I think pacman just literally broke itself during an update. Trying to go for a restore backup, because something's telling me an unfinished update, that included a new kernel, is not a good thing.
@alyx Years ago I had pacman break when updating glibc and then everything was broked. It was a fresh install and I ended up giving up on and going back to 😅
@djsumdog
Sweated there for a bit, but the update went fine this time around. Rebooted and everything.