The air around the ruins of Zero Point suddenly hissed, distorted by dense radiation as dozens of crystal-skinned humanoid entities advanced in absolute coordination. Before Kael could even cock his impulse rifle, the space in front of Gerry split open.A man dressed entirely in white stepped out of the fracture in reality, the atoms around him shifting silently. This was the Architect's pure manifestation."Do you think this artificial biological evolution will end with mere physical destruction, Gerry?"The voice did not come from his mouth. Instead, it echoed directly inside Gerry's skull.Gerry spat, expelling the thick blood filling his mouth. He braced himself against Obsidian Fang and stared sharply at the figure. "Enough with your twisted riddles. You've already lost. Your central tower is nothing but a pile of dust."The Architect smiled faintly, a curve of the lips that held no human warmth whatsoever. "Won? You call yourself the victor simply because you destroyed one node

"Talk!" Gerry barked, his voice choking and breaking apart in the vacuum.The grip of the black steel armor burned his neck with dense Void energy. The lock of the Eternal Guardian's Throne trembled violently. The lines of white light chains supporting his consciousness began to crack one by one, infected by ancient rune codes that continued crawling upward.Warning: Unknown foreign encryption penetrating the Guardian Core. Sovereign authority forcibly displaced!"You think the Architect was the pinnacle of this cycle?" The mysterious figure from beyond the black crack laughed softly, a deep voice that shook the foundations of interdimensional space. "He was the first explorer to fail. And you... you are merely the next sacrifice, locking the door from the inside."With a violent jerk, Gerry summoned the last remnants of the golden Sovereign radiance from his chest. A high-frequency explosion erupted, forcing the rune-marked hand to release him by several inches. Gerry used that brief

A deep red tractor beam cut through the desert darkness, pulling Gerry and Kael high into the sky, carrying them across the troposphere toward the belly of the Void Fleet's mothership."Hold on to your weapon, Kael! We're going to destroy them from the inside!" Gerry shouted over the deafening roar of the gravitational currents.However, before they could breach the mothership's landing bay doors, a surge of golden energy from Gerry's Sovereign Core suddenly collided with the vessel's ancient rune network. A violent gravitational field reversal erupted in the vacuum. The backlash hurled them away at supersonic speed, sending them thousands of miles across the landscape until they crashed into the secret negotiation chamber inside the central-sector stone fortress.BOOOM!The domed ceiling of the negotiation hall shattered into pieces. Limestone dust and marble tile fragments rained down on the massive round table where the regional faction commanders had gathered.Gerry rose from the

“You!” Kael cocked his pulse rifle with trembling hands, aiming the muzzle directly at the chest of the duplicate figure seated on the crystal throne. “Gerry, what the hell is that thing?!”“It’s not a creature,” Gerry Sterling growled, tightening his grip on Obsidian Fang until his knuckles turned white. “It’s a pure manifestation of the underground protocol that stole my biological data!”The duplicate figure chuckled softly. The sound echoed off the crystal walls, creating a piercing frequency that made their eardrums vibrate. With a single wave of the duplicate’s hand, a high-pressure gravitational shockwave erupted from the base of the throne.BOOM!The metal floor split apart. Gerry and Kael were hurled backward, slamming into the obsidian wall behind them. Kael spat out fresh blood, and his pulse rifle shattered into pieces, scattering sparks of electrical discharge.“Gerry...” Kael struggled to his feet, gasping for breath, his chest heaving as he fought through the pain. “The

"GERRY! CHOOSE NOW, OR WE’LL ALL BE DESTROYED!” Kael screamed, his voice hoarse and distorted as his body was pulled deeper into the dimensional black hole beneath the cracked glass platform.“I will not choose their rules!” Gerry roared, his eyes blazing with pure rage.“Don’t touch both at the same time, Gerry! You’ll destroy the entire structure of reality!” Kael shouted, struggling against the gravitational pull of fate that was tearing his body apart.“I will never let this system dictate humanity’s fate again!” Gerry slammed both palms onto the buttons on the altar’s surface simultaneously.Critical Warning! Dual input detected on the main console. Fatal instruction conflict. Initiating global historical archive purge.A mechanical hum thundered from every direction. The surface of the colossal platform in the middle of the void cracked violently. Thousands of screens displaying human lives suddenly flickered rapidly before going dark one by one.The glowing figure standing befo