The morning came slowly. For once, Benjamin didn’t wake up to reports, meetings, or urgent calls. The world outside was still busy, always busy, but today, he decided not to care. Today wasn’t about the world. Today was about Emily.She was already up when he walked into the kitchen. She wore a soft, oversized sweater, her hair loosely tied back, and she was humming something he couldn’t quite place. The sound was low and calming, a far cry from the noise of war or politics.“You came here early,” he said, his voice still heavy with sleep.Emily turned, a faint smile curling her lips. “Someone has to make sure you don’t burn the kitchen down.”Benjamin chuckled. “That only happened once.”“Twice,” Emily corrected, lifting a brow. “And I still remember the smell.”They laughed. It was the kind of laughter that didn’t need effort. Natural, unforced, the way two people laughed when they were simply comfortable in each other’s presence.“Okay,” Emily said, clapping her hands softly, “we’r

Amanda Williams stood at the far end of the conference table, her arms crossed tightly against her chest. The room was busy. Timothy bent over a laptop, Darius flipped through security maps, and Emily quietly scribbled notes. And Benjamin, as always, sat at the center, focused, his eyes sharp as he gave out instructions.But Amanda wasn’t listening to the words. She was watching him.His voice had that calm, steady tone she had grown to trust. His presence had that quiet strength she admired. Every time he looked up from the maps, every time his eyes swept across the room, Amanda’s heart jumped in a way she wished it wouldn’t. She told herself to stop. She told herself it was foolish. But the feelings had already taken root long ago, and now, they were growing harder to ignore.She had fought alongside him. She had seen him bleed, struggle, break, and rise again. And through it all, she had fallen in love with the man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.But then ther

Benjamin had thought the worst was behind him.The “Architect” was gone. The new faction was weakened. The world seemed to be finally taking a breath. And yet… the clues from before kept pulling at him, like threads he couldn’t ignore.At first, it was just small details. A strange glitch in the new systems his alliance had set up. A burst of data that didn’t make sense. A faint energy reading that appeared and vanished like static. On their own, they looked like harmless accidents. But Benjamin had seen enough battles to know that nothing was ever harmless.He sat in his study one night, the room dim except for the glow of the computer screen. The city outside was alive with lights and noise, but in his office, everything was quiet.Emily and his allies were all asleep, and for a moment, Benjamin considered shutting the computer down and joining her. But the files in front of him wouldn’t leave him alone.Reports from three different regions showed the same pattern. Systems are colla

The night after Benjamin’s proposal to Emily was quiet, peaceful, and filled with hope. For the first time in a long time, Benjamin allowed himself to rest, to breathe, and to think not only about battles but about life itself. Yet even in the warmth of his renewed love, he knew that the world’s problems could not be ignored.The discovery he had made, the truth behind the systemic flaw, was too great, too dangerous, to leave unspoken.So, when the sun rose the next morning, Benjamin made a decision.It was time to call everyone together.By late afternoon, the hall was filled. It wasn’t the largest hall in the city, but it was private and quiet, a place where they could speak freely without eyes or ears intruding.Around the table sat the people who had walked through fire with Benjamin. Warriors, strategists, healers, thinkers, friends, an alliance born not out of convenience but out of shared scars and battles.Emily sat near him, her presence steady, her eyes soft yet strong. On t

The library was quiet.Not the public one where children ran and old men whispered about newspapers, but the hidden one Benjamin Moore had inherited from his family’s long and complicated past. The room was deep underground, built from stone and steel, its walls lined with shelves that sagged under the weight of books, maps, and sealed boxes. A faint smell of dust and candle wax hung in the air.Benjamin had been here many times before. He had searched these shelves for clues about the treasures, for stories about the Architect, and for hints about his own family. But this time felt different. This time, he wasn’t looking for battles or enemies. He was looking for answers to the flaw.The flaw.The word itself was heavy. Ever since the final fight with the Architect, Benjamin couldn’t shake the sense that the victory had only peeled back a thin layer of a much bigger problem. He had seen signs, patterns in history, cycles of chaos, hints that destruction was not just caused by villai