General Korr Vance was losing the war on every conceivable front. Wounded, exhausted, and bleeding from the seismic blast, he stared at the heavily encrypted datapad in his secure temporary bunker beneath the Sector Gamma Data Spire. His face, etched with paranoia and fury, was illuminated by flickering emergency lights. The digital war against the Morn-Ghost had reached a stalemate, forcing him to devote the entirety of the Federation's remaining data security to a desperate firewall quarantine.
Then the transponder flashed. It was the unique, highly secure military frequency assigned solely to The Revenant.
Vance expected a status report, perhaps confirmation that the assassin was closing in on Rheon Vale. Instead, he received a single, devastating encrypted burst originating from the derelict Outer Sprawl tower:
ASSET: ELIMINATED.
The message was not official. It was personal and chilling. Vance recognised the efficiency of the transmission protocol. It was Rheon's signature: a soldier informing his former general that the shield was gone.
Vance slammed his hand onto the metal table. Pain radiated through his cracked ribs. The Queen had neutralised his ultimate weapon and left him to fight the physical war alone, wounded, and exposed.
"Vale," Vance hissed. The name tasted like ash. "You broke your oath for a parasite, and now you have destroyed the entire foundation of order."
Vance knew the implication. Lyra Kain and Rheon Vale would exploit the window instantly. They had removed his tracker and eliminated his assassin. Their next move would be surgical: the decapitation of the physical command. They were coming for him.
He activated the bunker's physical security protocols and ordered his skeleton crew of personal guards to double the perimeter. He knew it was futile. His command codes were compromised, his troops scattered, and his digital attention divided.
Vance stood and retrieved a ceremonial plasma cutter from his personal vault. He was no longer a general. He was a cornered old soldier preparing for a final, lethal defence against the man he had trained.
Miles away, the approach was silent, professional, and chillingly precise. Lyra and Rheon used the chaos they had manufactured as cover. Widespread power failures and emergency traffic jams paralysed the mid-sectors, allowing their small, fast transport to glide undetected through abandoned service tunnels.
"He knows we are coming, Lyra," Rheon stated. His hands were steady on the controls. "Vance is relying on his inner bunker's kinetic shielding and the chaos outside to discourage a frontal assault. We do not attempt a frontal assault."
"The data you harvested provided a better way," Lyra noted while consulting the detailed schematics of the Data Spire complex. Her crimson eyes glowed with focused anticipation. "The Spire has a thermal exhaust routing conduit that connects directly to Vance's bunker sub-level. It is designed to be self-sealing and virtually undetectable, an escape route for a high-ranking officer in a siege."
"It was my design," Rheon confirmed. A cold finality entered his tone. "I will use the thermal conduit to bypass all physical perimeter guards. The security protocols for that passage are biometric and code-locked. Biometrics will be impossible to fool, but the code is easily bypassed with the data we seized."
Lyra reached out. Her hand rested on Rheon's shoulder. Her touch conveyed a complex mix of reassurance and command. "You will be facing your former life, Ascendant. He will try to break your discipline with rhetoric. You must remain focused on the singular truth: he represents the lie."
"My focus is absolute," Rheon vowed. He did not need emotional reassurance. He needed tactical necessity. His betrayal was not rooted in emotion but in cold moral conviction. Vance was the symbol of the oppressive order, and symbols must fall.
Rheon entered the complex alone and left Lyra in a concealed staging area, acting as the silent, powerful eye of the operation. He moved through the emergency maintenance crawlspace beneath the Data Spire, utilising his knowledge of its structure and every hidden access point.
He reached the thermal exhaust conduit, a tight, insulated steel cylinder designed for rapid one-person transit. He bypassed the automated lockdown sequence using the override codes from the stolen data, codes Vance had not yet thought to change in the panic.
The conduit opened into a narrow secondary supply corridor adjacent to the General's command core. Rheon moved silently with his energy blade extended.
He encountered the two personal guards flanking the command door. They were veterans, disciplined and heavily armoured. They had no warning.
Rheon's approach was surgical. He used a synchronised plasma burst and a swift neurological strike. One guard collapsed silently. The other spasmed as Rheon's blade disabled his central movement joint. The encounter lasted less than four seconds. Rheon left them alive, immobilised, and conscious witnesses to their General's final moments.
Rheon stood before the thick reinforced door of the command core. He triggered the magnetic seal release and stepped inside.
General Vance stood waiting in the centre of the bunker. He had already dispatched his minimal staff, choosing to face his former protégé alone. He wore a simple grey commander's uniform and held the antique plasma cutter with both hands. His eyes, burning with fury and bitter disappointment, locked onto Rheon.
"I knew it would be you, Vale," Vance said. His voice was ragged but retained its military rasp. "The architect of the greatest betrayal in Federation history. You traded your honour for a fantasy."
Rheon stood his ground. His energy blade hummed softly. He did not rush. He was the judge, and Vance was the defendant.
"You speak of honour, General," Rheon stated. His voice was devoid of emotion, a cold echo in the small room. "What honour is there in condemning billions to the slow death of your order? What honour is there in enslaving a mind as powerful as Lyra Kain's for your own political survival?"
"The Federation is in order! It is structure!" Vance roared and took a defensive stance. "You are serving chaos, a myth! That thing is a biological weapon, Vale! A plague that will consume us all, starting with your soul!"
"She is the truth," Rheon countered. "The Federation is the lie built on fear. And you are the symbol of that fear."
Vance lunged and fired the plasma cutter. It was a predictable, desperate attack.
Rheon deflected the plasma blast with a subtle movement of his energy blade. The kinetic force jarred his arm but left him unharmed. He did not seek to wound. He sought to neutralise.
He closed the distance in a practised blur and exploited the opening in Vance's defence created by the shot. He struck the General's weapon arm with his energy blade in a precise, agonising strike that severed the tendons and forced Vance to drop the cutter.
Vance gasped and clutched his bleeding arm. He fell to his knees, defeated not by Lyra's power but by the superior training of his own former commander.
Rheon stood over him. The energy blade point hovered inches from the General's forehead. "The soldier yields to the executioner."
"Kill me, Vale," Vance challenged and spat blood. "But you cannot kill the Federation. Morn is still inside the network. He will consume you all."
"Morn is a digital threat. We are a physical reality," Rheon corrected. He knelt and took the General's wrist.
Lyra. He is neutralised. Final command, Rheon transmitted. His mind focused entirely on the General's neural network.
Lyra's response was immediate and focused, channelled not as a lethal surge but as a precise, non-lethal psychic override. Lyra needed Vance alive yet utterly neutralised and compromised.
The psychic wave slammed into Vance's mind. The General screamed, a muffled, agonising sound, as his consciousness was overwhelmed and flooded with the immense controlling will of the Crimson Mother. The override permanently erased his will and left him alive but utterly compliant.
Vance slumped. His eyes became vacant. His military mind was shattered and controlled.
Rheon immediately accessed Vance's personal comm-pad and initiated the final symbolic act of treason. He scanned the General's retinas, accessing the master override codes for the entire Federation defence grid.
He transferred the codes directly to the Sanguis network.
"The core command structure is ours," Rheon announced and rose from the defeated General.
Lyra entered the bunker moments later. She looked down at the shattered figure of General Vance, then at Rheon.
"The lie has been exposed, and the truth has been secured," Lyra stated. Her voice was imbued with profound satisfaction. "Ascendant, you have delivered the physical kingdom into my hands."
Lyra stepped over the defeated General and walked to the central tactical console. She accessed the Federation's broadcast network and seized the main military channel.
She stood before the screen. Her crimson eyes burned with victory. The broadcast was brief, terrifying, and absolute.
"Hear me, remnants of the Federation," Lyra commanded. Her voice echoed across every surviving comm-unit and every public screen. "General Korr Vance has been defeated. The military command is now vested in the Ascendant. Your empire of fear is over. The Sanguis Empire begins now. You will yield to the new order, or you will be consumed by it."
The message was complete. The final physical threat was neutralised. The military structure had been decapitated, and the command codes were in the hands of the Ascendant. The new regime was official.
The only threat remaining was the invisible digital menace still raging within the Federation's servers: the ghost of Dr Seraph Morn.