Location: Orbit – The Crown Stadium Core Status: Critical Containment FailureThe air turned to static. Light bent around The Crownless as he hovered above the collapsing stadium, golden circuits pulsing through his skin like divine veins. His voice rang out calm, unshaken. “They called us players. But we were always more.Stories made flesh. Symbols shaped in pain You were the myth, Robin. I... am the future.” Below, Robin knelt on the fractured pitch, blood in his mouth, knees bruised, lungs on fire. Sparks rained from ruptured support beams. Drones dropped from the sky, colliding against shattered goalposts.Layla screamed through the comms. “Robin! The data core’s unstable, if it detonates, it’ll rain debris across five countries!”Ashar added, “The Crownless is syncing with the station’s AI! He’s turning himself into the central processing mind!”Robin groaned, pushing to his feet. “Then we unplug him.” A timer now blinked above the center pitch, embedded into the virtual sky.DE

Location: Geneva, Switzerland Status: Crown Black Site – BreachedRain fell in sheets as Robin stepped out of the helicopter, his boots sloshing into the mud-slicked helipad. The Swiss air was cold, but the tension in his chest burned hotter than any furnace. The sky above was grayer than steel, pierced only by the flicker of sirens below.Ashar and Layla disembarked beside him, their faces tight with urgency, The site ahead once a pristine black-ops athletic research center was now a smoking crater. Glass littered the earth. Security bots twisted in the mud, their optics shattered. The training dome had been torn apart from the inside.Robin swallowed. “Are we too late?”Sierra’s voice crackled in from the command drone. “Not completely. Seraph came through here. Fast. Efficient. No casualties… except two.”Ashar lowered his voice. “Elite players. Team Echo from the United Nations Tech-Athlete Coalition. They were genetically tuned for high-impact pressure gameplay.”Robin glanced at

Location: The Memory Pitch – Neural Core Field Status: COLLAPSINGThe wind howled through the collapsing dome of memory, Static storms tore across the phantom sky, ripping apart scenes from Robin’s life, schoolyard games, late-night jogs, dusty boots, old laughter, shattered like fragile glass.And in the center of it all stood her. His mother. Alive. Radiant. Reaching out to him with arms wide open. “Robin,” she said gently, “it’s okay now. You’ve done enough. You can rest.”Robin’s throat locked. His chest caved in. Every muscle screamed to run into that embrace, But behind him, the real world called, Layla’s voice crackled through the failing comms: “Robin don’t! It’s a trap! He’s digging into your anchor memory!”Seraph floated nearby, watching like a priest overseeing communion. “She’s not a lie, Robin. She’s your truth. Isn’t this what you’ve fought for? What you’ve wanted back every second of your life?”Robin stepped forward. One step. Two. The image sharpened. His mother’s ey

Location: New Olympic Megadome, Sublevel Omega Status: Critical Containment BreachThe lab was cold. Too cold. Robin stepped into the chamber slowly, each footfall echoing through the steel corridor. The lighting flickered above, unstable, erratic, almost... afraid. Ashar and Layla followed closely behind, their weapons raised and hearts pounding.At the center of the room was the tube.ASHWOOD.004Status: UnactivatedBrainwave Calibration: StableHeart Rate: PausedRobin stared at the nameplate, Another one. Another mirror. Another version of him, His throat tightened. “How many times are they going to build me?”Sierra’s voice crackled in from the satellite link above. “According to Crown’s backup logs… this one was created as a contingency Not a player. Not a system. A judge.”Layla squinted. “Judge?”Ashar scanned the readout. “Ashwood.004 wasn’t made to compete. He was designed to decide which version of humanity gets to survive.”Robin felt the weight of it land on his chest lik

Location: Earth Network – Global Broadcast Initiated Time: 08:00 A.M. UTCThe world awoke to a sound it hadn’t heard in years, A whistle. Not one from a league. Not from a tournament, But from something greater.The screen blinked alive in every household, every stadium, every handheld device. On rooftops, in prisons, on beaches, in slums, people lifted their eyes to the skies, and the message was the same: “The Game for All.” “Play, or Be Rewritten.”Inside the New Olympic Megadome, Ashwood.004 stood at the center of the field, facing Robin, His voice was clear, broadcast directly to the world: “You’ve passed every zone, Robin Ashwood. You’ve proven emotion is power. But power is meaningless if it cannot be shared.”“Now… let the world play.”Robin frowned. “What do you mean?”The arena shuddered, And one by one, holographic doors opened along the dome’s walls, Out of them stepped players, not professionals, Ordinary people.A disabled veteran with a steel prosthetic.A schoolgirl in