SILENCE. Nothing. This is not as a Cryptum should be... No contact, no memories, not even a whisper from the Domain. This is truly a hell in its own cold way, and I suspect the Halos of the Master Builder and my weak double are to blame. Madness, all of it. For all I know, their desperate, feeble blasphemy has failed. Perhaps I am doomed to be stranded forever outside Living Time, alone with my thoughts, with the poison placed there by our enemy- or until a tendril of the Flood rips open my tomb and I am melted into the Mind, to join all those who have been lost.
But no. This is not possible. Why? Because of the Librarian, of course. Because to save her precious humans, there is no limit to the folly she would have attempted. Nothing would stop her from acting on their wretched behalf. Not even me. Not the memories of our loss. Not the crying voices of a trillion souls, doomed through the childish curiousity of the humans who awakened their enemy. Not the knowledge that I alone could repurpose these creatures, could truly provide them with the false immunity the Precursors favored them with.
Yes, the humans at least have survived. She will have seen to that by any means necessary.
My body is imprisoned, helpless, as a child. My mind continues to work, however, to consider the words of the Primordial, that insidious enemy. Its promise, not one of hope but of despair.
It promised to return, to test, to break, to torture life once again... Because its heirs would soon be ready. Because of humans, all life, such as would survive the firing of the Master Builder's abominable rings, would suffer. Suffering. Misery. Sweetness. All the same to that foe. My ravaged thoughts are witness to this unbearable truth...
A truth which I have seen. Such evil cannot be permitted to again meld, twist life into its image, all for the sake of proving the worthiness of those who will never be worthy. The Mantle itself requires sacrifice to protect all life. I swore to uphold that Mantle. Humans must not be allowed to condemn the galaxy through their ascendance. My wife- no, no longer my wife- has betrayed me to save them... And in so doing has doomed the galaxy. Such is not wisdom. She was cunning, the Librarian, but she should have seen the reality before her eyes.
Humans will rebuild, they will come forth from their cradle once more. They will search, as they have always searched, as they sought and uncovered the Primordial. They brought doom and destruction to all that lives then, but they will not have learned. They will not have learned, they will pry, they will seek out, they will open this crypt, and in so doing, save the galaxy. For I will take action. If there is no heir to test- if their will is foiled- the Precursors and their twisted tool, the Flood, will have no cause to afflict life. I will uphold the Mantle, for the good of all. I will destroy humanity, bring down its warriors, ravage its cities. I will bring them to extinction, and in so doing, protect life from its greatest enemy. I may be seen as a monster, as misery myself. I will accept this, if I know I have lived as a warrior should, if I have upheld the Mantle. The Mantle, all I have ever sought to serve. Aya, so be it. I have made my resolution.
In death, they will serve to protect that which they would have condemned in life.
Come now, humans. The last defender of the Mantle is prepared to do his duty. Your reckoning awaits.