The Ascension Spire was dying.
Screams of tortured metal echoed through every level as power conduits ruptured and artificial gravity fields twisted in on themselves.
Alarms rang in chaotic harmony.
Emergency lights painted the collapsing structure in blood-red pulses.
Kael could barely stand.
His skin steamed from the throne's backlash. His mind was shredded by the raw psychic storm he had just survived.
But he was alive.
And the throne was gone.
"System collapse in three minutes," Liora barked as she hoisted Kael's arm over her shoulder.
Trix stirred, her head bleeding but her betrayal forgiven—for now.
Thalia had Seiryu over her shoulder, coughing blood but alive.
The corridor ahead was buckling.
They sprinted.
Behind them, Lucan walked slowly, hands trailing along the wall.
Watching his empire collapse.
The storm around the Spire tore at its foundation, revealing jagged black clouds and thunder that had no sky to belong to.
They reached the evac dock.
Or what was left of it.
A broken hangar bay with half a dozen ships either aflame or floating in zero-gravity loops.
The Nemesis was still functional—barely.
Trix ran to prime it for launch.
Liora turned to Kael.
"Go. Get aboard."
But Kael didn't move.
He was staring back down the corridor.
Where Lucan still stood, watching.
"He won't stop," Kael said.
Liora looked at him, exhausted. "He can't."
"I'll buy you time," Kael said.
She grabbed his hand. "No. Don't do this. Don't make it about sacrifice."
He looked at her, soft but certain.
"It's not about dying."
"It's about ending the story on my terms."
Before she could stop him, he walked back into the storm.
Lucan waited in the ruined core chamber.
Above them, the Omega systems screamed their last.
Below, the earth cracked with the gravitational drag of the Spire's imminent implosion.
"You think you've won," Lucan said, not turning.
Kael didn't draw a weapon.
He just walked up beside him.
"No. There's no winning in this."
"There's just stopping it before it consumes everyone else."
Lucan turned.
He wasn't afraid.
He wasn't even angry.
He looked… empty.
"Do you know why I built this?"
Kael nodded. "Because you lost control once. And you never forgave the world for letting it happen."
Lucan flinched. "She was supposed to survive."
Kael said nothing.
They both knew he meant Kael's mother.
Lucan looked at him with trembling lips.
"I couldn't save her. But I could build something that would save the rest."
"At any cost," Kael said.
Lucan's face hardened.
"Yes."
Kael stared at the wreckage of the throne.
The empire of clones.
The synthetic perfection that had collapsed under one thing it couldn't replicate: a broken, grieving, furious boy.
"I'm not you," Kael said.
Lucan smiled, strangely proud. "No. You're better."
Then he reached into his coat.
And pulled out the failsafe.
A sphere of dark light.
The Omega Heart.
"I built this in case someone like you got this far," Lucan said.
"It will erase everything. Me. You. This tower. Everyone tied to the algorithm."
He raised it.
Kael didn't flinch.
"Then do it."
Lucan blinked.
No resistance?
Kael stepped forward.
"You've already lost. You're not a god. You're just a man who couldn't live with grief."
"I get it."
"But if you're going to kill us all… do it knowing no one will remember you."
Lucan hesitated.
His hand shook.
The sphere dimmed.
He stared into Kael's eyes—and saw no hate left.
Only pity.
And that, more than anything, broke him.
He dropped the Omega Heart.
It cracked.
Faded.
And died.
The Spire screamed one final time.
Kael helped Lucan to his feet.
Together, they walked back to the hangar.
The Nemesis had already begun its launch sequence.
Trix opened the hatch as Kael carried his father's broken frame aboard.
The ship launched seconds before the Spire collapsed in on itself, the entire floating tower imploding into a singularity of failure and ambition.
Above the Atlantic, a dark sun was born for three seconds.
Then gone.
Later...
A week passed.
The world scrambled to understand what had happened.
News headlines said it was an illegal AI experiment destroyed by a billionaire vigilante.
Conspiracy forums spoke of clone wars and throne-worlds.
Governments denied everything.
But those who needed to know… knew.
Kael Virelion inherited nothing.
No company.
No title.
No bloodline.
Only a team.
And a mission.
One month later, Kael stood on a balcony overlooking the Virelion ruins.
Trix repaired her neural implants beside him.
Thalia was feeding stray dogs in the courtyard.
Liora walked up beside him, a datapad in hand.
"There's chatter. Someone's rebuilding Omega tech in the Red Zones."
Kael nodded.
"Then we end it before it starts."
Liora smiled.
"You sure you're ready?"
Kael looked at the horizon.
Where the world still burned in pockets of power and greed.
He said:
"They tried to make me a king."
"They ended up with something worse."
"Now I'm rewriting the story."