The crack across the crystal doors widened.A deep metallic groan rolled through the Northern Palace as the reinforced structure strained beneath Ethan Vance’s hand. Fragments of crystal loosened from the frame and fell across the steps, scattering like frozen shards beneath the pale morning light.Then the doors opened from within.Not because the palace intended to welcome him.Because three hundred soldiers were coming out to meet him.They emerged in perfect formation.The Household Guard of the Northern Palace had been assembled from the strongest warriors in the Northern territories. Every soldier had undergone years of combat conditioning, advanced physical enhancement, and military discipline. Their armor was layered black steel reinforced with crystal alloy, each breastplate carrying the silver crest of the Northern Chancellor.Every weapon was drawn.Three hundred Tier-5 warriors filled the entrance plaza.Behind them, more soldiers occupied the balconies and defensive platf

The transformation finished with a sound like the breaking of a mountain.Bartholomew’s body expanded beneath the pressure of the unstable serum, tearing through the remains of his ceremonial armor. Frost erupted across his shoulders and chest, forming a natural layer of crystalline armor over his mutated frame. His hands had become enormous claws, each finger surrounded by freezing vapor. Two jagged horns of translucent ice pushed upward from his temples, while his eyes burned with an unnatural blue-white radiance.He no longer looked like the Chancellor of the Northern Empire.He looked like the embodiment of winter itself.The throne behind him disappeared beneath ice.The floor cracked.A violent wave of cold exploded from his body.BOOM!Every crystal pillar in the throne room froze simultaneously.The temperature plunged again.Then again.The system struggled to calculate the environmental change.[EXTREME TEMPERATURE DROP DETECTED.][TEMPERATURE: -140°C.][WARNING.][TEMPERATU

The Northern Crown lay broken beneath Ethan Vance’s feet.Around it, the throne room had become almost unrecognizable.The once-imposing crystal pillars had collapsed. The obsidian walls were fractured. Frozen debris covered the floor, slowly melting as the unnatural temperature generated by Bartholomew’s transformation disappeared.The Northern Chancellor was no longer a ruler.He was a defeated man lying beneath the ruins of the throne he had sworn would never be taken from him.Ethan approached.Bartholomew struggled to raise his head.“You…”His voice was weak.“You won’t understand what you’ve done.”Ethan stopped beside him.Bartholomew coughed.“The Northern Empire… has stood for generations.”His fingers moved toward the broken crown.“You can destroy me, but you cannot control everything.”Ethan looked at the shattered crown.“That is exactly what I’m about to do.”Bartholomew’s expression changed.Ethan extended his hand.The system responded immediately.[EXTRACTION TARGET

The Northern Palace was supposed to have revealed everything when its defenses fell.It had not.Three days after the fall of Bartholomew Sterling, the palace remained under Ghost Syndicate control. Its shattered corridors were being reinforced, damaged systems were being catalogued, and surviving administrative records were being transferred into the new Northern network.Yet Ethan knew there was something missing.Bartholomew had ruled the Northern territories for decades.A ruler with access to that much wealth did not keep everything in ordinary financial institutions.Ethan stood in the ruined throne room, studying the remains of the platform where the Northern Crown had once rested.Marcus approached with several recovered palace records.“The treasury records don’t match the economic data we extracted.”Ethan turned.“How much is missing?”“Too much.”Marcus placed a data tablet before him.“The official records account for approximately sixty percent of the strategic reserves

The Mercer name had once been enough to open doors.Now it could not even open a locked apartment.Chloe Mercer stood beneath the cold concrete awning of an abandoned commercial building, staring through the rain at the unfamiliar city beyond it. Her expensive coat was stained at the hem, her shoes were soaked through, and the diamond bracelet that had once attracted attention everywhere she went was gone. She had sold it two days earlier for barely enough money to purchase food and temporary shelter.That shelter had disappeared that morning.The property belonged to a company that had been absorbed into the Ghost Syndicate, and when the new administrators discovered that Chloe and Oliver had been sleeping there without authorization, they had been removed without ceremony.No lawyers had appeared.No guards had hesitated.No one had cared that Chloe Mercer had once been the daughter of one of the Northern Capital’s most influential families.The Mercer estate was gone.Their account