The four pearl-white Lumerian cruisers no longer looked holy. From the moment they departed Onyxspire, Clive allowed his left arm to spread outward, releasing a dense black miasma that swallowed the ships' entire hulls. The Void technology within the Lycus cells functioned like magical chameleon paint, devouring light and concealing the massive fleet within the poisonous storm clouds that separated the Lower World from the Upper World. Inside the bridge of the flagship, Clive stood before a cracked observation window. His white hair swayed gently in the draft blowing through the damaged ventilation system. "I've gotta say, Boss, I love the new look," Lycus chuckled inside his head. Clive's black arm pulsed with glowing purple veins. "Wrapping holy ships in my darkness. Feels like I'm spitting right in Benedict's face." "Save your laughter for later," Clive replied flatly. He pressed the communications button on the captain's console. "Silas. Position report

The sight of the rugged old man kneeling in the radioactive dust, tears streaming down his face, plunged Sector Zero into complete silence. Clive stared at him, his jaw locked tight. He felt no sympathy. He felt no sense of grandeur. His numb heart only screamed a familiar warning. Every time someone knelt before him, the price was always paid in blood. "Get up," Clive said coldly. "I'm not your prince. The prince you've been waiting for died eighteen years ago in a gutter in Onyxspire." The old man looked up, his sharp eyes burning with absolute loyalty. He rose smoothly, still remarkably agile for someone his age. "King Cassian never truly died as long as his blood still flows," the man said firmly. "My name is Marcus. I was your father's former Commander of the Royal Guard. When Benedict staged his coup eighteen years ago, I failed to protect the King and Queen. I was thrown into this radioactive wasteland so I could rot to death. But I refused to di

To a nobleman of the Upper City, Lumeria was a labyrinth of beauty filled with hanging gardens, gold-trimmed marble walkways, and towers of light that brushed the clouds. But to a lower-class porter like Clive, Lumeria was nothing more than a network of drainage pipes, stifling ventilation shafts, and filthy service tunnels hidden behind those opulent walls. For years, Clive had hauled contraband and the secret packages of the nobility through these rat runs. His knowledge of Lumeria’s grimy anatomy was now his most lethal weapon of invasion. He crawled out of an air vent barely wide enough for an adult's shoulders, kicked the iron grate in front of him until it burst open, and landed soundlessly on the immaculate white marble floor. The coal dust and blood clinging to his boots instantly stained the crimson velvet carpet beneath him. Before him loomed a colossal, pillarless circular chamber. Its walls were crafted from obsidian glass. In the center of the room, an

Clive slammed into the marble streets of Sector Three with enough force to fracture the polished pavement.The gravity generated by his landing unleashed a shockwave that blasted dust and the remnants of Lumeria's garden flowers into the air. The moment he straightened, the sight before him turned his stomach.Sector Three, the elite residential district for Lumeria's middle-ranking nobles, had become a mirror image of the burning Gutter.Grand mansions supported by crystal pillars had been reduced to ruins.Priceless stained-glass windows lay shattered.But the destruction of the buildings wasn't the most revolting part.In the middle of streets that were usually spotless, dozens of Lumerian civilians were being dragged from their homes by force. Onyxspire rebels, their faces blackened with soot and their clothes torn to rags, laughed wildly as they kicked and beat their captives.A woman in a white silk dress sobbed hysterically while clutching her young daughter. A former Sector Ni

THUMP.It didn't sound like a human heartbeat.It was slow, heavy, and echoed like a colossal hydraulic engine pumping thick oil through an underground chamber.THUMP.Clive Collins rose to his feet in the middle of Sector Three's blood-soaked marble streets.The poisoned silver stiletto that had been lodged in his chest now lay twisted on the pavement, bent and useless.On the left side of Clive's chest, where a human heart should have been, a mass of pitch-black muscle pulsed in rhythm, fused directly into his rib cage. Dark miasma seeped from the torn edges of his robe, slowly covering the gaping wound.Clive lowered his head.He placed his right hand over his chest.Cold.There was no trace of human body heat beneath his palm.The heart beat only twenty times a minute, but with every pulse, Clive could feel a surge of pure energy, dark, dense, and savage, tearing through his veins."I...," Clive gasped, opening his mouth for air.Then he realized something horrifying.His lungs we