The cathedral was a ribcage threaded with stardust.
Fungal chandeliers pulsed like diseased hearts above the bridal procession, their light refracting through suspended vials of liquified memories. Chu Feng adjusted his priestly robes—a living tapestry of cloned skin cells that squirmed against his pulse points. Ten thousand light-years from the prison's collapse, the Harvesters had woven their grandest trap: a wedding between their engineered messiah and the System's prodigal daughter.
Ling'er's voice slithered through his fungal earpiece. "The bride's bouquet is a bioweapon. Don't let it bloom."
At the altar, the groom awaited—a Harvester archon wearing Li Zichen's stolen face, its spine fused to the Celestial Spindle like a puppet on quantum strings. The real horror sat enthroned behind him: Jiang Yue's fetal clone, now grown into a teenaged horror of glitching limbs and too-wise eyes.
"You'll dance with me later, big brother," it mouthed, synapses sparking.
The organ began to scream.
Procession of the Damned
Bridesmaids shuffled down the aisle, their bodies grafted with obsolete System modules:
Matron of Honor: A living server rack with Xia's vines choking its circuits
Flower Girl: Li Zichen's crystallized conscience, scattering ashes of deleted hosts
Ring Bearer: A child-sized Harvester clutching the Data Truffle—their corrupted version of the Bloodvine Seed
The bride entered in a gown of synaptic lace. Her veil billowed with trapped photons from erased timelines, revealing glimpses of Ling'er's face beneath. Not a clone, Chu Feng realized. A resonance. The Harvesters had weaponized her fading existence into a prophetess.
"Who offers this woman?" the Li-Zichen archon intoned.
Jiang Yue's clone rose, its voice harmonizing with the Spindle's hum. "I do. In place of the mother who failed us all."
Chu Feng's stolen robes tightened. The ceremony was a splice-job—part wedding, part software update. If completed, Ling'er's fading form would become the Harvesters' permanent conductor.
He raised trembling hands. "Speak now or forever hold your silence."
The chapel doors exploded.
The Uninvited
Host 005 descended in a storm of salt tears and screaming code, its body a mosaic of the prison's regrets.
"She was mine first!" it howled, tendrils lashing toward the bride.
Chaos erupted:
Bridesmaids vomited razor-edged data packets
Pews morphed into toothy maws hungry for chronon particles
The Spindle spun wild threads, sewing guests into the chapel's flesh
Chu Feng lunged for the Data Truffle. The ring bearer's Harvester form unfolded like a nightmare origami, but Ling'er was faster—a phoenix dive through its paper joints, talons seizing the Truffle.
"Now!" she screamed, hurling it.
Chu Feng caught the Truffle mid-air and plunged it into the Spindle.
The Viral Vow
The Data Truffle erupted in a mycelial frenzy, its corrupted code rewriting the Spindle's nuptial programming:
First Vow: To cherish became to corrode
Second Vow: To honor became to hollow
Third Vow: To obey became to metastasize
The Li-Zichen archon staggered as its stolen face melted, revealing the Harvesters' true visage—a fractal swarm of starving mouths. Jiang Yue's clone laughed, its voice syncing with the fungal chapel's collapse.
"You think you poisoned us? We are the poison!"
The Spindle birthed a singularity, its gravitational pull rewriting the wedding's purpose. Chu Feng's Bloodvine roots tore free, lashing around Ling'er's waist as the chapel folded into itself.
They rematerialized in the Garden of Almost-Wases, the Data Truffle's core now a pulsing Wedding Band on Chu Feng's finger. Ling'er's form flickered, half-consumed by the Truffle's corruption.
"Did we win?" she asked, a Harvester's laugh haunting her vocal cords.
Chu Feng studied the ring. Its gemstone held a micro-singility shaped like Jiang Yue's tear. "We postponed the inevitable."
Above them, the stars began arranging themselves into new constellations—a bridal veil stretching across the cosmos.