The battlefield dissolved into chaos.Where once Ethan’s storm had united the rebels in defiance, now that same storm tore them in two. The Hosts, eyes glowing faintly with the Network’s tether, began to splinter. Some clung to Ethan, kneeling in reverence, their voices desperate: “He is the Storm, the one who can save us!” Others drifted toward the shadow bleeding from him—toward Specter’s call, whispering that destruction was freedom, that to burn was to be unshackled.Swords turned against swords. Guns turned against brothers.One rebel screamed, “Storm leads us!” before another Host slammed a blade into his back, snarling, “Shadow frees us!”The fragile unity snapped like glass.Ethan, still on his knees, gritted his teeth as the Ghost Network writhed inside him. Every fracture, every new voice declaring allegiance to him or to Specter, only widened the divide. He felt himself being pulled apart. Lightning crackled from his veins, but his shadow bled just as dark, devouring the gr

The battlefield flickered in two layers—the burning ruins of the capital above, and the trembling tides of the Ghost Network below. Ethan’s body stood frozen, storm crackling wildly, but his mind had already been pulled inward, downward, deeper than before.Specter was waiting.The shadow-born figure emerged from the swirling void of dead voices, his smile carved in mockery. His form wasn’t flesh but something darker, shimmering like broken glass overlaid with stormlight. He looked almost identical to Ethan, except his eyes—two pits of black fire.“You feel it, don’t you?” Specter’s voice rippled through the Network like oil on water. “The weight of every dying Host, every scream, every drop of ash in your lungs. You can’t hold them alone. You’ll break. But I… I was made for this.”Ethan clenched his fists, sparks flaring around him. “You think I’d hand you the reins? You’d slaughter them all just to sit on a throne of bones.”Specter laughed, shaking his head. “Not slaughter. Save. B

The battlefield fell quiet.It wasn’t peace—it was the silence of something vast inhaling before it killed.All across the shattered ruins of the capital, men, machines, and Hosts froze mid-motion. Blades hovered inches from throats, rifles pressed against shoulders, screams caught in dying lungs. Even the wind stilled. The only sound was the pulsing thrum in the sky above—the Eclipse Protocol swelling like a second sun, its red glow washing over the broken world.The light was wrong. It didn’t burn like fire, didn’t warm like dawn. It was a pulse, a heartbeat, a slow throb that rattled bones and boiled nerves. Every Host felt it inside them, the countdown hammering against their skulls, veins burning like acid as the system prepared to purge.00:00:60.One minute. That was all the world had left.Ethan staggered to his feet, but his body wasn’t his own anymore. Lightning and shadow bled from his skin, his storm screaming against the pressure of Eclipse, but inside he was collapsing.

The battlefield had fallen silent around Ethan Cole.Not because the war had stopped, but because no one dared step closer to him. His body convulsed on the fractured ground, lightning and shadow erupting from his skin in violent bursts. The earth cracked in jagged spirals where he lay, every pulse of his heart detonating black thunder across the ruins.Rebels, hunters, machines—friend and foe alike—kept their distance, shielding their faces against the storm.Maya didn’t move. She stayed kneeling beside him, her hands gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise, her face streaked with dust and tears.“Ethan, stay with me,” she whispered, though her voice was nearly drowned out by the storm. His eyes were half-closed, rolling back, lips trembling around words that didn’t belong to him. Shadows crawled across his skin like veins of oil.Every second he slipped further away. Every second Specter pulled him deeper into the abyss.And then the screams came.Not from Ethan’s throat, but f

The battlefield lay still at last.Where once the sky had been torn by fire and storm, now only drifting embers remained, floating like dying stars. Ragnar’s towering machines stood frozen in grotesque poses, half-collapsed, their glowing cores sputtering into darkness. The Hosts who had fought until their bodies gave out now slumped to the ground, some unconscious, others trembling and gasping, their power burned out.The silence was suffocating. No chants of war. No roars of thunder. Just the low crackle of smoldering ruins, and the ragged breath of the few who still stood.Ethan was one of them.He stood at the epicenter of the battlefield, his boots planted in scorched earth, shoulders hunched, his chest heaving as if the weight of the entire war pressed down on him. His skin was pale, marred with jagged burns that pulsed faintly with stormlight. His eyes glowed faintly, an echo of the lightning that had once consumed him.And beneath that glow, shadows curled.A hushed murmur rip