The sky above Antarctica bled into shades of bruised blue and white as the storm finally broke. What had once been the Council’s fortress was now a crater of jagged steel and frozen ruin, half-swallowed by snow and smoke. The air smelled of burnt ozone and ash, yet somehow—peace. For the first time in months, the wind was free again.Ethan stood at the edge of the crater, his coat whipping around him. His body was bruised, cut, and scorched, but his mind was alive—burning. He’d survived the Ouroboros blast, though he wasn’t sure how. Maybe luck. Maybe Helena.Camille and Wren were a few meters behind him, setting up a distress beacon near the remains of their downed transport. The beacon’s weak light blinked against the endless white, like a dying heartbeat.“Signal’s patchy,” Wren said, brushing snow from her face. “We’re too deep in the ice belt. Nobody’s going to find us fast.”Camille kicked a piece of twisted metal aside. “Assuming anyone’s left to find us. Ouroboros might’ve alr

The storm had broken by the time Wren and Camille stumbled out of the crater. Dawn clawed at the horizon, pale gold slicing through the endless gray. The fortress below was gone—swallowed whole by the glacier, leaving only a scar of melted ice and steam.Camille collapsed to her knees, her breath forming clouds in the freezing air. Her body trembled from exhaustion and cold, but the trembling in her chest came from something else entirely.“Ethan…” she whispered, staring at the smoking crater. “He’s really gone, isn’t he?”Wren stood a few feet away, silent, her eyes glassy. Her scanner blinked faintly in her gloved hand, picking up residual Cipher readings deep below the surface—but no human life signs.She wanted to lie. To say maybe. But the silence beneath the ice was absolute.“He stopped it,” Wren finally said. “That’s all that matters now.”Camille let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Stopped it? Wren, the world’s falling apart out there! Ouroboros already broke the system. Half the

The storm had passed, leaving behind an endless plain of silence and snow. Antarctica stretched in every direction—white, vast, empty—yet something sacred lingered in the air. The echoes of battle had faded, but the ghosts of the war still breathed through the frost.Wren stood at the edge of the shattered ice shelf, her black coat whipping in the freezing wind. Camille stood a few steps behind, clutching her rifle like a lifeline. Below them, the last remains of the Council fortress were buried beneath miles of collapsed glacier and frozen steel.It was over.But peace didn’t feel peaceful.Wren’s breath came in slow clouds. “He’s gone,” she said quietly, not to Camille, not to anyone—just to the wind. “For real this time.”Camille didn’t answer. Her eyes were hollow, her voice numb. “You saw what he did. The Cipher’s gone. The Code, the Protocol… all of it. He wiped it clean.”Wren nodded slowly. “And himself with it.”The silence between them stretched, heavy and raw. Then Camille

The storm had not stopped since the vault’s collapse.Snow howled across the ice fields like a living thing, swallowing the ruins of the fortress beneath miles of white. The ground still trembled with echoes of what had happened below. The Cipher’s death cry was buried in every gust of wind, its digital wail whispering through the cold.Ethan staggered across the wasteland, half-blind from exhaustion. His breath came in ragged clouds. Every step felt like his bones were turning to glass. The silver light pulsing in his veins had dimmed, but it hadn’t vanished. It was a reminder—Cain might be dead, but the infection of Cipher still lived inside him.He stopped when the wind shifted, revealing the faint shadow of a broken tower half-buried in the ice. It was all that remained of the Council’s surface spire—a monument to control, now nothing more than twisted metal and snow.He fell to his knees beside it. His reflection stared back at him in a shard of blackened steel—eyes glowing faint

The wind screamed across the ice like a wounded thing. Snow spiraled through the air, biting cold against skin that no longer felt alive. Ethan stood in the wreckage of Cain’s light, staring into the storm that had swallowed the sky. Every inch of his body ached, every nerve burned, and deep inside, the Cipher pulsed like a second heart—hot, relentless, alive.Wren wrapped a torn blanket around his shoulders, her hands shaking. “You’re freezing.”“I can’t feel it,” Ethan murmured, eyes distant. “It’s like my blood’s on fire.”Camille was kneeling a few feet away, scanning the fractured ice with a handheld tracker salvaged from the wreck. Her face was tight, pale. “There’s something beneath us. Energy readings are spiking again.”Ethan didn’t move. “He’s gone.”“Maybe,” Camille said softly. “But whatever Cain unleashed—it’s not.”The ice cracked again, groaning like the earth itself was in pain. A rumble echoed through the frozen wasteland. The faint golden glow from the ground had dim