Samuel floated in darkness—not the suffocating kind, but something deeper, older.It wasn’t just the absence of light.It was before light.Before stars.Before memory.The universe around him pulsed with a rhythm his body could no longer define. He wasn’t standing, sitting, or lying. He was simply existing—as thought, as vibration, as echo. Time felt irrelevant. Space was a myth. He didn’t know if a second had passed or a century.But then…A flicker.A ripple of light spread like oil across obsidian glass, and with it, sound returned—a chorus of whispers, speaking in tongues he somehow understood.“He arrives. Again. As foretold. As broken. As whole.”Samuel didn’t respond. He couldn’t find his mouth, his voice, or even his breath. But his thoughts screamed: Where am I?The darkness answered—not with clarity, but with sensation.He began falling… or maybe rising. The world twisted around him, reshaping itself into a new geometry. Suddenly, he stood within a corridor of stars—walls m

Far beneath the ice-crusted core of the Himalayas, in a hidden IMA command vault known only to the highest echelon, a man in black gloves slid a keycard through an obsidian terminal. A biometric scanner hissed. Then silence."Confirm Operation Omega," the voice requested—genderless, emotionless.He nodded once."Code Red Omega—confirmed."The terminal pulsed crimson.A low hum began to rise from the walls, resonating with a frequency beyond human hearing. Across continents, dormant IMA satellites blinked to life. Servers powered by psionic energy fired up in long-forgotten bunkers. In Antarctica, the old Axis Relay—the one said to have been destroyed—lit up like a neural web.And the world began to tilt.In the monastery above, Samuel jolted awake.He wasn’t dreaming—he felt it. Something deep in the weave of reality had shifted. The spiritual weight of the earth had become lighter, as though gravity itself were holding its breath.Joey was already up, hand on his side, eyes wide. “Yo

The mountain winds outside the Halcyon Arc howled louder than usual, as if nature itself had sensed the unsettling revelation stirring within.Sarah had been silent for hours. Though her body had stabilized, her mind hadn’t. She stared out the frost-covered window of the infirmary, watching the snowfall that never seemed to settle. Her reflection on the glass shimmered—blurry, fading in and out.She didn’t recognize the eyes staring back.Not anymore.Joey entered quietly, carrying a thermal flask. “You haven’t eaten.”She didn’t turn. “I don’t feel like it.”“Even soldiers need fuel.”“I don’t know what I am anymore.”He paused, setting the flask down beside her. “We all question that sometimes. But I know who you are. You saved me back in West Line. Twice. You stood by Samuel even when the rest of us doubted. That counts for something.”Sarah finally looked at him. “And if that loyalty wasn’t mine to begin with? If everything I feel was implanted?”Joey frowned. “What do you mean?”

The Himalayan valley stretched beneath a canvas of shifting pink and gold, as if the very sky was breathing. Silence fell like a soft blanket across the Vanguard’s temporary encampment nestled in a shallow ridge, flanked by snow-dusted pines and the glimmering frost of ancient ice. For the first time in weeks, no one was running. No one was bleeding. There were no alarms, no shadows in the corners.Just quiet.Samuel stood atop a jagged overlook, his breath misting in the cold evening air. Below him, scattered fires from Vanguard units dotted the mountain base—campfires, not burning cities. Laughter drifted faintly upward, mixed with the occasional clink of tin cups. A lull had finally come.He almost didn’t know what to do with it.Behind him, soft footsteps approached. He didn’t turn. He already knew who it was.“You’re not sleeping again,” Sarah said softly.He gave a slight nod. “Didn’t want to waste the quiet.”She came to stand beside him, her eyes scanning the horizon. Her face

The wind howled like an ancient spirit, screaming through the glacier pass with voices that sounded eerily human. The Vanguard stood on the precipice of the final march, the core gate buried deep beneath the ancient Tibetan ice awaiting them like a sleeping god. It wasn’t just a location anymore—it was the axis upon which their entire war would tilt. Victory or annihilation. Light or nothing.Samuel stood at the head of the formation, his long coat whipping violently behind him. The energy within his body hummed beneath his skin, rippling like living electricity. His new form—part man, part cosmic force—was stabilized now, though it left him constantly aware of the fabric between worlds. As if one wrong step would tear open a rift to somewhere he couldn’t return from.Behind him, Sarah adjusted her thermal gear. Her body still bore the scars of the purge. Her eyes had a new depth now—calm, sharp, but distant, like she could feel the whisper of the Gate in her very blood.Joey limped s