The Voidspire loomed like a shard of darkness cleaved from the night sky itself, rising above the deadlands like a monument to everything the world tried to forget. Ethan Cross had stared down death before, but as the wind howled across the ashen valley and the ruins of the pre-collapse city smoldered behind them, this felt different. This was it — the beginning of the final descent. The last echo was buried beneath it, encrypted in layers of memory that predated every war humanity had tried to forget. Now it was controlled by the Consortium, surrounded by automated turrets, psychic interference fields, and something newer, something worse — a temporal lock that looped time inside the structure. No one who entered came out. Ethan’s team huddled behind the broken skeletal frame of what used to be a monorail pylon, the final stretch just ahead. Quinn, wiping blood from her temple, tapped the back of her wrist-mounted device.

The cold was biting, but Ethan didn’t feel it. Not really. The ruins of the Helix Vault stood around him like jagged teeth gnawed by time and fire. Smoke coiled from collapsed walls, and ash rained down like slow, grim confetti. He could still hear the last echo of the explosion reverberating in his ears, but the silence after it felt worse. “Ethan,” came Isla’s voice, weak but alive, through the comm. “Tell me you made it.” He staggered to his feet, coughing on soot and adrenaline. “I’m here,” he rasped. “The core’s offline. Repeat—core is offline. The feedback loop neutralized the energy surge before it breached the continental shelf.” “Copy that,” Isla replied, and the relief in her voice was palpable. “Status on the others?” He turned slowly. The dust was clearing. Ari was limping out of the smok