The Ascension Spire stood in the middle of nowhere.
A black obelisk piercing the clouds above the mid-Atlantic trench.
It wasn't anchored to the Earth—it hovered, suspended by magnetic graviton fields that hadn't existed in any nation's technology catalog.
Lucan had built it in silence, shielded by the illusion of impossibility.
The Omega Throne was waiting at its peak.
Kael Virelion was supposed to take his seat.
Instead, he came to end it.
The Nemesis arrived under stealth veil, just as the world's sky darkened.
It was midday, yet stars shone above the Spire.
Reality bent in waves.
Below the tower, military drones hummed. Omega Knights—Lucan's private army of mind-linked supersoldiers—circled the entry docks.
They wore Kael's face.
Every single one.
Slightly altered.
Slightly wrong.
"They're copies," Thalia muttered. "Lucan's already begun broadcasting the Crown Echo."
Seiryu loaded his blades. "So we kill you—over and over again."
Trix was silent, for once.
She stared at the spire and said, "We're late."
Kael said nothing.
He walked to the edge of the drop ramp.
And jumped.
The others followed.
Five shadows falling through artificial gravity.
Landing with surgical grace on the third ring of the spire—where a surgical access point gave entry to the heart of the machine.
Alarms went off, of course.
Kael didn't care.
They weren't here for stealth.
They were here for war.
The inner corridors pulsed with golden light.
Energy hummed through the walls like blood.
The Omega Core lay above.
Kael's throne.
Lucan's legacy.
They reached the final chamber—a cathedral of circuitry and dream.
The Throne stood in the center.
Not a chair.
A web.
A throne meant not to sit, but to surrender.
And in front of it stood Lucan Sterling.
Alive.
Untouched.
Perfectly dressed, as if war had never touched him.
He looked at Kael with a smile that bent gravity.
"Son."
Kael's fists clenched. "Don't."
Lucan raised a hand.
"Then let's end the lie."
With a motion, he dismissed his guards.
They vanished into the walls.
Liora stepped forward.
"Your empire ends here."
Lucan tilted his head.
"I built this world to save it. You'd rather burn it for your pain."
"You built this world to own it," Kael snarled.
"To erase every voice that could say no."
Lucan gestured to the Throne.
"You think this is power. It's not."
"It's peace. A final algorithm. No war. No inequality. No freedom to destroy ourselves."
Kael looked around.
At the machines.
The stolen identities.
The cloned versions of himself patrolling the corridors.
He breathed out, slow.
Then turned to the team.
"Plug in the lie."
Trix nodded.
She uploaded the counter-algorithm—the corrupted Kael consciousness they had built.
A virus made of honesty.
One designed to break the Crown Echo.
The system screamed.
Lucan moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
He struck Seiryu in the throat—shattering his windpipe.
Trix tried to pull a gun.
Lucan bent space.
It shattered in her hand.
Kael lunged.
Fists met palms.
Father met son.
The battle was not equal.
Lucan had decades of AI-augmented strength.
Kael had only raw fury.
But fury had teeth.
And Kael bit deep.
He drove his elbow into Lucan's ribs, cracked them, then slammed his head into the throne's base.
Blood splattered.
Lucan laughed through it.
"You think I didn't want you to reach this point?"
"I needed you to. The throne only responds to free will."
Kael's eyes widened.
He looked at the throne.
It was glowing.
Waiting.
For him.
He turned to Trix.
"Upload the final lockout."
But Trix…
Trix was crying.
Her gun raised.
Pointed at Kael.
Everyone froze.
"Trix?" Thalia whispered.
Trix's hand shook.
"I didn't want this."
Kael stared at her.
"You're—"
She nodded. "A plant. Since the Hollow Crown."
"Lucan saved my brother from terminal decay. I owed him."
Lucan smiled, blood trailing down his lip.
"I told you, Kael."
"You were never going to escape me."
Trix pulled the trigger.
The gun clicked.
No bullet.
Thalia had swapped it.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He crossed the room in a blink.
Grabbed Trix's wrist.
And said, with infinite calm:
"I forgive you."
Then knocked her out cold.
Lucan staggered to his feet.
Bleeding. Laughing.
"You don't get it. The moment you sit—your mind ends. The system takes everything."
Kael looked at the throne.
Then at Liora.
Then back at Lucan.
"Then I'll burn it from the inside."
He sat.
The world vanished.