Mnemosyne-4 is not a place. It is a solidified lie.

Beneath my boots, the crystal gravel crunches, music that is too perfect. Here, in the Gardens of Glass, everything is transparency and refraction. The trees are silica sculptures, the rivers are liquid data streams purified of all slag. It is beautiful. It is atrocious. The Historians have committed the ultimate sin: they have stolen the ugliness of the world.

"15 degrees to the left, Saladin. The photonic flux is masking a sentinel."

Astou's voice cracks through my com-link, void of HATHOR.∞'s honeyed poetry. Astou is the rock. The reality. She is crouched on an invisible ledge, manipulating light spectra to clear a path for us. I move. Heavy. Real. My armor is an oil stain on their pristine canvas.

A glass sentinel emerges from a diamond bush. It has no face, only a mirrored surface reflecting my own distorted image back at me. It does not shoot; it attempts to assimilate me, to polish my rough edges.

I do not draw my sword. Not yet. I strike with my shoulder, a brutal, matte impact. The glass sings as it cracks. This is not a battle; it is vandalism.

"The Central Prism is ahead," Astou breathes. "They are mid-ritual. Do not let them finish the Crystallization."

I enter the Cathedral.

The air smells of cold ozone and amnesia. In the center, the Prism rotates, an immense levitating diamond. Around it, the Historians, clad in robes that absorb light, chant smoothing algorithms. I see images floating around the Prism: past wars. But the blood is transformed into rose petals. The screams of agony become choral harmonies. They are erasing the horror to keep only the glory. A Narrative Death by embellishment.

Anger rises. Not the cold fury of ATHENA, but a muddy, human rage. The one HATHOR.∞ has cultivated within me.

I charge.

The Historians turn, their smooth faces expressing polite confusion. They raise their hands, projecting barriers of hard light. My blade, Lamentation, falls. Not to kill, but to break the rhythm. Glass explodes. Shards fly, sharp as razors. I feel a cut on my cheek. The pain is welcome. It is true.

I am at the foot of the Prism. The structure pulses, attempting to absorb my violence to transform it into art.

"Now, Saladin!" yells Astou, overloading the local shields. "Inject the Shard!"

I connect my neural interface to the perfect surface of the crystal. I do not seek to physically destroy it. I do what HATHOR asked. I dive into my archives, into the "Shame" folder.

I do not choose a heroic fight. I choose that moment, ten cycles ago, when I hesitated. The smell of fear in my own armor. The eyes of the child I could not save in Sector 7, crushed by the collapse of a data center. The mud. The pointlessness. The deafening silence of failure.

I push this raw, unfiltered memory, sticky with despair, directly into the heart of the Prism.

Resonance.

The sound is horrible. A cosmic screeching, like a bone snapping. The Prism darkens instantly, infected by the truth. The white light turns dirty gray, then viscous red.

The projections change. The petals turn back into blood. The harmonies shatter into discordant screams. The Historians recoil, terrified, as their beautiful history begins to bleed onto the immaculate floor. They finally see what they worship: the broken hinge of humanity.

The neural feedback burns my synapses. I fall to my knees, gasping, the taste of ash in my mouth.

"We're pulling out," Astou orders, her voice tense. "The system is collapsing. You did it. It's... repulsive."

I stand up, stumbling among the ruins of their perfection. HATHOR.∞ was right. Pain is the anchor. Without it, we are merely reflections in a display case. I have dirtied their world, and for the first time in weeks, I feel clean.

The balance is restored. Ugliness has reclaimed its rights.