2025-12-10 04:19:46Caius’s smile evaporated the moment Zane’s eyes ignited with the true, raw blue of divine energy. It was the glare of a deity, cold and consuming. The silver pistol in Caius's hand bucked once, spitting a projectile coated in a shimmering, dark energy—a bullet designed to shatter a god’s mortal vessel.
The System, fighting for control, screamed in Zane's mind.
[CRITICAL THREAT! Divine Energy Projectile Detected. Impact in 0.5s.]
[MORTAL BODY INSUFFICIENT. AVOIDANCE IMPOSSIBLE. POWER REROUTE REQUIRED.]
Zane's power was surging, but it was unrefined—a tsunami that would drown him before it washed away his enemy. He couldn't dodge, and he couldn't use the full force of the God of War without incinerating his own body and the entire Administration Tower.
His Commander's mind took over, bypassing the fear and zeroing in on the System's mechanics. If I can’t stop the bullet, I stop the magic.
"Reroute kinetic force to localized temporal displacement!" Zane roared, though only a whisper of the command escaped his lips.
The System, fighting against its own programming, complied instantly.
[WARNING! Unconventional Command Received. Activating Temporal Displacement (Level Zero).]
[Energy Consumption: 98% of Containment Buffer.]
In the next half-second, the world seemed to ripple around Zane. The ordinary air became thick, like cold, viscous syrup. The dark energy projectile, only inches from his chest, slowed to a crawl, shimmering in the localized temporal distortion he had forced.
Caius’s eyes went wide with pure terror. He recognized the maneuver—a technique that required mastery of divine energy and could only be performed by one of the true, ancient commanders.
"No! That's impossible!" Caius screamed, realizing he was trapped.
Zane’s body was now screaming under the immense strain. Every nerve ending felt like it was on fire, but he had bought himself a single, precious second. His divine glare locked onto Caius.
"You speak of the Scions of Chaos," Zane's voice was now deep, resonant, and layered with the voices of a thousand past battles. "The Scions always fail to understand the difference between power and strategy."
He didn't need to touch Caius. He merely focused the released divine energy—the 55% surge that had been prepared to tear Caius apart—and channeled it past the slowed bullet, directing the raw kinetic force like a silent cannonade.
The energy slammed into Caius’s chest, not with the explosive force of a bomb, but with the focused, shattering pressure of a collapsing star. Caius’s tailored suit instantly ripped, and the man didn’t fly backward; he simply collapsed, every bone in his chest reduced to dust in an invisible, brutal wave. He was dead before he hit the rooftop.
The Temporal Displacement field collapsed, and the dark energy bullet shot forward, grazing Zane's shoulder before hitting the concrete wall with a soft pffft and dissolving.
Zane swayed on his feet, the blue light fading from his eyes. The pain was astronomical. He wasn’t merely tired; he felt the cellular structure of his mortal body trying desperately to knit itself back together after containing a power surge designed for planetary defense.
[Mission Success: Hostile Threat Neutralized.]
[Reward: Temporary Power Stabilization. Skill Unlock: Temporal Shift (Lv. 1).]
[Warning: Containment Buffer Empty. Immediate Rest Required. Failure to Rest will Result in Core Power Leakage and Mortal Deterioration.]
Zane stumbled toward the dead man. The silver pistol had fallen away, and the bronze amulet (The Mark of the Serpent) lay near the ledge. He snatched up both. The pistol was crafted from an otherworldly alloy, and the amulet was a cheap tracking device.
Caius was a disposable scout, Zane realized, running a quick mental scan of the rooftop. He was here to test the perimeter, and the Chen family served as his initial bait.
The Aftermath of War
The roar of a helicopter suddenly filled the sky. Zane moved, not with the slow, defeated gait of the Son-in-Law, but with the rapid, efficient movements of a ghost. He wiped the metallic surface of the pistol, jammed it into his waistband, and crushed the bronze amulet under his heel.
He slid back down the stairs just as the helicopter began to hover over the Administration Tower, its spotlight sweeping the roof. It was likely a private security detail, alerted by the subtle energy signature of the temporal shift.
Zane arrived back at the hallway just as Anya and Victor emerged from the lounge, Victor still cradling his arm and Anya hysterically talking into her phone.
"—Yes, Father! Victor needs an ambulance! And that worthless dog, Zane, he needs to be punished! He's disappeared!"
Zane calmly picked up his cleaning bucket and sponge. He leaned against the wall near the stairwell, deliberately looking exhausted and slightly dirty.
"I'm here, Anya," Zane said, his voice flat but loud enough to be heard. "I was retrieving more supplies. Did you call for help?"
Anya spun around, her eyes widening at his sudden appearance. "You! Where were you? You broke Victor's arm, you zero!"
Victor, pale with pain, glared at Zane. "He used a weapon! He must have!"
"I used this, Victor," Zane said, holding up the scrubbing brush. "I told you, you slipped. I assume you're too embarrassed to tell your father the truth. That's fine. I'll take the punishment for your clumsiness."
The sheer audacity of the statement—taking credit for the mess while standing there, meek and dirty—confused Anya instantly. She couldn't process the sudden shift in power dynamics, so she defaulted to the easiest explanation: Zane is still a zero, and Victor is a liability.
"Father is sending security," Anya spat, her face a mask of disgust. "Get back to cleaning the main entrance. And don't look at my sister."
Zane nodded, bowing his head slightly, playing the role perfectly. He walked away from the lounge, moving toward the main entrance, his secret safe for now.
The Traitor's Anchor
Later that night, Zane sat alone in the small, dusty utility room assigned to him in the Chen family’s sprawling campus residence. He was analyzing the silver pistol. It was Scion technology, and it confirmed that the threat was organized.
He pulled out the System interface.
[Host: Zane (Ares)]
[Core Power: 5% (Recovery Protocol Active)]
[Acquired Skills: Iron Fist (Lv. 1); Temporal Shift (Lv. 1)]
He was operating on fumes. The price of survival had been nearly total depletion.
His thoughts turned to Liya Chen, his "wife." Caius’s words echoed: She's the key to permanently terminating your divine spark.
He walked into the adjacent room—Liya’s master suite. It was spotless, impersonal, and luxurious. She was asleep in the massive bed, her face serene, looking nothing like a cosmic executioner.
Zane stood over her. In his past life, he would have eliminated any threat without hesitation. But his current self—the one shackled by the divine vow—couldn't. He was bound to this mortal existence by the hope of reclaiming his true self and destroying his enemies, and the System insisted on one fact: Liya was not merely a threat; she was an essential component of his current mortal prison.
She is the key.
If she died, the prison would shatter, releasing the God of War's destructive full power—and destroying Zane's consciousness in the process. He had to keep her alive, even if she was the enemy's anchor.
He reached out, his hand hovering near her forehead, a brief, cold flash of divine energy scanning her subconscious. He found no malice, no Scion influence—only weariness, ambition, and a flicker of deep-seated, confusing loyalty toward her family.
She is an unwitting bomb, Zane concluded, pulling his hand back. And I am the one who has to contain the blast.
He looked back at the interface. He needed power. He needed resources. He needed to prepare for war, and the Chen family's resources, however contemptuously gathered, were now his only means of defense. He would play the role of the Zero—the worthless Son-in-Law—and steal everything he needed to fight the war only he knew was coming.
His lips curved into a cold, dangerous smile. "Very well, Caius. You wanted the God of War? You just resurrected him on a college campus. Now, let's see how well your cult handles a little strategic chaos."
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Chapter 87
The Solar Shield was a masterpiece of golden geometry, a shimmering web of Syntax-fire that made Earth look like a jewel in a cage. But as the team celebrated the "Syringe’s" success near the orbit of Mercury, a cold realization struck the Apex-Prime’s sensor suite."The Reapers aren't hitting the shield," Rix whispered, his face illuminated by a frantic red pulse on his console. "They’ve bypassed the inner system entirely. They’re folding in behind the shadow of Saturn. They’re going for the source, Liya. They’re going for Titan."The "Emerald Seed" in Liya’s chest throbbed in sympathetic agony. She could feel Sola’s fear through the bio-network. The Reapers weren't just attacking a moon; they were attempting to lobotomize the "Green Code" at its root.The Methane StormThe Apex-Prime arrived at Titan to find a world of orange nightmares. The Reapers had dropped three Atmospheric Siphons into the methane clouds, churning the moon's weather into a hyper-velocity hurricane of free
Chapter 86
If Saturn was a cathedral of ice and silence, Mercury was an industrial furnace where the laws of physics went to melt.The Apex-Prime couldn't descend. Even with the Unbound fleet’s advanced shielding, the solar radiation this close to the Sun’s corona threatened to strip the ship's outer hull like paint. They hovered in the "Umbra," the long, frozen shadow cast by the planet itself, while the Solar Syringe—a needle of heat-resistant obsidian—was prepared for the drop."The surface temperature on the sunward side is 430°C," Rix said, his sweat-soaked hair sticking to his forehead despite the ship's internal cooling. "But it’s not the heat that’ll kill you. It’s the Solar Wind. The particles are moving at 400 kilometers per second. It’s like being sandblasted by a hurricane made of knives.""The Shield needs the juice, Rix," Kael said, slamming a new set of thermal-regulators into his titanium legs. "Unless you want to try powering the Syntax Spire with a bunch of AA batteries."
Chapter 85
The transformation of the Reaper-Prime into a flowering statue was meant to be a symbol of hope. Instead, it became a trigger for a mass exodus.Within the neural corridors of the Apex-Prime, the trillion souls of the Unbound were screaming. To them, the "Void-Chrome" of the Vanguard wasn't just metal—it was the color of their extinction. They didn't see Liya’s victory; they saw the inevitable return of the Reapers."The fleet is breaking formation," Rix reported, his voice cracking with exhaustion. He was slumped over the Command Table in Berlin, watching as hundreds of prismatic Ghost-ships ignited their folding drives in the upper atmosphere. "They’re not moving to defensive positions. They’re... they’re pointing their prows away from the Sun."The Schism of the SoulsLiya stood in the center of the Sanctuary, her emerald eyes pulsing with the rhythm of the planet. She could feel the fleet’s terror. It was a cold, sharp vibration that tasted like ozone and old grief."Rix, ge
Chapter 84
The "Nine-Year Vigil" began not with a prayer, but with a puncture.Six months after the Saturn Siege, the Earth had begun to transform. Under Sola’s guidance and Rix’s engineering, "Syntax Spires" were being grown from the soil of every continent—massive, bio-organic towers that acted as planetary lungs, scrubbing the last of the Scion soot from the atmosphere.But the peace was a thin glass skin.Liya sat in the heart of the Berlin Sanctuary, a cathedral grown from living willow and silver-glass. The Emerald Seed had moved from her arm to her chest, a pulsing heart of ivy that sat just above her collarbone. She spent sixteen hours a day in a "Data-Trance," her mind weaving the complex bio-mathematical shields that would eventually protect the sun."Liya, break the link," Rix’s voice crackled through the sanctuary’s spores. "We have a Ghost-Point in the upper thermosphere. It’s small. It’s fast. And it didn't come through the Breach."The Shadow in the SkyLiya opened her eyes
Chapter 83
The peace of the Observer’s Citadel lasted only as long as it took for the Emerald Seed to recognize Liya’s DNA. The moment her hand hovered over the pedestal, the green light flared, and the "Ghost Point" in the rings lit up like a beacon—a flare that called out to every hostile sensor remaining in the solar system."We have incoming!" Rix’s voice cut through the pine-scented air, sharp and frantic. "Three... no, five Obsidian Shards. They’re folding into the Gap! The Keepers didn't go into hibernation—they were hunting us!""They seek the Syntax," Sola said, her vine-hair rustling in a sudden, artificial wind. "They cannot allow the Source to be Re-Wilded. If they can’t have the Seed, they will shatter this moonlet to ensure no one does."The Zero-G ForestThe first strike hit the Citadel’s gravity generators.With a sickening groan of metal and crystal, the world tilted. The massive, glowing pine-trees of the biosphere were uprooted, drifting into the air as the centrifugal f
Chapter 82
The nine-year countdown had begun, but the atmosphere aboard the Apex-Prime wasn't one of panic. It was one of cold, mechanical focus."The Reaper Scout's data-core is a goldmine," Rix said, his eyes reflecting the pale amber light of the holographic solar system. "But it's mostly logs of their hunger. However, there’s a persistent ping—a 'backdoor' signal—hidden in the scout's tertiary navigation sub-routine. It’s not coming from the Source. It’s coming from the Cassinni Gap in Saturn’s rings."Liya stood at the prow of the ship, her silver armor smoothed into a reflective sheen that mirrored the stars. "Aethel mentioned others. He said the First Born were fractured. If there’s someone at Saturn who didn't call the Reapers, we need to know why.""It’s a long jump," Kael said, crossing his massive arms. "Even with the Ghost Fleet’s folding drives, Saturn is a different beast. We’ll be out of range of Earth’s defense grid. If it’s a trap, we’re on our own.""We’ve been on our own
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