2025-08-09 08:53:00The sky over Haven was quiet for the first time in a generation—not merely calm in weather, but calm in spirit. No shimmering auroras, no data storms, no distant echoes of Dominion failsafes awakening. The Memory Tree’s biolight glowed steady and warm, its leaves rustling in a breeze that carried the scent of new blooms and fresh ink.
It was dawn on the first Anniversary of the Living Archive.
In the Grand Concourse, a vast open-air pavilion had been erected—white canvas draped over living beams of wood grown in the patterns of the Citadel’s old vaults. Villagers, scholars, children, and refugees alike gathered to commemorate the day Ayla Murnen gave her final vow: “Remember without worship, guard memory without chains.”
Among the crowd stood three figures apart: Ethan Cross, now silver-haired but still bearing the valor in his gait; Vanta Lorma, Commander of the New Guard, her once-bruised form healed yet marked
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Chapter 303 – The Awakening Beyond
The watchstation shuddered as solar winds battered its shields. Station Helion, once a research outpost on the fringes of the known world, had been hastily retrofitted into a command center. Screens lined the walls, all showing the same image: a silhouette against nebular stars, rising slowly into view—something vast, alien, and anything but dormant.Ethan Cross stood at the panoramic viewport, arms crossed, jaw tense. Behind him, Asha paced, boots clicking against the metal deck. Oracle’s avatar—a calm, crystalline shape—hovered beside a cascading data feed.“There,” Oracle said. “The scaners detect a foreign mass. It’s approximately two hundred kilometers long. Signatures unknown. Gravitic resonance off the charts. Not Dominion.”Asha stopped pacing. “We thought we erased the last god. But this… this is something else entirely.”Ethan didn’t answer. He stared at
Chapter 302 – Echoes Across the Sky
The dropship tore through the thinning atmosphere like a blade through silk, the firetrail behind it mirrored by the crimson glow seeping into the clouds below. Oracle had pushed the engines to near-failure just to keep distance from the thing clawing its way out of the mountain—something ancient, furious, and suddenly awake.Ethan braced himself against the bulkhead, eyes locked on the external feed. The creature’s form shimmered, oscillating between solid and ethereal. Its wings, each spanning wider than two aircraft carriers, beat against the upper air like thunderclaps, distorting the jet stream.“How fast is it moving?” he barked.“Mach 1.2 and climbing,” Oracle answered. “But it’s not chasing us anymore.”Asha leaned over the console, her voice low. “It’s ascending.”They watched as the beast angled toward the stratosphere—toward space.“N
Chapter 301 – The Dominion’s Final Breath
The blast crater pulsed with faint blue light, the remnants of the Dominion Core’s implosion etched into the scorched earth. Smoke curled from fractured stone, whispering like the ghosts of every secret the Consortium had tried to bury. Ethan stood at the edge, blood drying in a jagged line down his cheek, his breathing ragged but even. Around him, the last survivors of his team staggered toward one another, drawn by shared purpose and the unbearable silence.“Asha?” Ethan’s voice cracked.“I’m here.” Her silhouette emerged from the haze, clutching a charred dataslate. “I’ve got the data. All of it. The names, the funding trails, the black-site locations—they didn’t wipe it in time.”Ethan nodded grimly. “Good. We bury them with truth.”Behind them, the earth groaned. A massive shard of collapsed alloy wall shifted, and a gloved hand reached through. Talon. E
Chapter 300: The Last Silence
The ancient spire at the heart of the Ashen Vale cracked down its center, bleeding light—impossible, searing light—across the scarred landscape. Ethan Cross stood motionless at the cliff’s edge, his eyes locked on the collapsing tower. His breathing was shallow. Behind him, the survivors from Unit Echo staggered forward in silence, bearing wounds too deep for medics or time.Zhenya limped toward Ethan, her voice hoarse. “That was the Citadel Core. It’s… It’s gone.”He didn’t reply. In the sudden stillness, the only sound was the distant keening of the wind over ash. The Consortium’s last bastion—the source of the Parallax Key, the heart of their operations—was no more. What remained was fallout. Radiant fallout. Temporal damage. Unwritten futures.“Cross, we need orders,” Lira called out behind them, wiping blood from her cheek. “There’s still Consortium cleanup pock
Chapter 299: The Sovereign’s Endgame
The tremors beneath the Dominion’s capital were no longer subtle. What began as a distant rumble had now become a full-blown convulsion, shaking the very foundations of the Black Spire. Panic spread like fire through the lower tiers of the city as crimson light bled from the cracks in the earth, staining the air with the smell of scorched ozone and something darker—older.High above, at the pinnacle of the Spire, Ethan Cross stood on the shattered obsidian dais with blood running down his temple. His left arm hung limp, dislocated from the last strike, but his eyes were locked on the thing before him—the Sovereign.No longer shrouded in humanoid form, the Sovereign had fully manifested into its ancient state: a serpentine wraith cloaked in glimmering armor made of collapsed time. Its voice echoed in frequencies that bent space.“You were never meant to reach this far, Ethan. You, who were a product of war and grief. You were built to serv
Chapter 298: The Final Chamber
The moment the obsidian doors of the Aegir Vault groaned open, a searing gust of arcane wind rushed out, thick with the smell of ozone and ancient dust. Ethan raised an arm to shield his face while Nia instinctively pressed her fingers against her temple, grounding her psychic shield. Beyond the threshold lay the Vault’s heart — a chamber sculpted from black crystal, veined with silver like lightning trapped in stone. The silence inside wasn’t empty; it felt conscious.Ethan stepped in first, his boots echoing faintly, as if even sound was reluctant to linger here.“Don’t touch anything yet,” he warned, eyes scanning the vault for traps — mechanical or magical. Beside him, Nia’s fingers brushed the surface of the mirrored walls, watching as their reflections rippled unnaturally. “It’s not just storing information,” she murmured. “It’s remembering us.”Dominik and Selene followed
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