"Did you know from the beginning?" Clara demanded, her voice sharp as glass. "Did you know you were part of an Architect experiment?"Ares looked down into her fierce, unblinking eyes. He did not step back."No," Ares answered, his voice a low, steady rumble. "If I had known they were using you, Silas Valerius would not have lived long enough to arrange the wedding. I would have torn his head off eighteen months ago."Clara stared at him, searching his glowing cybernetic pupils for any trace of a lie. The silence in the room was suffocating. Then, slowly, her tense shoulders dropped. She let out a long, shaky breath and nodded."

 The high-voltage electricity tore through Ares’s nervous system, locking his muscles completely. He lay on the cold steel floor of the bunker, his cybernetic eyes flickering erratically as the system tried to reboot.Specter walked out the door, carrying the unconscious Clara over his shoulder. Every step he took echoed like a death knell in Ares’s ears.Override, Ares commanded his internal system. Emergency manual override."Warning. Neural overload," the Starlight AI whispered in his ear piece. "Paralysis protocol engaged to protect

The cargo hold of the Starlight stealth transport plane vibrated violently as it cut through the heavy storm over the Pacific Ocean. Red tactical lights bathed the interior in a bloody glow.Ares stood near the open cockpit door, his heavy black combat armor absorbing the dim light. He looked at the digital map on the main console."Distance to Sector Zero?" Ares asked, his voice cutting through the roar of the engines."Fifty miles, General," the pilot shouted back. "We are flying under the radar, but the storm is getting worse."Elias walked up, holding a reinforced tactical tablet. His arm was still in a sling, but his focus was razor-sharp. "General, the stealth subs just pinged us. They successfully cut the underwater sonar nets. But they sent a warning before they dove deep.""What kind of warning?" Ares demanded."The island is heavily fortified, just like Julian said," Elias reported, swiping the screen. "But it is worse than we thought. They have military-grade Surface-to-Air

"Where did he go?!" the mercenary captain screamed, firing his assault rifle wildly into the heavy rain. "He was right here!"Ares did not answer. The second he lunged forward, he had slapped the activation panel on his chest rig. The black tactical armor instantly shifted, bending the light around him. The Starlight optical camouflage engaged, turning the God of War into a completely invisible phantom in the storm."Hold your fire!" another guard yelled, ducking as stray bullets ricocheted off the concrete. "You are shooting our own men!"Ares moved through the chaos like a silent predator. His obsidian blade sliced through the captain’s radio harness, dropping the man to the wet concrete with a swift kick to the knee. He didn't waste time killing the grunts. He needed to cripple the island.Ares slipped past the panicked perimeter and kicked open the heavy steel access hatch leading down into the main facility. He dropped into the maintenance shaft, the heavy hatch slamming shut abo