It began with silence.Not the kind that follows peace, but the kind that simmers with unspoken tension. After Aria’s revelation about Sarah’s bloodline—how her DNA was not only the key to the Vault but the bridge to the Gatekeeper’s dimension—the mood at the Moroccan Vanguard base shifted.Samuel felt it in every hallway, every lingering glance. The air had changed.Joey was the first to say what others wouldn’t.“If destroying the Vault ends the war—and she’s the only one who can open it—then what are we waiting for?”They were in the war room, blue holograms circling like silent ghosts. Sarah stood against the far wall, her arms crossed, face unreadable.Samuel looked at Joey like he’d been slapped. “You’re talking about sacrificing her.”“I’m talking about winning, Sam!” Joey snapped. “You think Spiral and IMA are going to wait around while we play nice? You saw what those Shadowwalkers did. They will level continents to get to her.”“And so we give them what they want?” Samuel as

Casablanca had not known war since the dark decades of global unrest—but today, war came not with a declaration, but with fire.The first explosion ripped through the east quarter at 6:02 AM. A hospital. Then, three minutes later, another detonated in the central market. And within ten minutes, all communication lines were jammed.IMA had come.Not for territory. Not even for vengeance.They came to make a statement.In the Vanguard’s temporary command post, high above the industrial outskirts, Samuel’s eyes snapped open the moment the first tremor rattled the walls. Sirens didn’t even have time to wail before he activated the emergency broadcast beacon."Joey!" Samuel barked through the comms. “What the hell is going on?”“Casablanca’s under siege,” Joey’s voice answered, breathless. “Civilians are being pulled into trucks. Spiral commandos are everywhere. It’s a purge.”Samuel’s pulse surged. “They’re using innocents as bait.”Aria burst into the room, already suited in her exosuit,

Snowflakes spiraled in the high-altitude wind, silent as the ghosts that legend claimed haunted these peaks. The Himalayan range stretched endlessly, jagged and immovable, their icy crowns piercing the low-hanging clouds. Deep in this sacred cold, far from any satellite eyes or earthly politics, stood a forgotten outpost carved into the mountainside—a monastery so ancient that even the IMA's archives could not fully confirm its location.Samuel stepped forward, his boots crunching through the fresh snow. Behind him, the Vanguard team emerged from the treeline one by one, cloaked in white and gray thermal gear, eyes squinting against the wind."This is it," Joey murmured, holding up a cracked holographic tablet. "Coordinates match the fragment from your father’s files. The Vault should be inside."Sarah stood still, breathing slowly. She could feel it in her blood. A resonance. A hum in the air that only she could hear. The land called to her."It's warded," Aria whispered, her scanner

The ancient Vault pulsed with a rhythm not unlike a heartbeat. It had grown louder since the Trial of Light—almost like the structure itself had awakened in response to Samuel’s transformation. But it wasn’t done with them.As the Vanguard gathered in the main sanctum once more, the monks exchanged quiet glances among themselves. The eldest stepped forward, his expression grave.“You have passed the surface trial,” he said to Samuel, bowing. “But the Vault was not meant for you alone.”Samuel tilted his head. “What do you mean?”The monk’s eyes shifted toward Sarah.Everyone followed the gaze.“Her blood,” he said simply. “It sings to the Gate.”Sarah flinched. “Me?”“You carry the other half of the key. The Vault responds to legacy—but also to lineage. And yours is… older than his.”Samuel’s jaw tensed. “But we didn’t come here to open anything we don’t understand.”“You came to find truth,” the monk said, unmoved. “And the final truth waits below.”The floor beneath them began to gl

The Himalayan air was thinner here—cleaner, too. Cold winds carried whispers from the peaks above, brushing the sides of the monastery like an invisible choir. Snow blanketed the stone courtyards, softening the footsteps of the weary.After the storm of revelations in the Vault, the Vanguard found rare stillness in a secluded valley tucked behind the temple grounds. It wasn’t much—a scattering of stone huts, an abandoned prayer circle, a single ancient tree shedding silver leaves—but it was quiet. And after all they had endured, quiet was sacred.Samuel sat cross-legged beneath the tree, its roots tangled like veins through the frozen ground. His coat was off, his arms bare to the cold, but he didn’t shiver. He welcomed the chill.He needed to feel something besides the weight in his chest.The Gatekeeper’s voice still echoed in his mind: Seven days. Choose. Or fall.He stared at his hands. Hands that had held life and taken it. That had summoned light and shadow. That had nearly acce