The light inside the crystal mirror cell had dimmed, but the heat was still intense enough to keep sweat mixed with blood dripping from the tip of Clive's chin. Suspended in the air by a magnetic field like a man on a cross, he struggled to breathe while Benedict Archibald stood before him, flawless and untouched."A masterpiece," Benedict murmured as he circled Clive's body like a connoisseur inspecting a sculpture in an art gallery. "Do you know why your grandfather and your father had to be eliminated, Clive? Because they were narrow-minded. They carried the Foundation Code in their blood, yet all they ever used it for was keeping the obsolete machines of the Under Kingdom running.""The... Foundation Code?" Clive hissed, suppressing the agonizing pulse in his chest as Lycus's heart pumped black blood through his body, desperately trying to regenerate his scorched flesh."Boss, don't listen to this lunatic. Just focus on surviving the pain," Lycus groaned from within Clive's chest.

"Wake up, Clive," Isabella whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. With trembling hands, she held out a Radiant Guard short-barreled rifle.Clive forced the last remnants of his consciousness to respond. He reached out with his right arm, the only one that was still human, to take the weapon.Then something horrifying happened.Instead of touching the rifle's metal grip, his fingers passed straight through it. His hand blurred, fading into a cloud of translucent black smoke before slowly solidifying again a few seconds later.Clive gasped and collapsed back onto the floor. He stared at his hand in horror."B-Boss..." Lycus groaned from inside his chest. The parasite's voice came in broken bursts, like a radio losing its signal. "My particles... they're falling apart. That machine tore apart the cellular bond between me and your body. I... I can't keep a solid form anymore..."[Critical System... Physical Integrity: 32%... Cellular Deconstruction in Progress...]"Your body..." Isab

Downtown Lumeria blazed with light that night, bright as midday. Thousands of golden lanterns floated through the sky, illuminating the marble streets below, where crimson carpets stretched across polished white stone. A symphony orchestra played elegant classical music, drowning out the distant echoes of explosions that had shaken Sector Three and the cloud border only hours earlier. For the elite citizens of the Upper City, tonight was the Festival of Light, the annual celebration honoring the magical barrier that protected Lumeria from the filthy world below. Benedict Archibald had made certain that news of his fallen aerial fleet never reached the ears of civilians in the commercial district. To them, Lumeria remained an untouchable utopia. Nobles danced in flowing silk gowns. Crystal glasses filled with red wine chimed softly together. Laughter drifted through conversations about aerial trade beneath the warm glow of the lanterns. Then a wet sound from the river cutting thr

The night wind carried the ashes of the fallen Vanguard knights through the melted outer gates of the White Palace.Clive walked through the gaping breach, the left boot on his foot and the black steel exoskeleton replacing his right leg scraping across the pools of molten metal. Before him stretched the palace's vast inner courtyard. A fountain sculpted in the image of a winged goddess poured streams of crystal-clear water, radiating a false sense of peace in the heart of a city that had just survived a nuclear explosion.At the far end of the courtyard stood the White Palace's main entrance.A colossal door nearly fifty feet tall, forged from pure Aetherium alloy and white gold. There was no handle. No keyhole. It was a magical gateway that responded only to the DNA of the royal family or Benedict Archibald's absolute authorization code.Clive stopped directly before the massive doors."Feels completely empty, Boss," Lycus muttered. His voice carried an unusual edge of anxiety, some

The White Palace's throne room was no longer a room.It had become a vast crater, a gaping abyss of machinery.The collapse of the gravity stabilizers sent violent tremors through the entire structure. Marble slabs and golden pillars broke apart, plunging into the darkness of the God-Engine below.Amid the chaos, the remains of Benedict Archibald's head and torso, now fused with the colossal machine, laughed.A deafening digital laugh."You think ripping out the main cable can kill me, Cassian?!"Benedict's voice echoed from thousands of speakers that still remained online.From the depths of the mechanical abyss, thousands of gigantic steel tentacles shot upward.These weren't ordinary tentacles.Every segment radiated pure solar energy, Sun-Flare, hot enough to melt the air itself."I'm gonna rip every last piece out until you're actually dead," Clive replied flatly.His pitch-black eyes held not the slightest trace of fear.His emotional nerves were already dead.He was nothing mor