Samuel’s blade of light and shadow clashed with the Masked King’s aura of void, and for a brief moment, the very air between them ceased to exist—reality itself gasped. Time bent. Stars flickered in and out like faulty signals.And then it happened.The Masked King lifted a single finger and traced a symbol midair. A pulse of ancient magic erupted—one not of force, but of absence. Samuel’s footing slipped on the collapsing ice. Beneath him, the glacier split with a guttural roar.“Samuel!” Sarah’s voice cried, distant.But it was too late.The world beneath him gave way.And he fell.The abyss swallowed Samuel whole.He didn’t scream.He couldn’t.The air was stripped from his lungs the moment he plummeted into the rift. Down, down—past layers of ice that had never known sunlight, past the veins of crystal and relics buried in time. The world blurred into darkness and silence.And then—Impact.He hit something hard. Unyielding.But it didn’t kill him.Instead, it welcomed him.He lay

Behind Samuel, the chamber where Caelum Varion had taken his final breath was now sealed beneath layers of frozen stone. The air shimmered from residual frostlight, and the silence that followed his death carried weight—like the moment after a war ends, but before the bodies are buried.Samuel stood at the edge of a new dawn, but the world did not yet know it.Sarah and Joey emerged behind him. Both were battle-worn, bloodied, and quiet. Joey held a broken commlink in one hand; Sarah had her arm wrapped tightly in makeshift gauze, her shoulder stained red.They didn’t speak.They didn’t have to.He was dead.Caelum Varion—the mastermind of IMA’s internal council, the man who signed Samuel’s father’s death warrant, the silent manipulator of Project Orion—was gone.But it wasn’t over.Not yet.From the north ridge, Aria approached, carrying a metallic satchel. Her expression was unreadable. “We found it,” she said. “The relay terminal Varion used to communicate with the UN Security Netw

The Vanguard base was silent, heavy with tension and expectation. Word had spread through the team like wildfire—Samuel’s identity as the final result of Project Orion had been confirmed, and the world was now spiraling into upheaval. Yet, in that silence, something else lingered. An unease that none dared name.In the command tent, Aria Lin stood alone.The room was dim, lit only by a faint blue glow from the LUX terminal. Aria’s eyes were bloodshot, her fingers trembling slightly as she held a small metallic capsule in her palm. She stared at it like it was alive—because in many ways, it was.The failsafe.The one thing Samuel didn’t know she had built.Her orders from the IMA had been clear, years ago: infiltrate the remnants of Project Orion, gain the trust of the key subjects, and install a control mechanism should any one of them—especially Samuel—become unstable. She had done exactly that.But she had never expected to care.Not like this.“Doctor Lin.”Aria flinched.Joey stoo

Not the silence of defeat or fear—but the breathless stillness that follows transformation. As dawn rose over the Tibetan peaks, the snow glistened like polished crystal, glowing with the remnants of energy that had burst from the Vault hours before. Light lingered in the air like dust suspended in time. Every gust of wind seemed to whisper a question no one had the answer to yet.And from that light, Samuel returned.He walked barefoot across the frost-covered ground, no longer in armor or uniform, but wrapped in a simple robe of layered white and silver. No one saw him descend from the mountain. One moment, there was nothing—and the next, he was there, standing before the new Vanguard command camp as if he had always belonged.The sentries said nothing. They simply lowered their weapons and bowed their heads.He was no longer just their commander.He was something else now.Inside the newly constructed meeting hall—made from salvaged tech and reinforced with aetherstone from the Vau

The meeting was held underground, beneath the skeletal remains of what had once been the headquarters of the Central Security Bureau—a building that had collapsed in the early days of Samuel’s rebellion. Now, its ruined bowels served a new purpose: a war room for the desperate.Lisa leaned against the rusted edge of the old tactical table, her crimson lips pursed, eyes fixed on a city blueprint projected into the air. Her leather gloves were stained with oil and something darker. Beside her stood Arthur, gaunt and grizzled, fingers tapping impatiently against the hilt of a ceremonial dagger he had not used in years.Only three other people were present: high-ranking survivors of their old elite force—each a shadow of their former glory.“This is suicide,” one of them grunted. “We have, what, fifty men total? Half of them mercs who’d switch sides for a better paycheck.”Lisa smiled coldly. “And yet, you came.”“That’s because we have no other choice,” Arthur muttered, his voice low and