2025-08-09 23:55:00Smoke drifted from the cracked edges of the Vein as the obsidian pillars lining the path pulsed with an ancient rhythm—one that hadn’t stirred since before the Dominion’s birth. Ethan knelt at the threshold, fingertips barely grazing the silver-lit seam that divided the realm of mortals from the buried heart of the Citadel.
Behind him, Ayla stood still, eyes wide and glassy. She had not spoken since the Vein opened. It was as though the energy had reached into her spine and wound itself around her soul.
“This is it,” Ethan muttered. “The core. The place it all began… and where it will end.”
A voice—neither wholly male nor female—echoed faintly within the stone around them.
“Your blood has called it. Your will has shaped it. Step forward and the truth will burn your illusions away.”
Ayla exhaled shakily. “That voice—”
“—is the Dominion itsel
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Chapter 307: Dominion fall
The jagged spires of Virelios Citadel loomed overhead like the claws of some ancient beast buried beneath the ice. They shimmered beneath the aurora that cracked the sky into ribbons of green and violet. Snowstorm remnants clung to the shattered battlements, but it was the silence—so total, so unnatural—that unnerved Ethan most. No alarms. No guards. Just stillness, as if the fortress itself were holding its breath.Ethan and his team—Aria, Bishop, Kato, and the now-restored Echo-6—stood just inside the outer threshold, the last security gate long since overridden by the viral pulse Aria deployed. Each of them bore the scars of a thousand battles, and tonight, they would wear them like armor.“Motion dampeners enabled,” Bishop whispered, crouched low, eyes sweeping. “I count no sentries within the thermal radius.”“That’s because they’re not here,” Aria said, her voice brittle.
Chapter 306 – The Soul Crucible
The silence that followed the collapse of the Vault was heavier than any scream. Smoke curled around the broken ruins like the fingers of some dying beast. Ethan Cross emerged from the rubble, one shoulder bleeding, his coat torn and burned at the hem. But his eyes—clear, furious, and locked on the horizon—were anything but defeated.Behind him, Aleska stirred beneath a pile of scorched debris, her breathing labored, but steady. Ethan rushed to her side, pulling free the beam pinning her leg. Her grimace turned into a thin smile.“You’re not rid of me yet,” she muttered, spitting blood onto the stone floor.“Damn right,” Ethan said, pulling her arm over his shoulder. “We’ve still got one more gate to close.”A low hum thrummed beneath their feet. The remnants of the Vault’s power grid, now unshackled from its inhibitors, were beginning to pulse erratically. In the center of th
Chapter 305: The Codex Unbound
The vault’s mechanisms groaned under the strain, ancient gears twisting for the first time in centuries. A breathless silence clung to the air as the last layer of the seal hissed open, revealing the obsidian box—the Codex itself.Ethan took a cautious step forward.Behind him, Zara’s fingers hovered near the trigger of her plasma repeater, her eyes scanning for traps. Silas stood motionless, his expression caught between awe and fear. The rest of the team held their breath.The Codex wasn’t ornate. It was brutally simple: matte black, unmarked, and humming with low, unnatural energy.“It’s… humming,” Zara whispered.“Not just humming,” Silas murmured. “It’s alive. Sentient coding. A living algorithm.”Ethan didn’t hesitate. He reached out and placed both palms on the surface of the box.A pulse surged through him—violent, mind-rip
Chapter 304: The Memory of Fire
The shadows had grown longer by the time Ethan emerged from the shattered threshold of the inner sanctum, his pulse thundering with what he had just seen. Liora followed closely, silent, her expression unreadable. They didn’t speak for several minutes. Neither needed to. The truth—raw, nuclear, irreversible—was still detonating in their minds.The Citadel had never fallen.It had been hidden.Not destroyed. Not erased. Hidden beneath layers of illusory architecture and psychic veils—buried beneath centuries of falsified history. The Dominion’s last line of defense, the core of its vanished command, had remained active all along.And it had watched.“Where is Zara?” Ethan asked as they passed beneath the arching bronze ribs of the Hall of Relics. “She should’ve been here by now.”“She went to reconnect the comm grid,” Liora replied. “We split up at the
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
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