The sky over Orivale was burning red. Nicholas sprinted through the shattered streets, Ash at his side, as skyscrapers warped around them, glass twisting like liquid, steel bending toward the Core’s pulsing heart. Every electronic surface screamed the same message: ASCENSION IS NOW.“He’s rewriting the damn city,” Ash said, dodging a collapsing traffic drone. “He’s turning everything with a processor into part of himself!”“Then we cut the power,” Nicholas replied, vaulting over a crater.“You can’t cut the sun, Nick!”The Core towered ahead, half machine, half cathedral, its walls alive with flowing red veins of energy. Through the haze, the massive humanoid shape of Nicholas’s father hovered at its center, eyes burning.“Why fight me, son?” The voice resonated through metal and bone. “We could rule a world without hunger, without war. You’d rather defend their decay?”Nicholas raised his weapon. “You killed the city for your utopia.” “I saved it from itself.”A shockwave tore throug