Nathan hadn’t slept. After the confrontation with Selene, he spent hours piecing together the data from Syndicate caches, cross-referencing financial records, decoding hidden channels in the Imperium Corporation’s labyrinth of offshore accounts. Harper brought him coffee as dawn broke over the monastery walls, the bitter steam rising between them like a thin truce line.“Are you sure you’re ready?” She asked softly.Nathan’s jaw clenched as he spooled the final files into a secured packet. “Ready or not,” he said, voice hoarse, “this ends today.”He set up the transmitter in the monastery’s old communications room—bare stone, dust thick on unused equipment. But Tenzin had helped him retrofit it with stronger relays, enough to breach Imperium’s corporate firewall and splice into their secure board meeting feed.Nathan watched the screen flicker as the feed locked. He could see the gleaming boardroom: polished obsidian table, walls lined with scrolling financial reports, the Imperium

Nathan hadn’t moved in hours. The safehouse was dark but for the soft glow of candles scattered along the cracked stone walls. Dust stirred around him with every shallow breath, the air thick with incense from the old sticks Harper had lit before she left. His legs ached, folded under him on the rough mat. Sweat trickled down his neck, gathering in the hollow of his collarbone, but he didn’t shift. He couldn’t. The Dominion ring pulsed against his finger, feeding the currents of thought that spun around him like a maelstrom. At first, Nathan had used the ring’s power carefully, skimming surface fears, watching shallow memories flicker across the minds of Syndicate informants. But here, in this dead-silent room, he’d pushed deeper, stretching the ring’s reach past anything he had ever dared. Voices crackled in his head: Syndicate agents arguing over weapons drops, scattered street runners whispering about Volkov’s new purges, operatives comparing scars in dim-lit bars across the con

Nathan felt the hum of the engines fade as their flight descended into Narita. Dawn spilled across the tarmac, casting long shadows across the terminal glass. Miko sat beside him, silent, eyes locked on the horizon.Neither of them had slept. Nathan could see the tension in her jaw, the way her fingers dug into the armrest. He had seen her fight Syndicate assassins, outthink corporate enforcers, walk unflinching into gunfire… but the idea of facing her family again made her look like a woman about to shatter.When they stepped into the terminal, the air smelled of polished steel and old rain. Miko led them past customs, into a waiting car driven by a monk in gray robes. He said nothing, only bowed slightly and pulled into traffic.Tokyo sprawled outside the window, neon signs flickering even in the gray morning, the endless thrum of a city that never slept. But the monk veered away from the bright avenues, driving them into the older quarters, narrow alleys threaded with power lines a

Nathan guided Miko into the temple’s inner sanctum, his hand steady on her shoulder though he felt her trembling beneath his palm. The room was dim, lit only by a ring of lanterns hanging from the high beams, their soft orange glow reflecting off polished wooden floors. Incense coiled lazily through the air, mixing with the faint rustle of bamboo outside.In the center of the chamber, resting atop a low altar, lay the Ring of Vision. It gleamed silver under the lantern light, its etched symbols shifting like water when Miko’s gaze met them.She swallowed, voice barely a whisper. “This is it… the path my grandfather kept hidden.”Nathan studied the ring warily. He could feel its power, completely different from the Dominion ring’s sharp hunger. This one felt older, coiled, as if waiting for someone strong enough to endure what it showed.“You don’t have to do this now,” he murmured, searching her face.“I do,” she breathed. “If the ring shows what comes… I need to see it.”She reached

Nathan left the safehouse just before dawn, slipping through back alleys and service tunnels until he emerged across from the towering glass headquarters of Orion Media Group. Floodlights cut through the lingering night mist, glinting off the giant screens broadcasting the network’s hourly headlines: Nathan Hale branded a traitor, a murderer, a terrorist bent on tearing civilization apart.He felt Harper’s voice crackle in his earpiece. “You sure about this?”Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “They’ve poisoned every mind in the world against us. That ends today.”He crossed the street, pulling his hood lower over his face. Security clustered at the main entrance, but Nathan didn’t slow. He reached out with his mind instead, brushing past the tangled surface thoughts of the guards—fatigue, annoyance, the drumming echo of orders to watch for him. With a nudge of mental pressure, he turned their focus elsewhere, slipping through the doors unseen.Inside, the lobby gleamed with polished marble and