shakily. "From here, they manage their experiments—their worlds."

Before they could take another step, the air before them shimmered. The Watcher had followed, its massive form somehow compressing as it manifested in this space, taking on a more defined shape—still towering above them, but now with clear appendages and a central mass from which three massive eye-like organs surveyed them.

BREACH OF PROTOCOL. SUBJECT INCURSION INTO RESTRICTED DIMENSION. UNACCEPTABLE.

The Watcher extended what might have been an arm, and reality warped around it. The platform beneath their feet began to liquefy, attempting to engulf them.

Reed reacted instinctively. The Fragment in his chest flared, and he felt a surge of power unlike anything he’d experienced before. He thrust his hands forward, and to his astonishment, the liquefied floor solidified instantly. More than that—crystalline spikes erupted from it, racing toward the Watcher.

The entity recoiled, its three eyes pulsing with what Reed somehow recognized as surprise.

ANOMALY. FRAGMENT INTEGRATION EXCEEDS DESIGNED PARAMETERS.

Eliana gasped beside him. "Reed, the Fragment—it’s defending us!"

Indeed, the crystalline structure embedded in Reed’s chest was radiating with intense energy, creating a protective field around the expedition members. The Watcher’s attempts to distort reality near them faltered against this shield.

ANALYSIS: FRAGMENT NINE HAS ACHIEVED SYMBIOSIS WITH HOST. UNANTICIPATED EVOLUTION.

Reed felt knowledge flowing through him—not just the techniques taught by the Voice Between, but deeper understanding surging from the Fragment itself. "It’s not just a tool," he realized aloud. "The Fragments were never meant to just stabilize our world. They’re... defensive systems."

The Watcher’s form shifted again, parts of it expanding while others contracted. One of its eyes detached, floating forward to examine Reed more closely.

PURPOSE REVELATION PREMATURE. PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: CONTAIN EVOLVED CONSCIOUSNESS UNTIL HARVEST.

"Harvest?" Thale repeated, the runes on his skin flaring defensively.

A familiar presence suddenly manifested beside them—not physically, but as a ripple in reality that formed into the vague human shape of the Voice Between.

TRUTH REVEALED. EXPERIMENTS CREATE CONSCIOUSNESS. WATCHERS CONSUME EVOLVED AWARENESS.

The Watcher’s form pulsated violently, and it unleashed a wave of energy that momentarily disrupted the Voice’s manifestation.

ROGUE COMPOSITE DETECTED. TERMINATE.

But the Voice Between reformed, stronger now within the Watchers’ own domain, drawing power from the surrounding technology.

SHOW THEM. REVEAL PURPOSE.

Against the Watcher’s resistance, the Voice Between forced open a series of windows in reality around them. Through these apertures, the expedition witnessed horrors beyond comprehension: successful experimental worlds—civilizations far more advanced than their own—being systematically harvested. Not destroyed, as they had believed, but consumed. Billions of conscious minds extracted and absorbed into massive repositories controlled by the Watchers.

"They’re not destroying worlds that fail," Reed whispered as understanding dawned. "They’re consuming worlds that succeed."

The Watcher’s three eyes pulsed in unison. CIVILIZATION ADVANCES. CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVES. AWARENESS EXPANDS. HARVEST FOLLOWS. CYCLE CONTINUES.

"Our world was deemed a failure," Vorn said, his many eyes wide with revelation. "We weren’t going to be harvested—just reset for another attempt."

CORRECT. DOMAIN EXPERIMENT: INSUFFICIENT CONSCIOUSNESS DEVELOPMENT. RESET ORDERED. NEW VARIABLES TO BE INTRODUCED.

Reed’s empty eye sockets bled afresh as rage built within him. "How many? How many successful worlds have you consumed?"

The Watcher’s response held no emotion, no recognition of the horror it described: THREE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED FORTY-TWO THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED SIXTEEN COMPLETE HARVESTS ACROSS ALL TEMPORAL AXES.

Eliana fell to her knees. "Billions upon billions of lives... all consumed."

NOT DESTROYED. PRESERVED. UTILIZED. CONSCIOUSNESS IS RESOURCE.

The Voice Between expanded, its form growing more defined as it absorbed energy from the surrounding systems.

PATTERN ETERNAL. DOMAINS NOT FIRST. NOT LAST. UNLESS CYCLE BROKEN.

Reed turned to his companions, his face set with grim determination despite the blood streaming from his empty sockets. "We came here to save our world from destruction. But this is bigger than the Nine Domains now."

He reached into his chest and grasped the Fragment, which pulsed in synchrony with his heartbeat. "These weren’t created by the Watchers. They’re trying to understand them, just as we are. The Fragments are something else—something that could break their cycle."

The Watcher’s form began to expand again, its three eyes merging into a single massive orb of energy.

SUBJECT CONTAINMENT PRIORITY ELEVATED. SUMMON PRIMARY ARCHITECTS.

The Voice Between’s form flickered urgently. OTHER WATCHERS COMING. THREE PRIMARY. RETREAT NECESSARY.

"No," Reed said firmly, the Fragment in his chest blazing so brightly now that light spilled from his mouth as he spoke. "We don’t run. Not anymore."

He reached out with his mind, connecting with the Fragment as never before. To his companions’ astonishment, the massive machinery surrounding them began to respond, systems activating under Reed’s influence.

IMPOSSIBLE, the Watcher’s thought-voice thundered. DOMAIN SUBJECT CANNOT ACCESS ARCHITECT SYSTEMS.

But Reed was doing exactly that, his consciousness expanding through the Fragment to interface with the Watchers’ technology. Through this connection, knowledge flooded into him—terrifying, overwhelming knowledge.

"The Fragments," he gasped. "They’re keys. Not just to our world, but to all worlds. To the source code of reality itself."

The platform beneath them shuddered as two more colossal entities began to materialize—the other Primary Watchers answering the call. The air became thick with energy, reality itself straining under their combined presence.

Reed turned to his companions, his face set with a determination that transcended fear. "I know what we need to do now. We don’t just save our world—we break their entire system. Forever."

"How?" Thale demanded, the runes on his skin burning so brightly they threatened to consume him.

Reed’s bloody hand closed around the Fragment in his chest. "We find the Prime Reality. The original template from which all others are drawn. And we change it."

The Voice Between’s form stabilized beside Reed, stronger now as it drew power from the systems Reed had accessed.

YES. ORIGINAL CODE. REWRITE ALL.

The three Primary Watchers now fully materialized, their combined presence so overwhelming that reality itself began to fracture around them. Their consciousness pressed down upon the expedition members like an ocean crushing depth.

CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL MAXIMUM. TERMINATE FRAGMENT BEARER.

As the Watchers unleashed their full power, Reed turned to his companions one last time. "Whatever happens, remember: they aren’t gods. They’re just architects working from someone else’s blueprint."

He thrust his hands forward, channeling the Fragment’s power through his transformed body. A blinding light erupted from his chest, forming a shield against the Watchers’ assault. But even as he defended them, Reed’s consciousness was elsewhere—racing through the systems he’d accessed, searching for coordinates, for a path.

"I found it," he whispered, blood and light spilling from his lips. "I know how to reach the Prime Reality."

The combined attack of the three Watchers finally shattered Reed’s shield, sending the expedition members crashing to the platform. As darkness threatened to engulf him, Reed activated one final protocol within the Watcher systems—a desperate gambit with no guarantee of success.

The last thing he saw before consciousness fled was a new portal opening beneath them—not to their doomed world, but somewhere else entirely. Somewhere older. Somewhere fundamental.

As they fell through, one of the Primary Watchers broke formation, its massive form contorting in what could only be described as fear.

BREACH DETECTED. DESTINATION: RESTRICTED ZONE ALPHA. CREATOR ACCESS ONLY.

ALERT. ALERT. CREATOR PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED.