Inside the Dominance Sphere, the world belonged to Wolfen.
Fire erupted from the ground—not the scattered flames of the destroyed bunker, but concentrated geysers of white-hot plasma that turned concrete to slag and steel to vapor. The very air itself seemed to burn, each breath a struggle, each movement a war against the absolute control of the sphere's creator.
Prime 10 stood at the center of it all, her dark grey mask catching the hellish light.
Then she vanished.
One moment she was there. The next—nothing. No blur of motion, no afterimage, no warning. Just absence.
Wolfen's eyes widened. A fraction of a second. That was all the warning he had.
Her fist connected with his chest.
The impact was catastrophic. Ribs shattered—not cracked, not fractured, but shattered, fragments piercing organs, shredding tissue. The force lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backward through the wall of his own sphere, through the burning air, through everything until he crashed into a pile of rubble fifty feet away.
The Dominance Sphere flickered. Died.
The flames receded. The pressure vanished. The world returned to normal—or as normal as a burning bunker could be.
Prime 10 stood where she had always stood, her fist still extended, her posture unchanged. She lowered her hand slowly, deliberately, and looked at the hole she'd made in the universe's most arrogant man.
"Impressive trick," she said quietly. "But tricks end."
The other Architects fanned out behind her—Superior-1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, their weapons ready, their postures radiating the confidence of predators who had just seen their alpha remind everyone why she was in charge.
From the shadows of the burning ruins, the others emerged.
Eva came first, her face a mask of cold fury, her hands already crackling with purple flame. Maya followed, her eyes flickering between blue and black, the Omega stirring beneath her skin. Leo crackled with barely contained lightning, his biopolymer filaments glowing bright. Derek's skin had already hardened to stone, his fists clenched, ready.
But no Jordan.
Wolfen pushed himself up from the rubble. His chest was a ruin—broken bones, internal bleeding, the kind of wounds that should have taken him out of the fight permanently. But his eyes were fixed on Prime 10, and something was happening inside him.
Neuro-Kinetic Substrate flowed toward his injuries like water finding its level. He could feel it—that energy Tube-Eva had described, the thing that made hybrids more, the power that Metas supposedly couldn't master. It coursed through him, responding to his will, his focus, his rage.
The bones knitted. The flesh sealed. The bleeding stopped.
In seconds, he was whole again.
Prime 10's head tilted slightly. "Interesting."
Wolfen straightened, rolling his shoulders, testing his newly healed body. A grin spread across his face—bloody, broken, utterly unhinged.
"Interesting," he repeated. "Yeah. That's one word for it."
Eva stepped forward, her purple flames rising higher. And then she did something that made even the Architects pause.
She smiled.
Not her usual tight-lipped expression of determination. Not the gentle smile she saved for Lily. This was something else—wide, wild, hungry. Her eyes, those mercury-sheen eyes, held a light that hadn't been there before. A light that recognized something in the flames, in the destruction, in the beautiful chaos of battle.
She spread her arms wide, purple fire dancing along every inch of her skin.
"Let us rip each other apart," she said, her voice carrying across the burning ruins, rich with anticipation. "Shall we?"
Leo stared at her. "Eva...?"
Maya's eyes went wide. The Omega whispered something she couldn't quite hear, but the tone was clear: Fear.
Prime 10 looked at Eva for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Yes," she said. "Let's."
The fire roared higher. The Architects braced. The survivors of a hundred battles prepared for the next.
And somewhere in the smoke, Jordan was watching, waiting for the perfect moment.
The war had entered its final phase.