Chapter 22
The city was quiet—too quiet for a capital built on screams.
Kiro moved like a blade through bone. The Blood God System simmered beneath his skin, the crimson sigils along his veins pulsing in sync with each step. Around him, Gaeth-9's core district stretched like a festering jewel—towers of obsidian tech, data nodes woven into the stone, and armored patrols too slow to react to what he had become.
The Ascension Node pulsed somewhere ahead. He could feel it now—like a splinter in his soul. Not mechanical, not divine. Synthetic transcendence. The Empire's method of twisting mortals into something beyond through manufactured enlightenment, harvested essence, and devoured will.
It was a monument to control. And it had to fall.
He crossed into the district's neural zone, where data flowed through physical veins—crimson lines embedded in the pavement, whispering numbers beneath his feet. The scent of antiseptic and copper filled the air. Sleeper drones lined the walls, dormant.
Waiting for command.
He kept moving.
System Directive: Ascension Node proximity—78 meters. Inner defenses active.
Voidbrand Resonance: Suppressing secondary encryption layers.
The mark burned on his arm. Whatever forgotten god had left it there, it worked. Systems flickered. Surveillance eyes blinked and shut.
Until they didn't.