Isabella Thorne stood at the precipice of the Black Valve, her chest heaving as the heat from her sword dissipated into the stale air of the sub-levels. The hatch was gone—vanished into the floor—leaving only the yawning dark shaft where Ken had fallen.
She didn't have time to grieve. She didn't have time to think. She had seconds before the Silver Guard turned the corner.
Isabella turned her blade inward, not toward herself, but toward the metal rim of the ventilation intake. She channeled a surge of white-hot mana into the steel. The metal screamed as it warped and blackened, the intense heat scorching the walls and filling the corridor with the acrid smell of ozone and vaporized alloy. She wasn't just damaging the shaft; she was creating a blast pattern.
"Knight Thorne!"
The shout came from the Lead Guard. A squad of six heavily armored soldiers rounded the bend, their visors glowing blue in the dim light. They stopped, weapons raised, scanning the smoke-filled corridor.
Isabella dropped to one knees, letting her sword clatter to the floor. She held up her shaking hands, deliberately smudging soot across her face to hide the lack of tears.
"Report!" the Lead Guard barked, marching forward. His scanner swept the area, chirping rapidly as it picked up the residual thermal energy she had just released. "Where is the target? Where is Vaelstron?"
"He's gone," Isabella whispered, her voice rough. She pointed to the scorched intake. "He panicked. He tried to force the lock on the containment unit to use the core against me. The stabilizer failed."
The Guard Captain stopped at the edge of the shaft. He looked at the melted slag on the rim, then at the lingering radiation reading on his tactical display.
"A containment breach?" the Captain asked, skepticism coloring his tone. "Where is the body?"
Isabella looked up, channeling every ounce of her training to keep her face a mask of trauma. "Captain, Ken Vaelstron had a mana-density of 0.8. He had no natural shielding. When that Tier-5 core destabilized, the thermal dump was instantaneous. There was no scream. There was no body. He didn't just die; he dissociated."
The Captain paused. The logic was sound. In the brutally mathematical world of the Dominion, a weak vessel could not survive a high-yield energy surge. A 0.8 density was practically paper in a firestorm.
"Scanners confirm high ionization levels consistent with a biological vaporization event," the Captain's medical droid chimed in, its monotone voice sealing Ken's fate. "Flagging student Ken Vaelstron as Deceased: Accidental Core Dissociation."
"Lock down the sector," Isabella ordered, standing up slowly. She retrieved her sword, her hands still trembling—not from fear, but from the weight of the lie. "The radiation is spreading. Seal this wing for twenty-four hours. No one enters until the isotopes decay."
The Guards saluted. They deployed holographic bio-hazard barriers, sealing the corridor in shimmering yellow light.
Isabella watched them work. She had bought him time. She had erased his existence. But as she turned to leave, she felt a cold knot in her stomach. She had set him free, but she had also unleashed him.
The Under-Sector: The Baron's Stronghold
The silence in the Baron's bunker was heavier than the lead walls.
Ken stood with his hand on the latch of the toolkit. Elara Vance watched him with hungry, violet eyes. Baron Grasberg sat on his throne, his mechanical lens whirring as it zoomed in on the box.
"Open it," Elara repeated softly. "Show us the monster."
Ken didn't hesitate. He flipped the latch.
The lid sprang open.
Immediately, the room should have been flooded with lethal gamma radiation. The guards flinched, bracing for the burn. The Baron's eye shuttered to protect its sensors.
But nothing happened.
There was no blinding light. No siren. Just a low, terrifying hum that vibrated in the teeth of everyone in the room.
Ken wasn't just holding the box; he was containing it. His Null-Core—the internal void that made him a failure in the eyes of the Academy—was acting as a perfect atmospheric dampener. He was swallowing the radiation as it tried to escape, cycling the energy into the nothingness inside him.
The Aegis Heart sat in the center of the box, a sphere of pulsating violet light, stripped of its safety shielding, yet completely stable.
"Impossible," the Baron breathed. He stood up, the cables in his head shifting. "That isn't mana manipulation. That's... absence. You're starving the reaction of oxygen."
"I am the dampener," Ken said, his voice straining with the effort. He looked at the Baron. "I can hold this for ten minutes before my internal focus breaks. If I let go, this room becomes a crater. Do we have a deal, Baron? Or do I let it breathe?"
The Baron stared at the boy. He saw the sweat beading on Ken's forehead, the absolute rigidity of his posture. He realized then that Maya was right. This wasn't a hostage; it was a weapon.
"Close it," the Baron commanded, sitting back down. "You made your point, Vaelstron."
Ken slammed the lid shut. The hum vanished. The pressure in the room normalized.
Elara clapped slowly. The sound was sharp and mocking. "Bravo. A Null-Barrier. The Academy theorized it was possible, but seeing it... it's like watching a black hole eat a star."
She walked around the table, tapping a command into the console on her wrist. A massive holographic screen on the wall flickered to life.
"You should see this, Ken," Elara said. "Your mother works fast."
The screen displayed the official Dominion News Network. The headline scrolled in bold, red letters: TRAGEDY AT THE ACADEMY.
The image shifted to a live feed from the Spire. Empress Valariana stood on the balcony, dressed in mourning white. Her face was a masterpiece of regal sorrow, though Ken knew her eyes remained cold.
"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the loss of Prince Ken Vaelstron," the announcer's voice boomed through the bunker. "During a routine equipment audit, a catastrophic malfunction occurred. The Prince was lost in the ensuing energy collapse. A moment of silence for the fallen son."
Ken watched his own obituary. He watched the crowd below the balcony bow their heads. He saw the lie cement itself into history.
"She knows," Ken murmured, staring at the screen.
"The Empress?" Maya asked, stepping up beside him. She had holstered her gun but kept her distance from Elara.
"She knows I'm not dead," Ken said. "She felt me in the hangar. She knows I have the Heart. If she thought I was vaporized, she would be tearing that sub-level apart looking for the core fragments. She's letting the lie stand."
"Why?" the Baron asked.
"Because a dead prince can't claim the throne," Elara answered for him. She leaned against the table, crossing her arms. "And more importantly, a dead prince is invisible. She wants you to think you're safe. She wants you to run, to use the Heart, to lead her to the Source Code. She just turned you into a ghost so she can hunt you without political consequences."
Ken looked at Elara. "You knew. You knew Isabella would lie."
"I calculated the probability," Elara corrected. "Isabella Thorne is a creature of duty, but her duty is to the ideal of the knighthood, not the politics. Saving you was the only 'knightly' thing she could do. I just ensured you were in the right place to force her hand."
"So what now?" Maya asked. "The world thinks he's dust. The Empress is hunting him off the books. And we're stuck with a radioactive bomb in a box."
Ken turned away from the screen. The "Lazy Prince" was gone. The hesitation was gone. He looked at the Baron.
"Now," Ken said, "we go to work. I need a terminal isolated from the Grid. I'm going to decode the Heart's map."
"And the Blind Spot?" the Baron asked, his mechanical eye focusing on Ken. "If the map leads there, what do you intend to do?"
"The Blind Spot is where the Architect's control ends," Ken said. "It's where the Source Code is hidden. I'm going to go there, and I'm going to rewrite the rules of this world."
The Baron grinned, revealing silver teeth. "Riggs! Get the guest a terminal. And get him some food. Ghosts need to eat."
Elara watched Ken walk away with the guards. She touched her visor, recording the moment.
"The simulation has evolved," she whispered to herself. "Let's see if the glitch can survive the patch."
End of Chapter 17