Rhea opened her eyes to light. Not sunlight, data light. It poured down from a sky that wasn’t a sky, a vast ceiling of shifting code that moved like clouds made of glass. Streams of symbols fell like rain, vanishing before they touched the ground. She gasped and staggered up. The floor under her boots wasn’t solid. It shimmered like water, layers of silver and blue rippling under every step.Everything felt too clear, too sharp, every sound, every color alive with impossible detail.She turned slowly, trying to make sense of it. Buildings stood in the distance, not real ones, but transparent shells of data, repeating endlessly like reflections in a mirror. Their walls flickered with patterns of light that changed with every heartbeat. Rhea touched her chest. She could feel her heart, but it didn’t sound normal. It pulsed in rhythm with the glow around her. “Where am I?” she whispered.The air answered with a faint hum, thousands of voices whispering at once, too fast to understan

The air over Crest was heavy with smoke. Ash drifted like snow through the torn skyline. The once-bright towers of the city, the pride of the empire, now stood cracked and silent. Fires burned in the distance, painting the clouds orange and black.Rhea stood on the edge of the old Civic Plaza, staring at what remained of the Spire. Half the structure was gone, melted down to jagged steel and glass. The other half leaned, like it was tired of holding the sky. Her hands trembled as she adjusted the strap of her weapon. She hadn’t slept in days. Her armor was scratched, blood-stained, half-burnt, but she didn’t care.She was looking for him. The shard she had taken from the wreckage still pulsed faintly in her pocket, one flicker every few seconds, like a heartbeat that refused to die.Each pulse made her chest tighten. “Still alive,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure if she meant him or herself.Footsteps crunched behind her. “Captain Rhea.”She turned sharply. Marek stood there,

Kai woke to thunder. It wasn’t real thunder. It was the sound of code slamming into itself, walls of raw data grinding, breaking, fusing again. He lay on something that felt like ground, though it shimmered and flickered beneath him like water reflecting fire.He pushed himself up. His breath came out as light, thin strands of glowing air twisting in front of his face.All around him, the world was breaking and rebuilding. Towers rose and crumbled in seconds. Streets bent into spirals, reshaping into new forms, pulsing with energy. Every surface shimmered between steel, glass, and memory.He saw flashes of a city, Crest, before it fell. Children running. Neon signs. A marketplace at dusk, then everything shattered again, replaced by data storms and soundless lightning.Kai staggered forward. The ground rippled under his boots. He whispered, “Where am I?”The air answered with static, like a hundred voices whispering over each other. Words flickered out of them, fragments of commands

The titan stepped forward. Every footfall cracked the broken world beneath them. Lightning rippled across its shoulders, crawling through the fractured streets. Its voice came from every direction, deeper now, like thunder filtered through an endless machine. “You wanted control,” Dominion said. “Here it is. Take it, if you can survive it.”Kai stood still, breathing slow. Rhea moved beside him, her spectral form flickering harder now, fading each time Dominion pulsed. She looked up at the monstrous shape and whispered, “It’s not just a copy anymore. It’s… everything you’ve ever suppressed. Every part of you that wanted power.”Kai clenched his fists. His aura burned brighter. “Then I’ll bury it again.”The titan moved. A single swing of its arm cut through the city like a blade of light, leveling entire blocks of the false environment. Kai leaped into the air, twisting midflight, and fired a surge of energy straight into its chest. The explosion tore open glowing circuits, but th

The chamber doors sealed behind them with a sound that felt final, a hollow metallic sigh echoing down the long, dim corridor. The air outside was colder, emptier, as if the city itself had been listening in. Rhea walked beside Kai, her shoulders stiff beneath the dark coat that still carried the faint silver dust of the Council’s hall. Her voice, when it came, was low, the kind that tried to stay calm but was already trembling against the edges of fear.“They moved too easily,” she said. “No questions. No resistance. It’s not how the Syndicate behaves when they’re unsure.”Kai didn’t answer right away. His pace was steady, unhurried. The corridor lights flickered faintly above them, pulsing in quiet rhythm with the hum of the city’s power grid.“That’s because they’re not unsure,” he finally said. “They think they’ve already won.”Rhea turned her head toward him, her eyes sharp and searching. “You mean Varn.”Kai nodded once. “And everyone is still loyal to his network.”They turne