Selthia had dropped it as a casual, arrogant piece of trivia in the middle of a deathmatch, and Ren had simply filed it away to survive.

Now, the horrifying, awe-inspiring puzzle pieces violently snapped together.

The ancient brain had willingly handed him the classified data, while completely locking Luna out. The supercomputer recognized his signature. It acknowledged him as an apex entity possessing some kind of administrator privileges, a being allowed to bypass the rigid, multi-crystal requirements it aggressively demanded from every ordinary human.

It was the exact same loophole Selthia possessed. It was the exact same authority that had allowed him to command the ruins’ doors to open without having to be crystalized.

"There is a way to fill all seven of these crystals," Ren said slowly. His voice was hushed. "Without sacrificing anyone..."

Luna’s eyes went wide. The breath hitched in her throat.

"What?"

"Without ever having to forcefully crystallize a living human being again to forge the cores." Ren stared at the towering brain, then at the seven empty sockets, and finally turned his burning gaze to Luna. "It just gave me the correct method."

Luna was completely paralyzed. If he could forge the hearts without human sacrifice, it changed everything, this was bigger than what Orion wanted.

"Bring Sirius," Ren commanded, his voice tight with anticipation. "Please. And position him on the exact opposite side of the brain from me."

He pointed across the colossal formation, indicating a specific, empty socket carved with twisting, ethereal runes.

"The Wind slot. Have him touch the crystal exactly there."

♢♢♢♢

Ren had specifically asked for Sirius for a very concrete reason.

The thread of data that the ancient crystal brain had injected directly into his mind included a staggering detail, something he absolutely never would have guessed on his own.

Since it changed his understanding of the consequences of his resurrection process.

He had assumed that when he pulled Sirius out of the crystal, he had completely, flawlessly reversed every single magical effect the ruins had inflicted upon the commander.

He was right, but also wrong.

The physical petrification had been reversed, yes. But the ancient system wasn’t that simple. When a living human was forcefully crystallized, the ruin meticulously mapped their three-dimensional biological and magical architecture.

It recorded the exact schematic of the sacrifice, burning that unique signature permanently into the deep, invisible tissue of the superbrain’s network the ruins seemed to be.

The answer to Ren’s worry didn’t reside inside Sirius anymore. It resided in the system’s memory.

That residual, metaphysical brand served as a localized access point. A reversed entity like Sirius could still interact with the crystal brain in a way an ordinary, un-petrified human shouldn’t.

It took Luna an agonizingly long time to physically separate her father from Lykea.

It wasn’t just because Sirius was stubbornly clinging to his resurrected wife like a drowning man. It was because Lykea, fresh out of the crystal and operating at maximum chaotic capacity, possessed absolutely zero intention of letting him go either.

She found him vastly more mature, undeniably stronger, and ruggedly handsome with his new small face lines, and because her brain possessed absolutely no filter between her thoughts and her mouth, everyone in the massive chamber heard her exact, screaming assessment of her husband’s maturity upgrades.

Every single time Luna gently tried to pull Sirius away for just a moment, her mother immediately invented a brand new, highly dramatic reason to retain her grip on him.

"NO! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HIM?! I just got to know him like this... HE SMELLS SO GOOD NOW! Like campfires AND DANGER! WHY DO YOU NEED HIM?! I AM NOT SHARING MY HANDSOME HUSBAND!"

Luna only managed to successfully pry him loose when she explicitly explained that it was a direct favor for Ren. The exact second Sirius heard the boy’s name, he yielded instantly. Apparently, anything requested by the boy who had handed him his wife back took absolute, unquestionable priority in his newly rewritten value system.

Sirius walked across the chamber and firmly pressed his palm into the empty depression on the exact opposite side of the brain from Ren.

A second, soft pulse of light rippled through the stone floor.

And with that localized activation, a fresh, deeper thread of classified data flowed directly into Ren’s mind.

Ren closed his eyes, rapidly processing the new information. As the architectural pathways aligned in his head, he realized he was staring at a massive, systemic puzzle. To fully unlock the supercomputer’s potential, he needed to integrate more pieces to finish mapping the network.

He needed Lykea, who possessed the exact same residual crystallization brand as Sirius. And he needed the black heart, the core belonging to Orion’s wife, whose statue remained frozen on the other side of the room.

A really interesting possibility began to form in his mind. It was currently incomplete, but the data hinted at a secondary, highly classified function regarding the massive pedestals located in the tenth outer chamber just behind this one.

Until now, they had assumed those pedestals possessed only one simple, functional purpose. He desperately needed more data inputs to confirm his theory.

"Ask your mother to place her hand in the Light socket," Ren called out to Luna, his eyes still closed in concentration. "Exactly like Sirius did."

Then, he turned to Selphira. "I need you to convince the representative to take the black heart out of the dark statue for just a minute. I just need it to ping the system. Any microscopic damage the removal or use causes, I swear I will personally repair it."

Selphira didn’t even blink.

She turned and delivered a look of such concentrated, terrifying intimidation... It was a single, glacial stare accompanied by half a whispered sentence. The secondary representative went bone-white. He immediately ripped the black heart out of the statue and handed it over, his panicked face betraying the loud protests he was far too terrified to actually voice.

Meanwhile, Lykea obediently waltzed over and placed her hand flat against the glowing Light socket. But, true to form, she didn’t do it quietly.

"What are we doing? What is this glowing rock? IS IT DANGEROUS?! Am I actually helping right now, or am I just standing here LOOKING PRETTY?! Because I can do both, BUT I PREFER TO BE USEFUL! Ren, honey, what is the plan?"

Luna frantically scrambled to entertain her, desperately feeding her answers to keep her anchored in place while Ren kept his hands firmly pressed against the brain, letting the next download complete.

This time, the data thread was absolute.

He received the entire, classified methodology. From beginning to end.

Ren broke his connection with the brain and sprinted out of the final vault, charging back into the tenth outer chamber where the pedestals stood.

These were the exact same pedestals that had previously received the Light and Darkness cores. Back then, slotting the cores had activated a localized barrier without consuming the crystals. The vanguard had logically deduced that the pedestals were simply a specialized, infinite maintenance mechanism.

They were completely wrong.

Ren now knew that fixed flow barrier was barely a secondary, passive function. Their true purpose was vastly more important: the pedestals granted a recognized apex entity, someone like him, or someone like Selthia, direct access to a systemic bypass that was forbidden to any ordinary human.

Ren slammed his palm down onto the Light pedestal.