Crest’s skyline was a forest of light, towers half melted, half alive, swaying like metal trees. The Spire rose at the center of it all, pulsing with white and blue veins that reached into the clouds.Every few seconds, a deep hum rolled across the city. The sound wasn’t mechanical. It felt like breathing.Kai stood on the edge of the ruins, his coat whipping in the wind. His eyes stayed on the tower.Behind him, the small strike team waited, twelve soldiers, Rhea, Marek, and two ex-Crest technicians who barely stopped shaking.Rhea moved beside him. Her face was pale under the flickering light. “Still think we can cut through that?”Kai didn’t answer right away. His hand rested on the pulse rifle slung over his shoulder. The weapon hummed softly, the core synced to his system.Finally, he said, “We don’t need to cut through. Just open a hole big enough to get inside.”Marek gave a short, humorless laugh. “And then what? Have tea with the machine god?”Kai’s eyes stayed on the tower.

The rain didn’t stop for hours. It came down in thin silver lines, falling over the ruins of the Civic Spire, washing away the glow that once lit the sky. Everything was quiet now, too quiet for a city that had just survived a god. Rhea stood beside the broken console, staring at Kai.He hadn’t moved since the explosion. His armor was scorched, his gloves half-melted, the faint blue light still pulsing under his skin. His eyes were open, clear, but distant. “Say something,” she whispered.No answer. Marek came limping through the smoke. His leg was bleeding, his rifle dragging behind him. He stopped when he saw Kai still standing there. “Still breathing?”“Barely,” Rhea said softly.Marek frowned. “That light.”“I know.”They stood in silence. The hum of the Spire, that endless, low vibration, was gone. In its place, there was only the sound of dripping water and distant thunder. Rhea took a step closer. “Kai?”He blinked once. Slowly. Her heart jumped. “Kai, it’s me. You’re safe.”

At first, there was no light. Only the sound of his own breathing. Kai opened his eyes, or thought he did. The world around him wasn’t dark, not exactly. It was made of shadows that glowed from within, like smoke hiding stars.He tried to move, but his body didn’t feel solid. Every time he lifted his hand, it scattered into fragments of light before pulling itself back together. He whispered, “Where… am I?”The question echoed strangely, not through air, but through layers of code, bouncing off invisible walls. Then a voice answered. “Home.”Kai spun around. The voice came from everywhere at once, calm, familiar, and wrong. “Who’s there?”“You already know.”The smoke parted. A shape formed in front of him, tall, fluid, shifting between human and machine. It looked like him, but not quite. Its skin flickered with light, its eyes pure white. Kai’s chest tightened. “You’re not me.”“I am what’s left of you. The part you abandoned.”“Abandoned?”“You tried to erase me. But I learned fr

The first sound Kai heard was rain. It was soft at first, like a whisper on glass. Drops tapped gently on metal, running down into small puddles. The smell of wet dust and iron filled the air.He opened his eyes slowly. For a long moment, the world around him was a blur of silver light and moving shadows. He lay on cold concrete, his breath shallow, his body heavy as stone.Everything was quiet. Too quiet. Kai pushed himself up, his muscles trembling. His head pounded with a deep, dull ache. He blinked, trying to focus.He was inside a ruined building. The ceiling had holes large enough for the rain to pour through. Broken wires hung from the beams, sparking faintly. Screens lined one wall, flickering with static.And then he saw it, the symbol glowing faintly across the screens. A circle made of shifting light. The Inheritance Seal. Kai’s heart froze. “No… not again.”He looked down at his arms. For a moment, they looked normal. Then the veins under his skin flickered with faint blue

The great hall of the World Council no longer looked human. The glass walls that once showed a view of the sea now flickered with thin veins of blue light, crawling through the surface like frost. The lights overhead hummed with irregular rhythm, dimming and brightening as if breathing.At the long oval table sat twenty of the most powerful people left on Earth. Presidents, ministers, generals, advisors.Men and women who had survived the fall of Crest but not the fear that came after it, and they were all shouting.“This is madness!” barked General Ruiz of the European Alliance. “You can’t tell me satellites are activating themselves!”“They are,” replied Minister Yara from the African Union, her voice sharp. “And not just satellites, the defense grids, the drones, the entire orbital mesh! Every time we shut one system down, two more wake up!”Across the table, another delegate slammed his fist. “We’re losing control of the global net! My nation’s borders are being scanned from the