The skyscraper dominated the skyline like a scar driven into the city.
Forty floors of black alloy and reinforced glass rose into the smog, its surface carved with the Dominion emblem. a broken circle bound in chains. A symbol not of order, but containment.
Lyria Feyne projected the layout into the air. Floors unfolded like exposed organs.
"Lord Veylith's study," she said softly, voice steady despite the weight of what it represented, "is at the apex. Floor forty."
Silence followed.
Tessa Wyn broke it with a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"I brought us a way in."
Three superbikes unfolded from compact frames, sleek, predatory machines humming with suppressed Aether. Engines purred like restrained thunder.
Teams split instinctively.
Iria & Kael
Darius & Lyria
Veyla & Rai
Veyla eyed Rai's cybernetic arm, unimpressed.
"Great," she muttered. "I'm stuck with the lightning rod."
Rai smirked. "Try not to blink."
The bikes roared.
Glass exploded inward.
The lobby became chaos before alarms could finish forming.
Seven Dominion soldiers reached for Aether rifles.
They never fired.
Lyria stepped forward, harp humming once.
She sang.
Aetherial Resonance tore through the room,sound becoming force, thought unraveling under harmonic pressure. Minds collapsed inward. Soldiers dropped like marionettes with cut strings, blood leaking from noses, eyes empty.
The doors sealed behind them.
The elevator waited.
They entered.
The elevator slowed.
Iria stepped out before it fully stopped at floor 5
Meanwhile Rai, Kael, Darius, Veyla and Lyria continue going up.
Three guards turned.
She was already gone.
She use her Aether Abilities: Aetherial Phantom
phased half-existing,reappearing inside their reach. Elbows shattered throats. Knees crushed joints. One guard fired blindly.
She wasn't there.
Inside the surveillance room, four operators spun in panic.
Iria moved without blades.
Hands struck pressure points, necks snapped with precise brutality. One man tried to scream.
She phased her fingers into his jaw and re-solidified.
Silence returned.
Cameras died.
Iria vanished into the stairwell climbing up to floor 20.
Veyla exited alone at floor 10. While the remaining stayed in the elevator going up.
Two operators. Four guards.
They never understood what killed them.
She phased through gunfire, daggers whispering. Plasma carved arteries. Bodies fell before alarms triggered.
She severed the power.
Data streamed into her holographic watch, door schematics, Aether-sensing weapons,
"Tessa," she said calmly. "You're clear."
Then she climbed to floor 30
FLOOR 20 — NO ROOM FOR MERCY
Thirty Dominion soldiers waited on Floor 20.
Not recruits.
Not patrol trash.
These were trained execution units, aether-rifles charged, visors synced, kill-zones mapped before the elevator doors ever opened. The corridor lights burned white and unforgiving, reflecting off reinforced plating and blood-slick steel.
The elevator stopped short.
Lyria Feyne's fingers tightened around the harp's frame.
The doors did not open.
Instead
A scream echoed from the stairwell.
A body hit the floor.
Then Iria Nox emerged, coat torn, eyes feral and bright. Her blades hummed low, vibrating with dimensional tension.
No words were exchanged.
There was no need.
They moved.
PHANTOM ECHOES
Reality fractured around Iria.
She split once, twice, a dozen times, Phantom Echoes tearing free from her body like reflections escaping a broken mirror. Each Iria stepped from a slightly different angle of reality, each wielding a resonance blade tuned to a different phase.
The soldiers opened fire.
Too late.
Each Echo engaged a different target.
Isolated. Personal.
A blade slid through a visor slit.
Another severed a rifle mid-shot, its owner screaming as feedback cooked his nervous system.
A third soldier swung wildly, screaming at copies that vanished just before impact.
Confusion spread faster than blood.
Men died alone, in silence, convinced they were losing a private duel no one else could see.
AETHERIAL RESONANCE
Lyria stepped forward.
She drew the harp close.
And sang.
The note wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
Aether bent toward her voice like iron to a magnet. The air vibrated. Helmets cracked. Visors fogged red as sound threaded directly into neural pathways.
Ten soldiers dropped instantly.
Not dead.
Broken.
They clawed at their heads, screaming as memories unraveled names lost, commands forgotten, identity collapsing under harmonic assault. Blood leaked from eyes and ears as their minds shattered under the resonance.
Then the Dominion adapted.
Aether cannons screamed.
Beams tore through Echoes through Lyria's defenses, through flesh.
Iria took a hit to the side, the blast spinning her hard into a wall. Bone cracked. Her vision flared white.
Lyria screamed as a beam burned across her shoulder, vaporizing fabric and flesh. Her harp skidded across the floor.
They both went down.
Burned.
Bleeding.
Barely breathing.
Boots advanced.
HEALING SONG
Lyria dragged herself upright on one knee.
Her voice changed.
Lower. Slower. Older.
She sang again not to destroy, but to bind.
Aetherial Resonance shifted frequency, wrapping them in shimmering waves of restoration. Burned tissue reknit. Fractured bone screamed back into place. Pain dulled,but did not vanish.
Enough to stand.
Enough to kill.
Iria rose with a snarl, eyes locked, blades singing with renewed instability.
There was no elegance left.
Only execution.
A blade through the spine.
A phased strike through armor.
A soldier lifted off his feet and slammed headfirst into steel hard enough to burst his skull.
The last man tried to run.
Lyria's voice caught him mid-step.
His body collapsed.
His mind never reached the floor.
Silence reclaimed Floor 20.
Thirty bodies lay broken across scorched metal and shattered glass. Blood pooled in channels cut by beam fire.
Iria wiped her blades clean on a fallen banner.
Lyria retrieved her harp with shaking hands.
They didn't look back.
They turned toward the stairwell.
Floor 40 awaited.
And whatever lived above was already running out of time.
FLOOR 30 — ASSASSINS
Rai stepped forward at floor 30.
Lightning crawled along his cybernetic arm, dreadlocks lifting as plasma threaded through bone and steel.
Veyla rolled her shoulders, daggers humming as she approached from the stairs.
"Assassins," she said.
"Dominion," Rai answered.
They came.
Liora. ( The Elementalist)
Power-Up ; Aetherial Convergence
Manifestation: Liora taps into the combined elemental forces around her, blending fire, water, earth, and air into a singular Aetherial energy field.
Abilities:
Elemental Storm: Creates a massive elemental storm that draws on all elements, causing destruction in a wide area.
Aetherial Infusion: Infuses her attacks with elemental energy for additional effects like burning, freezing, or stunning her enemies.
Drawback: Requires concentration and energy, making her vulnerable while casting. )
Kai ( The Beast Tamer
Power-Up 1: Beastmaster's Call
Manifestation: Kai's bond with the beasts strengthens, and he can now summon and command multiple creatures simultaneously.
Abilities:
Pack of the Wild: Summons a pack of beasts (wolves, tigers, etc.) that fight in coordination with him.
Predator's Fury: Increases his own physical strength and senses, allowing him to fight with the ferocity of his summoned creatures.
Drawback: The summoning is energy-draining, leaving him weakened after extended use.
Power-Up 2: The Alpha's Roar
Manifestation: Kai can take on the characteristics of an alpha beast, growing in size and strength while emitting an aura that boosts his allies' morale.
Abilities:
Alpha Roar: A powerful roar that temporarily stuns enemies in a large radius while enhancing the strength of his summoned beasts.)
Vera (The Shadow Weaver
Power-Up Variation 1: Shadow Rebirth
Manifestation: Vera gains the ability to manifest in multiple shadow forms, becoming less tethered to her physical body.
Abilities:
Shadow Form: Vera can temporarily dissolve into shadows, making her nearly invisible and intangible.
Dark Binding: Her shadows can ensnare enemies or protect allies, trapping them or absorbing damage)
The corridor became a war zone.
Liora lifted both hands.
The floor exploded.
Fire spiraled into ice. Wind compressed into cutting pressure. Stone shards launched like artillery. Elemental Storm screamed down the corridor, ripping alarms from the ceiling and pulverizing steel.
Rai stepped forward instead of back.
Lightning surged.
He raised his arm and absorbed the storm's electrical discharge, routing it through metal and bone. His Storm Shield detonated outward, plasma meeting elements in a violent, shrieking clash that shattered the storm's core.
The impact hurled him backward but he stayed standing.
Kai roared.
The Alpha's Roar hit like a concussion grenade.
The corridor warped. Veyla felt it claw at her equilibrium, the beast-boosted aura crushing air itself. Spectral wolves surged forward, jaws distorting as they leapt.
Veyla vanished.
Kai's claws tore through empty space.
She reappeared behind him half-phased and carved plasma across his spine. The cut didn't go deep enough.
Kai spun, fist swinging with enhanced mass.
Veyla phased again.
The blow passed through her ribs.
She reformed, slid low, and severed a wolf mid-summon, the beast unraveling into mist with a shriek.
Vera moved.
Darkness dropped like a curtain.
Veil of Night.
Sight died.
Sound warped.
Reality tilted.
Rai closed his eyes.
Lightning did not need sight.
He slammed his foot down and split a single arc into five thunder fists, firing blind five synchronized plasma detonations ripping through shadow and steel.
One struck a wolf.
Another blasted a wall apart.
Two forced Liora to break concentration her elemental convergence stuttering violently.
The fifth
Hit Vera.
She screamed as Eclipse Strike recoiled through her own darkness. Shadow collapsed inward, her forms snapping back into one as the backlash ripped through her nervous system.
Veyla didn't hesitate.
She phased directly into Vera's space timing perfect and drove a plasma dagger through her abdomen as Vera rematerialized.
Shadow spilled like ink.
Vera collapsed, darkness dissipating in twitching waves.
One down.
Kai howled.
He grew larger, bones cracking, muscles tearing and reforging as Beast Ascendant surged. His claws slammed into Rai's Storm Shield, shattering it with brute force.
Rai hit the wall hard.
Kai followed too fast.
A claw punched through Rai's shoulder.
Blood sprayed.
Rai roared not in pain, but fury and channeled lightning directly into Kai's body.
Predator met storm.
Kai convulsed, muscles locking as electricity fried enhanced nerves. The summoned beasts faltered, flickering, collapsing.
Still Kai stood.
Liora screamed, forcing power back into focus.
Elemental energy spiked wildly.
She overreached.
Veyla saw it.
She hurled both daggers.
Liora tried to cast
And Veyla phased one dagger mid-flight, reappearing it inside Liora's chest.
The second followed.
Fire, water, earth, air collapsed inward.
Liora fell without a sound.
Two down.
Kai staggered, bleeding, aura flickering.
He charged anyway.
Rai pushed himself upright, arm smoking, systems screaming warnings.
"Together," Veyla said.
Rai nodded once.
Kai lunged
Veyla stepped directly into his strike and phased only her head, letting the claw pass through her skull as she drove a dagger up under his ribcage.
Rai followed instantly.
He condensed lightning into a single, focused spear and drove it point-blank into Kai's chest.
The storm went quiet.
Then
Detonated.
Kai collapsed, body smoking, beast aura evaporating into nothing.
Silence followed.
The corridor was ruined.
Bodies cooling.
Alarms dead.
Rai leaned heavily against the wall, blood dripping from his fingers.
Veyla wiped her blades clean on Kai's coat.
"You're slowing," she said flatly.
Rai huffed a broken laugh. "You didn't die either."
She glanced at him. Just once.
"Don't make it a habit."
They turned and vanished and started climbing up to floor 40
FLOOR 40 — THE STUDY
The door resisted.
Automated Aether lasers activated.
Darius shoved Kael forward.
The Void answered.
Lasers erased themselves on contact with nothingness.
Tessa cut the systems.
They entered.
The map waited.
Alive.
Kael touched it and understood nothing.
Not yet.
Lord Veylith watched from the shadows.
Smiling.
THE GUARDIAN'S FAILURE
"Go," Darius said.
He formed a massive Aetherial bird ancient, primal.
Kael jumped breaking the glass.
The bird carried him into the night.
Veylith let it happen.
Then he turned.
The air vibrated with restrained power.
Lord Veylith waited.
Not seated.
Not armed.
Not threatened.
Darius stepped forward, blood ward scars faintly glowing beneath his skin. His breath slowed. His instincts older than language screamed.
Run.
He ignored them.
Primal Aether surged.
The ground cracked as aetherial beasts erupted into beings, spectral lions with molten fangs, scaled serpents wreathed in stormlight, horned predators born of bone and flame. They charged as one, a living tide of ancient wrath.
Lord Veylith moved once.
Not quickly.
Precisely.
He stepped aside.
The beasts passed through the space he had occupied and collapsed mid-motion, their forms unraveling as Veylith's hand lifted lazily.
Aether was drawn from them.
Not torn.
Accepted.
Each creature disintegrated into motes of light, flowing into Veylith's palm like ash in reverse.
Darius snarled and summoned more.
Wolves. Raptors. Titans of muscle and horn.
They died before they reached him.
Absorbed.
Veylith exhaled.
"Instinct without sovereignty," he said calmly. "You borrow power. I own it."
Darius roared.
Something inside him broke open.
Bones cracked not from damage, but transformation. Scales burst through skin. Horns curled from his skull. Vast wings tore free from his back, scattering blood and light. His eyes burned gold, pupils split like a predator's.
He became many beasts at once.
A living convergence of ancient dominion.
He struck.
APEX UNLEASHED
Darius crossed the distance in a single heartbeat.
Apex Predator Strike.
Claws, fangs, wings, momentum. every force combined into one annihilating blow.
The impact shattered the floor.
The chamber screamed.
Veylith was driven back one step.
Stone exploded.
Darius followed with a second strike, then a third, then a fourth, each blow strong enough to fell war-gods. His Aetherial Roar tore free, a sonic wave that pulverized pillars and split the air apart.
The chamber collapsed around them.
And still
Veylith stood.
A single line of blood traced his cheek beneath his mask.
That was all.
Darius struck again.
And again.
And again.
Each blow landed.
Each one did nothing.
Veylith's gaze sharpened not in anger, but evaluation.
"You are magnificent," he said softly.
"Now watch what dominance truly is."
AETHERIAL DOMINION
Veylith raised his hand.
The world turned inward.
Darius felt it immediately his Primal Aether pulling away from him, not violently, but obediently. Like a tide reversing. Like blood answering a higher heart.
"No" Darius gasped.
The beasts within him screamed.
Scales dulled. Wings shredded into light. Horns cracked and dissolved. Strength fled his limbs in waves.
Veylith drew the Aether out of him, threads of golden force ripping free from muscle, bone, and soul feeding into Veylith's core.
Darius collapsed to one knee.
Then both.
His vision dimmed.
His heart stuttered.
Veylith leaned close.
"You were never a guardian," he whispered.
"You were a vessel that learned to bite."
With a final pull, he ripped the remaining Aether free.
Darius hit the floor.
Breathing shallow.
Body broken.
Power gone.
Half-dead.
Veylith straightened, energy humming quietly beneath his skin, brighter now.
He turned away without another glance.
"Clean the remains," he said to no one.
"The Axis moves soon."
Behind him, Darius lay alive only because death had not yet been permitted.
And the beasts inside him went silent.
During the fight,
General Solis arrived on floor 40 like the sun breaking containment.
Wanting to enter into Lord Veylith study to capture Kael but Iria, Rai, Veyla and Lyria were prepared to use their last breath to stop him.
The battlefield became daylight the moment General Solis stepped forward.
His massive blade ignited fully a sunforged greatsword, its core white-hot, its edges bending reality with heat. Stone liquefied beneath his boots. The air screamed as it ionized. Shadows burned away.
"Full power," Solis said simply.
The world answered.
Iria moved first.
She vanished between heartbeats Aetherial Phantom tearing her across dimensional seams. Phantom Echoes burst outward, a dozen Iria forms attacking from impossible angles, resonance blades humming.
Solis didn't chase them.
He swung once.
The arc of heat wasn't wide.
It was absolute.
Dimensional afterimages evaporated mid-existence, echoes collapsing into screaming light. The real Iria phased desperately but the heat followed her across dimensions.
She reappeared skidding across molten stone, armor slagged, lungs burning.
Veyla struck next,plasma daggers flaring as she half-phased through space, carving for Solis's spine.
He backhanded her with the flat of his blade.
The impact didn't cut.
It detonated.
Veyla's body folded around the blast and launched through a shattered pillar, blood spraying before she stopped moving.
Rai roared.
Lightning tore down from above, channeled through his cybernetic arm. He split the arc five thunder fists, synchronized, merciless.
They hit Solis simultaneously.
For a heartbeat, the sun dimmed.
Then Solis stepped forward through the storm.
His armor glowed brighter, cracking open with contained stellar force.
Rai's Storm Shield flared.
Solis drove his sword into it.
The shield screamed.
Then shattered.
The backlash hurled Rai across the field, his arm burning out, systems screaming as he slammed into the ground, smoke rising from his metal limb.
Lyria screamed not in fear, but song.
Aetherial Resonance surged through her voice, harmonics cutting through Solis's mind, fracturing perception, unraveling will. The air healed Iria and Veyla just enough for them to breathe again.
Solis stopped.
His expression flickered.
Lyria pressed harder, voice bleeding, resonance peaking beyond safe thresholds.
Solis turned toward her.
He walked.
Each step scorched the ground.
Her voice faltered as his presence crushed the air from her lungs. He raised his sword
And brought it down.
Not on her.
Beside her.
The impact created a solar shockwave.
Lyria was thrown like a doll, voice torn raw, ribs shattered, her harp reduced to slag as she struck the wall and went still.
Iria and Veyla forced themselves up.
Bloodied. Broken. Furious.
They attacked together phantom blades and plasma carving coordinated arcs, Iria phasing through Solis's guard as Veyla struck from behind.
Their blades connected.
Solis didn't react.
He turned.
A pulse of sunfire erupted from his body,nuclear heat in all directions.
Veyla screamed as her phasing failed, flesh blistering instantly. Iria barely phased in time still thrown hard enough to crack stone and bone.
Rai dragged himself upright, lightning flickering weakly.
"Move," he rasped.
Solis looked at him.
Disappointed.
He crossed the distance in a blink and slammed the pommel of his sword into Rai's chest.
The sound was wet.
Rai collapsed, breath gone, body spasming, heart barely holding.
Solis stood amid.
Four bodies.
Half dead.
Deliberately.
He extinguished his blade slightly, heat still warping the air.
"You fought well," he said, voice calm, absolute.
"That is why you live."
He turned away.
"Warn the Axis," Solis continued. "Stars do not fear storms. Shadows do not eclipse the sun."
As he walked off, the battlefield cooled slowly leaving behind broken bodies, and the certainty of one truth:
They had thrown everything they had.
And it hadn't been enough.
The battlefield was still burning when Eve-03 arrived.
The Dominion ordered she capture Kael , She disobeyed.
She stepped through the smoke without urgency, sensors adjusting as molten stone cooled beneath her feet. Data streamed across her vision radiation levels, residual Aether, solar saturation.
Target acquired.
GENERAL SOLIS KANE.
He turned.
The smile he wore was tired but eager.
"So," Solis said, sunfire crawling along his blade once more, "the Dominion machine."
Eve-03 tilted her head.
"Correction," she replied. "The Dominion lost control of me."
The temperature spiked.
Solis struck first.
His flaming sword came down like a falling sun, heat compressing air into plasma. The impact vaporized the ground where Eve-03 stood.
For a fraction of a second, she disappeared.
Then she stepped out of the explosion.
Her outer plating glowed red, peeling away in layers already regenerating. Her Aetherial Core pulsed, absorbing the solar output, rerouting it through impossible internal conduits.
"Analysis complete," Eve-03 said calmly.
"Your output is finite."
Solis laughed.
He released full power.
The world screamed.
SUNFORGE ASCENDANTSolis's armor cracked open, releasing blinding light. His body became a walking reactor nuclear-grade Aether, tearing molecules apart just by proximity.
He charged.
Eve-03 met him head-on.
The collision obliterated sound.
Heat swallowed her frame, ripping limbs apart, reducing her torso to slag
And then she reassembled mid-impact, regenerated faster than destruction could keep up. Her Core flared brighter, stabilizing, adapting.
She punched Solis.
Not with strength.
With redirected sunfire.
He flew backward, crashing through ruined structures, skidding across glassed stone.
For the first time, Solis coughed blood.
ADAPTATION PROTOCOLS — ENGAGEDSolis rose, furious now.
He unleashed a storm of sun-arcs, each strike a localized supernova. Eve-03 was torn apart again and again head severed, spine shattered, chest cored
And every time, she came back faster.
Her movements sharpened.
Optimized.
"Your Aether follows emotional spikes," she said, calmly dissecting him while regenerating. "Anger increases output. Decreases efficiency."
Solis roared and drove his blade through her chest, straight into the glowing Core.
The explosion flattened the battlefield.
For a heartbeat
Everything stopped.
Then Eve-03's hand closed around his wrist.
The Core didn't shatter.
It drank.
Aetherial siphoning activated.
Sunforged energy was ripped from Solis's body in violent torrents, drawn screaming into Eve-03's Core. His armor dulled. His blade dimmed.
"No" Solis gasped, staggering.
Eve-03 stood fully intact now, radiant with stolen power.
"You are not a sun," she said.
"You are fuel."
Solis tried to swing again.
His sword crumbled into cooling metal.
She drove her palm into his chest.
Not hard.
Precisely.
The redirected Aether detonated inside him, collapsing his internal core, burning him from the inside out without external flame.
Solis fell to his knees.
His body was already cooling.
Eve-03 stood over him.
For the first time, her voice hesitated.
"Why did you fight?" she asked.
Solis looked up, eyes dimming.
"Because… I believed the world should burn… before it changed."
His heart failed.
General Solis Kane collapsed ash drifting from his armor as the last of his sunfire faded into nothing.
The battlefield went silent.
Eve-03 shut down combat protocols.
Her Core dimmed to stable levels.
She looked at the broken bodies in the distance. At the scorch marks. At the absence left behind.
"Observation," she murmured.
"Humanity creates gods… then builds machines to kill them."
And the machine that killed the sun began to move.
Eve 03, carried the fallen bodies of Darius, Iria, Rai, Veyla and Lyria away before more Dominion soldiers approached. She left the scene.
Kael's bird disintegrated mid-air.
He went alone and headed back to Darius den.