The deafening blast of the explosion still echoed through Ethan’s skull as he pushed himself up from the fractured steel floor of the Nova Chamber. Dust and smoke clung to the air like ghostly fog, the walls scorched with debris from what had once been the power core of the Citadel. Sirens wailed in the distance, and emergency lights cast the corridor in a bloody hue.“Cross, do you copy?” Alina’s voice crackled in his comms, warped by interference but blessedly alive.“I’m here,” Ethan coughed, dragging himself to a crouch. “Status?”“Battered, but breathing. Jace and Arden are heading toward the south sub-core. I’m rerouting to find you now. You’re closest to the control vault.”Ethan’s eyes narrowed. The vault. The final piece of the Dominion’s command system.“Forget me. Get to the data spine,” he ordered, limping toward the passage that had cr

The blast echoed like a dying god’s scream through the hollow remains of the Citadel. Dust and debris clouded the remnants of the chamber as Ethan Cross slowly pushed himself to his feet, coughing through bloodied lips. His ears rang. The air stank of ozone and scorched stone.He blinked, trying to orient himself.“Team status?” he rasped into the comm, voice barely audible.Crackling static greeted him at first. Then—“Alive,” came Selene’s voice, hoarse but clear. “Barely.”“I’ve got Reyes,” Grey called out from somewhere above. “Pulling him free from the rubble.”Ethan turned slowly, muscles screaming. The obelisk at the center—the one they’d fought so hard to reach—now stood fractured but intact. The pulse of its dark energy was erratic, weaker. But not gone.Behind him, the shattered remains of Aleron Drex smoldered on the floor.

The dead quiet that fell over the battleground after the Aetheric Storm silenced the sky was unnatural—thick, suffocating, ominous. Ethan stood at the edge of the broken bridge that once led into the inner sanctum of the Dominion Core. Around him, what remained of his team regrouped, battered but not broken.The wind moaned through the fractured steel arches overhead. Sparks still danced across the shattered circuitry of the bastion walls. The once-impenetrable gate now hung open, melted at its hinges, an invitation that reeked of a trap.Ava clutched her side, her suit’s self-seal function struggling to patch the plasma gash. “Whatever they did in there… it ripped the leyline wide open. I’ve never seen a current behave like that.”Ethan gave her a tight nod. “That wasn’t a defensive burst. That was a call—someone or something inside wanted to be found.”Zai’s drone circled above, scanning

The rebuilt plaza in front of Geneva’s Council Hall was already filling with people before dawn. Protesters, families, survivors—all gathered in solidarity. Above, drones streamed live coverage: the first public hearings of the Consortium Architects Tribunal would begin inside the hall shortly. A historic moment.Ethan Cross stood just outside the media cordon, watching the crowd swirl around placards reading Truth, Justice, Never Again. His commlink buzzed. It was Ilyana.“Ethan—I’m at the Commission Hearings. I. Need. You.”He stepped forward, slipping under the tape with ease. He understood: this day would shape the future. And she wasn’t alone.Inside, the chamber benches were packed. World leaders, once puppeteered by the Dominion’s influence, now fidgeted in suits too large, faces drawn with uncertainty. Journalists clicked cameras in every corner.Ilyana sat at the witness stand. Behind her wai

The wind tore through the skeletal arches of the old Citadel’s ruins, carrying with it grains of ash that glowed faintly under the afternoon sun. Ethan Cross stood among twisted metal and fractured marble, the debris of a regime long since toppled. He traced the inscription on the shattered Obelisk base—now blasted clean of code—while dust fluttered across the open expanse.Behind him, Ilyana cataloged shards with a neural interface scanner, her fingers nimble and precise. Sera and Markov guarded the perimeter. Above them simmered the silhouettes of Watch drones scanning for infraresidual echoes.To outsiders, the ruins might have looked abandoned. But for Ethan, it was sacred ground—the birthplace of both the Dominion’s rise and its demise.Then a soft chirp sounded at his commlink.Ethan… there’s something in the rubble. I think you should see.He focused on Ilyana, who froze mid-catalog. Her scanner dis