The air in the cave outside Akkadia was stale, but the communication line I held open with Bastion hummed with the electric energy of moral outrage.

  I had spent the last hour recounting exactly what I had seen in the sub-levels of the Incubator. I didn’t spare them the details — the glass tubes, the drain-lines hooked into spines, the patchwork monstrosities twitching on surgery tables. The way the Soul Essence was being siphoned off to feed the engines of the Pyramid ship hovering overhead like a dark star.

  “It is an abrasion,” Leoric’s voice came through the comms-stone, devoid of his usual manic cheer. The background noise of his forge had stopped completely. “To splice Essence like that... to treat a Soul as a battery? It breaks every law of Architectural purity. It is... horrible.”

  “It’s genocide with extra steps,” Anna’s voice was cold steel. “Eren, are we hitting them?”

  “We’re hitting them,” I confirmed, looking over the holographic map Nyx was updating with live patrol data. “But we have to be smart. This isn’t a dungeon. It’s a fortified facility guarded by Tier 7 Spectres who can manipulate space. We are taking the stealth approach until the final confrontation. I also want to try to get the innocent people out if we can.”

  “The ‘Mirror Faces’,” Jeeves noted. “Based on the provided data, have armor that is reflective of both light and mana. Direct bombardment is ineffective unless overwhelmed by superior density or Concept.”

  “Which is why we have five days,” I said. “Five days until my Glimpse cooldown resets and we run the simulation. I want to know exactly what paths work and which need adjustment before a real attempt.”

  We spent those five days turning our hidden location into a tactical operations center.

  Since we confirmed her success in infiltration, Nyx was a phantom. She moved in and out of the city perimeter using her shapeshifting, bringing information, rotations, and logistical schedules. We mapped the “battery” transfers. We tracked the moments the Shield flickered during heavy Monster Tide assaults.

  “They’re stretched thin,” I observed on day three, marking a gap in the patrol lines. “The Essence Flood is battering the East Gate. They’re pulling elites from the High Tier interior to hold the line. Vayne is prioritizing the external threat over internal security.”

  “Perfect time for a prison break,” Nyx said, sharpening a blade. “We just need to make sure they run the right way.”

  We drafted the plan.

  With our primary objective for this vision being mass extraction, for those willing to escape after we show them facility with Kasian’s ability after confirming their Intent through a contract.

  Our secondary objective was the liquidation of the Incubator. And I hoped targeting the Singularity with a similar massive mana blast would be enough.

  “We need a distraction to buy more time,” Lucas suggested from Bastion. “Can Leoric rig something remote?”

  “I can overload the mana Cores operating the city," Leoric offered. "It will also cause physical chaos. They will cause massive explosions.”

  “Try to avoid any casualties, we’ll quickly move the people out,” I promised. “I also know a few ways to be loud.”

  When the timer finally hit zero, I felt the familiar pull of the timeline. I sat down in the cave, settling my breathing.

  [Glimpse of a Path.]

  The world detached as I entered the Void. The scent of ozone and pine vanished, replaced by the sterile, recycled air of the Akkadia interior.

  In the vision, I moved with the knowledge of a man who had already learned the map.

  Nyx, wearing the face of a Guard Captain she had studied for two days, walked into the lower detention sector. She moved with Imperial stiffness, barking orders at the subordinate guards. She planted localized mana-charges on the cell magnetic-locks.

  “Detonate,” she whispered into her comms.

  The locks blew. Three thousand desperate souls surged into the streets. Alarms shattered the night.

  “Containment breach in Sector 42!” Nyx screamed into the general channel, adding to the confusion. “The monsters have breached the wall! Run to the West Gate!”

  It was a lie, but panic is a contagion. The city dissolved into chaos.

  While the garrison scrambled to contain the riot, I ghosted toward the Spire.

  I was fully Veiled, stepping through [Void Walk] to bypass the physical blast doors. I reached the Incubator Antechamber — the hall leading to the vats.

  “Time to act,” I whispered.

  I summoned my Echo. The clone materialized, dense with Kinetic and Thermal mana.

  I sent the Echo forward. It charged the main door, sending a massive burst of fire towards it. The explosion rocked the foundation of the spire, tearing the doors off.

  The response was instant.

  The air shimmered. Three figures materialized from the walls themselves.

  The Spectres.

  They were terrifying up close. Their armor wasn’t metal; it was a perfect mirror, reflecting the burning hallway. They had no faces, just smooth, featureless cowls. They floated inches off the ground, defying gravity.

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  They raised their hands to delete my clone. Gravity wells formed around the Echo, crushing it into a singularity before the dust even settled.

  But they were focused on the noise.

  The clone’s Core exploded when they had it surrounded. They braced against the massive mana flare, their shields rippling.

  They were distracted.

  I didn’t use magic. I stepped out of the Void directly behind the leftmost Spectre. I channeled my [Apex Mana Authority] into my blade, focusing entirely on cutting the strings of his physical location.

  I didn’t just stab him; I deleted his anchor to the material plane.

  He didn’t even scream. One moment he was there, the next, his mirror-armor shattered inward as if hit by a train, and he folded into a singular point of nothingness. I sensed the snap of the connection as he died — it didn’t feel like killing a living being. It felt like severing a limb from a larger body. They had no distinct Souls; they were extensions of a distant, singular Will.

  One down.

  The other two spun, their cowls reflecting my image. They didn’t speak. They didn’t roar. They simply readjusted.

  I dodged backward, slipping back into the Void as a gravity wave crumpled the floor where I had just been standing.

  “Intruder,” one broadcasted, a psychic pulse rather than sound.

  They chased.

  The fight shifted dimensions. We weren’t in the hallway anymore; we were skimming the surface of the Lattice.

  I fought using only the Void. Their movement within it was laughable compared to Korthos’. I threw bolts of condensed gravity. They deflected them with mirrored portals. They lashed out with spatial shears, trying to cut my legs off.

  I danced. Faster in the Void than they were. I learned their rhythm. I ducked under a dimensional slash, using the momentum to kick one Spectre in the chest with boots coated in heavy mana. He flew back, crashing out of the Void and slamming into a wall of gravity.

  It was grueling. I was pushing myself to the limit, my mana regeneration straining to keep up with the constant phase-shifting. But I was winning. Without using the Flame. I tore the second one apart by over-saturating his personal gravity field until he imploded.

  Then, the air in the real world screamed.

  A beam of sickly green energy tore through the ceiling, obliterating the blast doors.

  Commander Vayne dropped from the upper levels. She wasn’t a hologram. She was there, in the flesh, encased in a combat-skin of white Imperial power armor.

  She saw her fallen Spectre. She saw me weaving through the attacks of the survivor.

  “You!” she roared, her cybernetic eye glowing red.

  She raised a gauntlet. It wasn’t a standard weapon, radiating powerful ripples of dense mana.

  She fired.

  A black hole the size of a fist shot toward me. It didn’t just pull; it ate the light. It was faster than I could dodge. It locked onto my spatial signature. I knew that if I tried to [Void Walk], it would follow the trail, so I left a clone behind.

  Gravity was swallowed, my clone disappearing.

  The fight that followed was considerably different.

  She wasn’t a warrior like the Spectres. She was a tactical vessel. Her combat skills were rigid, predictive but she was strong — she was a mid Tier 7 in terms of raw fighting capability, and her gear made her lethal.

  I had no choice. Her Domain was filled with strange mana constructs. Everytime I entered the Void I would be chased by a ‘seeking gravity missile’ that follows, forcing me to leave a clone behind.

  Outside the Void, enhanced by her equipment, she was stronger and faster. And her Domain stood strong against mine.

  I dropped the Void cloak.

  I opened the furnace.

  This was a trial run after all.

  I didn’t summon fire. I released the Flame.

  A wall of white-gold fire erupted from my body. It slammed into the black hole. The singularity tried to eat the fire, but the fire burned the concept of the singularity’s event horizon.

  The black hole popped.

  The backlash was cataclysmic. The shockwave of Flame and Void mixed together expanded, annihilating everything in its path. The remaining Spectre was vaporized instantly.

  Vayne was thrown back, her shields flaring and failing. Barely hanging on to life.

  I walked toward her, the white flames wreathing my body, my eyes glowing with Void Essence.

  She looked up. Her face was cracked. Her human eye was wide with horror.

  “The Void…” she choked out, blood on her lips. “And the Flame?”

  She scrambled backward, not attacking, but analyzing. The fear was primal.

  “A Hybrid…”

  I raised my sword to end her.

  She slapped a panic button on her chest plate.

  Her form vanished. It wasn’t a standard teleport; it was a Soul Call, a System Grade repositioning that bypassed both the Void and the Plane.

  She was gone.

  I swung my sword through empty air.

  I gasped, snapping back to the cave. Cold sweat soaked my armor.

  “Bad?” Nyx asked, seeing my expression.

  “Worse than bad,” I stood up, pacing frantically. “She escapes. I also had to use the Flame. Back to planning.”

  I explained the fight. The success against the Spectres using just Space. But Vayne’s arrival. The Singularity weapon. The necessity of the Flame to survive.

  “She instantly knew that I was a Hybrid when I used it,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

  I looked at the city lights.

  “They know I can Walk the Void. And I can beat Vayne with the Flame. But I can’t use it unless I’m sure it does not get out.”

  I grabbed the comms stone.

  “Leoric,” I barked. “Change of plans.”

  “Master?” Jeeves answered instantly.

  “I need a weapon,” I said, my voice hard. “I can handle the Spectres. But Vayne has powerful equipment. I need something that hits harder than a black hole but doesn’t use my mana signature. I need kinetic superiority. I will Void Walk into the facility, then, using my Singularity Chamber as a conduit, I'll place it in the required locations. We need to set up a massive weapon we can store in the Sanctum, but one I can just place and activate.”

  There was silence. Then Leoric’s voice, trembling with excitement.

  “We have the materials from the Prism... and the Gravity Coils from the worm tunnel. If we combine them... we can build a Siegebreaker. A Mass-Driver Nuke. But it will punch a hole through a massive mountain. We can install it on a firing rig within the Chamber storage!”

  “Build it,” I ordered. “Use the Spire gates to transfer the materials if needed, but keep the assembly in the Veiled Path. I’ll be the delivery system.”

  I looked at Nyx.

  “We aren’t just finding a better way of extracting the population out next Glimpse,” I said. “I’m going to try snipe Vayne’s Pyramid out of the sky this time. I think she’s relying on the link to power her equipment, so we’ll test taking that out.”

  The plan shifted. Concealment through excessive firepower.

  I sat down, activating the portable Sanctum.

  “Let’s get to work,” I told Nyx. “We have another plan to make.”