The storm above Antarctica raged like a living beast. Wind screamed across the frozen wasteland, flinging shards of ice that glittered like broken glass under the gray light. Ethan trudged forward through the whiteout, his breath freezing midair, his black coat whipping like a flag in the wind.Behind him, Helena, Wren, and Camille followed close, their figures ghostly against the blizzard. The roar of the snowcat’s engine died out behind them—it couldn’t go any further. From here, they were on foot.Ethan stopped suddenly. Beneath the snow, the ground wasn’t rock—it was steel. A faint hum vibrated under his boots.“This is it,” he said, his voice muffled by the storm. “The Council’s final nest.”Helena knelt, brushing off the snow with her gloved hand until a metal insignia appeared—the sigil of the Global Council, half-buried under decades of frost. “Looks like Cain didn’t erase all his footprints after all,” she muttered.Camille tapped her wrist console, and a ripple of blue light

The world was unraveling.By the time Ethan’s drone broke through the storm and crossed into the upper atmosphere, half of Europe had already gone dark. Banking networks crashed, power grids failed, and the streets of every major city boiled with riots. Ouroboros’s death wasn’t clean—it was venom in the veins of the world.From the cockpit window, Geneva glimmered like a wounded jewel beneath the clouds. The once-pristine city now burned, skyscrapers lit by fire and chaos. The lake reflected red from the flames, and in the distance, Ethan could see the old Council spire—their symbolic seat of power—still standing, surrounded by drones and black-armored mercenaries.“They moved fast,” Camille muttered, her fingers flying across the controls. “The new broadcast tower is live. They’re pushing out something big—some kind of control frequency.”Wren frowned, strapping on her gear. “Control frequency? For what?”“Not sure,” Camille said, narrowing her eyes. “But if I had to guess, they’re t

The wind screamed across the white desert as Ethan led the team toward the coordinates Camille had decrypted from Lysander’s dying neural core. Beneath seven kilometers of solid ice, the final fortress of the Ouroboros Council pulsed faintly—its signal older than most civilizations, hidden in plain sight by the planet itself.The world above was breaking apart. Markets had collapsed, satellites were falling from orbit, and nations were blaming each other for a digital catastrophe none could control. Every screen flashed the same phrase before going dark: “THE END IS THE BEGINNING.”Cain’s message.Ethan adjusted his mask against the blizzard. “We’re running out of time. Once the Ouroboros Protocol hits global sync, every defense system on Earth will fall.”Wren walked beside him, rifle strapped tight. “And the Council will rise from the ashes, just like Lysander wanted.”Camille checked her scanner, the blue light flickering. “The signal’s growing stronger. The entrance is close… bene

The world was a blur of light and thunder.Ethan hit the ground hard, the air knocked from his lungs. When his vision steadied, the fortress was collapsing around him—steel groaning, walls splitting apart as magma-like Cipher energy ripped through the ice. Flames and frost danced together, devouring everything.Camille’s voice crackled through the comm, barely audible over the chaos. “Ethan—do you read me? The entire structure’s destabilizing! We need to move now!”He coughed, forcing himself upright. “Status?”“Wren’s alive,” Camille said. “Helena’s—”Static swallowed her words.Ethan’s heart clenched. “Helena?!” He scanned the smoke and debris, his Cipher vision slicing through the haze. For a moment, he saw nothing but fire and ruin—then a flicker of movement, faint and fragile, near a shattered pillar.He sprinted toward it, dodging falling debris, his boots slipping on melting ice. The fortress was literally melting around him—ancient metal liquefying under the raw force of the s

The alarms screamed through the icy corridors like wounded beasts. Red lights pulsed against the frozen walls, each flash revealing the cracks spidering through the fortress’s structure. The temperature had dropped even further, their breaths coming out in quick bursts of white mist as they ran. Ethan could still hear Cain’s laughter echoing faintly behind them, distorted by the collapsing halls and the shriek of metal.Wren stumbled beside him, clutching her side where she’d been grazed by shrapnel. Camille had her arm slung around her shoulder, half-dragging her while firing bursts at the drones pursuing them. Helena was behind them—no, not Helena. The thought stabbed into Ethan’s chest again. Helena wasn’t here. She’d stayed behind to finish what none of them could.Ethan had seen her eyes before the door sealed. Calm. Resolved. A warrior choosing her end.The fortress was shaking now, not just from the explosions, but from the awakening of something beneath—the Ouroboros Core. Cai