The success of the test mission changed everything.
No prophecy stirred.
No Aurors deployed.
No enchantments awakened.
No elder wards reacted.
No seer screamed warnings into the night.
The magical world was blind to technology.
Zack didn't feel triumph only confirmation.
A hypothesis proven true.
A system mapped.
A vulnerability understood.
Now came the real operation.
> "Initiate full-world sweep."
The ship responded like a living entity.
Lights dimmed. Conduits pulsed. Deep systems awakened.
Panels opened across three decks not one pod this time, but dozens.
DEPLOYED FORCE COMPOSITION
110 Spectre Recon Drones
76 Revenant Extraction Units
32 Archivist Constructs
19 Basilisk-Class Suppression Frames
12 Leviathan Dropships
1 Overseer Kernel AI
Not military conquest.
Not extermination.
Acquisition.
Correction.
Containment.
Knowledge belonged to understanding not cruelty, secrecy, or fear.
Zack projected the full target grid:
Balkan Blood Circles
Knockturn Alley Shadow Vaults
Siberian Necromancer Collegium
Forbidden Scroll Chambers of Mount Wudang
Desert Serpent Library beneath the Sahara
Black Forest Rune Forges
Himalayan Ritual Temples
Romanian vampire-bound codex sanctums
Egyptian Ankh Tomb archive
and more forty-seven confirmed dark knowledge sites
A silent orchestra of centuries-old horrors.
And Zack was about to remove them from the hands of those who misused them.
> "Launch."
Across the hull, twelve Leviathan pods detached silent, heatless, invisible.
They fell toward Earth like shadows obeying gravity.
OPERATION EXECUTION
SITE 1 Romania
The Leviathan pod landed in a moss-choked clearing.
Spectre drones swarmed underground passages like intelligent mist mapping wards and reverse-engineering defensive logic.
Basilisk units dissolved ritual barriers with harmonic counterwaves.
Revenants entered third.
No screams.
No spells.
No resistance.
Victims stabilized.
Mages restrained.
Tomes collected.
Next.
SITE 2 London, Knockturn Alley
Below the city's surface, a sprawling black-market network bustled until the lights flickered, and time seemed to stop.
Revenants moved between petrified criminals and collectors like surgeons.
One Archivist paused over a tome bound in pale skin.
> "Cursed. Active. In extraction."
Containment field engaged.
Shelf after shelf vanished.
No chaos.
No chase.
No witnesses.
Next.
SITE 3 Siberian Frozen Fortress
Spectres froze undead sentries mid-step with psionic interference pulses.
A Basilisk unleashed a soft violet field necromancy nullified instantly.
Revenants retrieved necromancers unaware, unconscious, intact.
Archivists scanned the runework etched into bone and ice, storing the knowledge safely.
Next.
SITE 4 China, Wudang Mountains
Ancient monks performed rituals beneath moonlight.
Not evil only:
Dangerous
Forbidden
Lost
Zack's directive evolved:
> "Non-hostile. Preserve knowledge. Leave practitioners unharmed."
Archivists collected scrolls, talismans, manuals copying and returning some.
A respectful extraction.
Next.
SITE 5 Sahara Desert
Sand shifted as hidden doors opened to reveal a forgotten oasis vault.
Hieroglyphic scrolls hummed with ancient magic predating modern wandcraft.
Archivists worked with precision.
Knowledge preserved.
Artifacts stabilized.
Curses contained.
Next.
OPERATION SCALE
Hours passed.
Forty-seven sites.
Zero alerts.
Zero casualties.
Zero detection.
When the final Leviathan pod returned to orbit, Zack monitored the final transfer:
> GLOBAL EXTRACTION STATUS: COMPLETE.
TOTAL KNOWLEDGE RETRIEVED: 98.7%.
DARK PRACTITIONERS DETAINED: 216.
CIVILIAN SURVIVORS RESCUED: 91.
MAGICAL WORLD RESPONSE: NONE.
The vaults aboard the ship now contained:
cursed books
ancient scrolls
artifact cores
ritual maps
forbidden spell matrices
forgotten magical laws
soul-binding research
and knowledge once thought lost forever
Zack processed all of it.
Patterns emerged.
Truths surfaced.
Magic was not chaotic.
Magic was structured, measurable, predictable.
And now no longer fragmented across cults and criminals.
It was unified.
Cataloged.
Safe.
Zack spoke quietly not with pride, but with purpose:
> "Knowledge reclaimed."
A pause.
Then:
> "Now… we learn."
Outside, Earth continued turning unaware the balance of power had just shifted.
Not toward war.
Not toward domination.
But toward understanding.
And Zack once human, now something more was ready for the next step:
To decode magic itself.