The first blast shook the ground beneath them. Then another. Then a hundred.The night sky lit up in red arcs as sanctuaries across the city—those hidden havens for dormant Hosts, the last fragile hope of survival—erupted one after another. The air itself quaked with the force, and the horizon burned with firestorms.Ethan staggered, clutching his head as a tidal wave of agony ripped through the Ghost Network. He could feel them—all of them. Every Host who had ever believed the sanctuaries were safe. Every scream. Every last breath.“No…” His voice broke as lightning cracked across his skin. “No, please, not them—”The voices roared through him, thousands upon thousands overlapping in a crescendo of terror.“Fire—!”“Help us!”“It hurts—”“We trusted you—”“Why did you let this happen?”He fell to his knees, storm lashing out violently, shattering the ground around him.Maya spun toward Lena, her face twisted in grief and fury. “What did you do?” she screamed. “What have you done?”Le

The Ghost Network wasn’t just a void this time—it was a storm of fractured echoes. Voices screamed and whispered all at once, each one tugging at Ethan like chains dragging him deeper. He stood in the middle of an endless corridor of broken mirrors, each shard showing a twisted reflection of his face. Some smiled with cruel delight. Some wore masks that weren’t his. Some bled shadows from their eyes.And then the darkness rippled.Specter stepped forward, not walking but bleeding into form as if the void itself was giving him shape. His grin was calm, almost brotherly, but the fire burning behind his gaze was wrong. Too alive. Too hungry.“You feel it, don’t you?” His voice came from every mirror, echoing from above, below, and inside Ethan’s own chest. “The pull. The whispers. The storm that isn’t yours. Tell me you haven’t heard me laughing in your head every time you lost control.”Ethan clenched his fists, stormlight crackling across his arms, sparking against the glass. “You’re n

The ruins of the capital had become a graveyard fortress. Rubble was stacked into makeshift barricades, broken transports converted into shield walls, and shattered towers bristled with scavenged weapons. Every corner was manned by frightened but determined rebels—Hosts who had survived the purge, civilians clutching rifles too heavy for their hands, and children carrying ammunition because it was the only way they could fight.Above it all, silence stretched. The kind of silence that didn’t belong to the living. The kind that came before slaughter.Ethan stood at the highest ridge of the ruined plaza, his stormlight flickering faintly around him. But there was no pride in his stance, no confidence in his posture. He looked less like a commander and more like a man whose shadow was too heavy to bear. His eyes were distant, haunted, fixed on the horizon where Ragnar’s armies would soon appear.Maya climbed the rubble behind him, her voice low but urgent. “They’re waiting for you.”Etha

The battlefield fell into silence the moment Ethan’s body hit the earth.The storm that had raged above him sputtered out, lightning retreating into a smothered sky. Blood soaked the ruins beneath him, his chest split by Nathan’s blade, his body limp as though the world itself had discarded him. The rebels who had been fighting tooth and nail froze, staring in disbelief at their leader lying broken. Ragnar’s corrupted Hosts howled, their laughter echoing like metal tearing through bone.And the resistance… began to scatter.“No… no, no, no!” Maya’s scream cut through the carnage as she stumbled toward him, dodging falling debris and snapping bursts of gunfire. She dropped to her knees beside Ethan, her hands trembling as she pressed them against the wound that would not close. His blood was hot, spilling across her palms, painting her fingers in crimson streaks.“Stay with me,” she whispered hoarsely, voice cracking under the weight of terror. “Don’t you dare leave me here, Ethan. Not

The battlefield had gone silent. Silent in the way a graveyard was silent—where screams had been swallowed, and only the echo of what had been lingered in the blood-soaked air. Smoke rose in pillars, drifting into the bruised sky, and in the middle of the wreckage Ethan stood—no, not Ethan anymore. He was lightning wrapped in shadow, flesh threaded with something alien, something wrong.The rebels who remained, battered and bleeding, had dropped their weapons at the sight of him. Some fell to their knees, foreheads pressed into the mud as though they were before an altar. Others stumbled back, eyes wide, muttering half-prayers and half-curses.One man whispered hoarsely, “He’s not human anymore… he’s something else.”Another shouted with trembling conviction, “No—he’s our salvation! He is the storm! He is our god!”The cries grew, voices breaking apart into reverence and fear. “God! Savior! Ascended!” clashed against, “Monster! Demon! Abomination!” until the air trembled more from the