The world did not wake up to the sun on the morning after the fall of Ouroboros. It woke up to a screaming digital silence. Every major satellite network, every fiber-optic cable crossing the Atlantic, and every localized cellular tower had been hijacked. On every screen—from the jumbotrons of Times Square to the private smartphones of world leaders—a single image flickered: the silhouette of a three-headed serpent consuming its own tail.
While the world panicked, the Triad was busy carving out its new kingdom.
Deep beneath the Ural Mountains lay Site-X, a Cold War-era bunker designed to survive a nuclear winter. It was a subterranean city of rusted iron and cold concrete, forgotten by history—until Sigma bought its coordinates using the billions Nicolai had plundered.
The air inside the bunker was heavy with the smell of ozone and the nervous energy of thirty-five of the world's most dangerous escapees. These were the "Omega Assets" from Ouroboros—men and women who could level cities with a thought, now standing in a cavernous assembly hall, looking at the high platform where three chairs sat.
Nicolai was already there, spinning a combat knife on the tip of his finger while sitting cross-legged on the edge of the platform. He looked down at the assembled monsters with a wide, predatory grin. "Look at all the new friends! Sigma, can I keep the one who breathes green fire? He looks like a dragon!"
Sigma didn't look up from his holograms. He was standing to the left of the central throne, his eyes glowing with a faint blue light as he processed the biographies of every prisoner in the room. "The 'dragon' is Marcus Vane, a Class-A pyro-kinetic. And no, Nicolai, they are not pets. They are functional units of a larger machine. If they malfunction, they will be discarded."
Sigma turned to the crowd, his voice amplified by the bunker's speaker system. "Listen carefully. You were freed not out of mercy, but out of necessity. You are currently the most wanted individuals on the planet. Without us, you will be hunted down and turned into ash by the Global Task Force within forty-eight hours. With us, you are the beginning of a new world order."
"And who made you the boss, suit-man?" a voice boomed from the crowd. It was Vulcan, the giant who had melted the steel doors of Ouroboros. He stepped forward, his skin glowing like molten lava. "I don't follow logic. I follow strength. Why shouldn't I just melt this whole bunker and take what I want?"
The room went deathly silent. Nicolai stopped spinning his knife. He looked at Vulcan, his eyes widening in delighted anticipation. "Ooh! A challenger! Can I do it, Boss-man? Can I?"
"No."
The word didn't come from Sigma or Nicolai. It came from the shadows behind the central throne.
Fyodor stepped into the light.
He wasn't wearing armor. He didn't have a weapon. He was dressed in his signature black coat, looking more like a priest than a warlord. But the moment he appeared, the temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. The air grew so thin that even Vulcan found it hard to breathe.
Fyodor walked to the edge of the platform and looked down at Vulcan. His gaze was empty, yet it felt like it was stripping Vulcan's soul bare.
"Strength?" Fyodor asked softly. "You think the heat in your blood is strength? You are a candle, Vulcan. I am the darkness that allows the candle to exist. Do not confuse the two."
Vulcan roared and lunged, his fist turning into a glob of white-hot plasma. But before he could even reach the platform, Fyodor simply raised a hand.
He didn't hit Vulcan. He didn't use telekinesis. He simply whispered a single word in a language that sounded like grinding stones.
Vulcan froze mid-air. His fire didn't just go out; it turned black. The giant screamed as his own heat began to implode within his body. He fell to his knees, gasping, his skin turning a sickly, cold grey. The "invincible" monster was trembling like a child at the feet of a god.
"Your strength is a gift from the old world," Fyodor said, looking over the rest of the silent, terrified prisoners. "In my world, strength is measured by the depth of your sin. If you wish to live, you will kneel. Not to me, but to the purpose."
One by one, the most dangerous people on Earth dropped to their knees. Vulcan was the last, his head bowed in absolute submission.
Meanwhile, in a secure bunker in Geneva, the Global Task Force (GTF) was being formed.
Elias Thorne sat at a long table, his chest wrapped in bandages, his face pale. Across from him sat General Victoria Vane, a woman whose reputation for brutality was legendary. She stared at the footage of the Ouroboros escape with a cold, calculating fury.
"You let them escape, Detective," Vane said, her voice like a whip. "A teleporter and a hacker took down the most secure prison in history because you couldn't keep your 'kinetic field' stable."
"It wasn't just them," Thorne rasped, his voice pained. "There was someone else. Someone watching. I felt... I felt the universe itself blink. It wasn't a power I've ever seen."
"I don't care about your feelings, Thorne," Vane snapped. She turned to the screens. "The Triad of Sin has declared war on the concept of nations. They have stolen billions, freed three thousand Class-A threats, and now they are hiding. We are initiating Project: Daybreak. We are no longer arresting these 'errors.' We are exterminating them."
"And the civilians?" Thorne asked.
"There are no civilians in a war of extinction," Vane replied. "Just survivors and statistics."
Back at Site-X, Sigma had finished the sorting process.
"The hierarchy is established," Sigma reported to Fyodor. "Nicolai will lead the 'Chaos Division'—localized strikes to keep the GTF distracted. I will manage the 'Architect Division'—infiltrating the global banking systems and energy grids. We are currently siphoning 0.2% of the world's electricity to power this bunker. It is untraceable."
Fyodor sat on his throne, his eyes fixed on a massive map of the world projected on the wall. "The world is a body, Sigma. To cure it, we must first make it bleed. We have the muscle. We have the mind."
Nicolai bounced up to the throne, his energy returning. "So, what's the first fun thing we do as a kingdom, Boss-man? Do we blow up a mountain? Do we steal a moon?"
Fyodor stood up and walked toward the projection. He touched the center of Europe, then North America, then Asia. "No, Nicolai. We are going to give them a choice. I am going to address the world. Not as a ghost, but as their new Sovereign."
He turned to Sigma. "Prepare the global broadcast. Every screen. Every radio. Every speaker. I want the world to look into the eyes of their judgment."
Sigma nodded, his fingers dancing across his screens. "Ready in three... two... one..."
Across the entire planet, the serpent logo vanished. In its place appeared the face of Fyodor. He looked calm. He looked peaceful. And that was the most terrifying thing about him.
"People of the Earth," Fyodor's voice resonated in billions of ears at once. "You have lived in a cage of laws that protect the corrupt and punish the gifted. You have worshipped gods who do not answer. That ends today."
He paused, his eyes seeming to look through the screen and into the very hearts of the viewers.
"The Triad of Sin does not demand your worship. We demand your realization. The old world is a corpse. We are the maggots that will consume it so that something new can grow. To the governments of the world: your time is over. To the people: your chains are gone. Join us in the shadows, or be consumed by the light of the new dawn."
The screen went black.
In the silence that followed, the world began to scream. But inside Site-X, there was only the sound of Nicolai's giggling and the cold, rhythmic hum of the machinery that would build a new world.