"Take us up, Maya," I commanded, my voice resonating with the dense, gravitational weight of the crystallized black hole spinning in my chest."Punching the anti-grav thrusters to maximum!" Maya yelled, her fingers a blur over the holographic controls. "Hang on, this thing wasn't built for vertical drag!"The hijacked Tier 7 dreadnought violently shuddered. The anti-gravity engines roared, with no regard for the laws of aerodynamics, and we flew straight into the oncoming storm. In a flash we broke through the dark clouds, leaving the burning ruins of Ravenwood City far below.I didn't go with the command console. The density and fear that my new Tier 8 core had ignited was so great it grounded me to the floor. It was the light in the bridge that curved towards my chest, pulled by the tiny singularity that I had created from the Annihilation Core.Aria was standing next to me, her hand on my arm. The silver Warden runes on her skin resonated in perfect harmony with my heartbeat. As a

"Skip the stairs?" Valerius Thorne repeated, his voice dangerously soft, yet it vibrated through the white marble beneath my boots.He slowly began to descend the last steps, his twelve Supreme Elites spread out around him. Their Tier 6 and Tier 7 auras were suffocating, but standing next to Valerius, they felt like candles next to a dying sun.Ten years ago you were my biggest weapon, Kaelen," Valerius said with his angelic face twisted into a mask of pure, condescending disgust. Three years ago you were a loose end that I let live in the dirt, but now? I am the cure, You are the infection.Valerius lifted his hand and thrust his one pristine finger at me.Kill the women, skin the assassin, bring me the Asura's heart.The twelve Supreme Elites didn't take a second thought. A dozen streaks of blinding golden light tore across the courtyard, and they were in motion.I didn't take a second look at them. My dark eyes never left Valerius.“Ghost, I said calmly. "Clear the yard."You got i

The glowing gold markers on Ghost’s tablet didn't just blink; they pulsed like twelve beating hearts.I felt it even in the pouring rain of Ravenwood City, where nothing was touched by the rain because of the singularity spinning in my chest. It was not a shock wave. It was a spiritual tremor which shook the foundations of the earth.Thousands of miles away, the sky over the Atlantic Ocean was a bruised purple. A wave of bone dry heat from the Sahara briefly took hold of the freezing storm.Aria whispered, "They're awake," her hand instinctively going to the silver Warden crest on her forehead. The original prisoners. The ones who gave everything to lock away my ancestors.I looked at the horizon with my pitch-black eyes and narrowed, "Valerius was a parasite, but his stolen power was the final seal. The world of "the hidden" lost its ruler when he left.The world of "the hidden" is now ruled by twelve apex predators."And they’re gonna be hungry, boss," Ghost said, tapping the tablet.

One second.That was how long it would take for millions of gallons of hyper-condensed primordial ocean to cross the distance and slam into the Eclipse Canopy.If the barrier of the black hole could ever absorb the mass, the impact of the god-level tsunami would still cause the dome to collapse and crush the city beneath it.I did not attempt to take the wave. I didn't try to expand my void to catch it. An ocean can't be out-wrestled.However, it can be changed to other states.Through the soul-bond, I spoke, my thoughts traveling at the speed of light, “Aria.” “Remove the pressure shields. Fill my thermal regulators with all the Warden silver I have. I'm removing the core from safety.”“Do it!” Aria shouted back, immediately pouring freezing ancient silver light into my meridians.I didn't release the void into the outside world. I redirected my attention inward, and into the tiny singularity that was spinning in the middle of my chest. A black hole doesn't just swallow matter, it sm

A mile is a long way when the woman you love is half a second from death.Despite my Eclipse core being transported across space, it still took only a heartbeat to teleport a mile. That was a fraction I didn't have at all. Aria’s face was just inches from being sliced open by the Tier 5 Vanguard's unhinged jaws, which were filled with razor-sharp teeth.I didn't just step into the spatial void. I shattered it.I had ripped the huge, old spatial perception from the Leviathan's soul and fed it into my black hole. I didn't go from the shoreline to the Golden Lotus, I took the cloth of reality and ripped it in half.Crack.There was a lot of yelling in space as I appeared right inside the flooded underground command center.The Tier 5 monstrosity’s jaws snapped shut. They didn't close around Aria, though. They put their mouths on my bare left arm.The beast's fangs were meant to tear into the hulls of submarines, and they tore through my skin with ease. My Tier 8 ship's golden and silver