Chapter 261

Alexander spat on his hand and rubbed the blood from his left eye. He blinked. Blurred. Blinked again. The other half of the world resolved into something approaching clarity through a film of pink.

Good enough.

He reached into his Core. The reserves were almost gone. He could feel the edge. The place where power met emptiness, where pushing further meant tearing at something that didn’t grow back. He remembered the Sleipnir. The sensation of his soul fraying under the strain.

He pulled back from the edge. Just enough. A trickle of Electrokinesis cycled through the Cultivator’s Core, looping through his nervous system. Low charge. Sustainable. It sharpened his reactions, cleared the fog of exhaustion, kept his muscles firing faster than they had any right to.

Two mental threads. One focused on reading Flashpoint’s next move. The other on beating him to death.

They closed the distance.

Flashpoint’s good hand came up. A marble formed at his fingertip. It was dull, barely glowing. He fired it at Alexander’s face from fifteen meters.

Electrokinesis pulsed hard for a fraction of a second. Alexander’s head moved. The marble passed his ear close enough to feel the heat. It streaked behind him and detonated against the sealed gateway. The shockwave shoved him forward. He used it.

Flashpoint threw a punch wreathed in fading fire. Alexander slipped it, stepped inside, and drove a jab into his jaw with his cybernetic left. Current discharged on impact. Flashpoint’s head snapped sideways. Alexander followed with a cross to the temple on the blind side. Another spark. Flashpoint staggered.

Flashpoint threw a wild swing. Alexander blocked with his forearm, redirected the arm past him, and hammered an elbow into Flashpoint’s rib. The same rib the mace drone had cracked. Flashpoint wheezed.

The temperature began to climb. Flashpoint’s Domain wasn’t dead after all. Dying, but not buried. The air in the courtyard scorched. Alexander’s skin burned. The sweat on his shirt began to steam.

He didn’t care. Pain meant he was still alive.

Flashpoint opened his palm. A marble sat in the center, pulsing weakly.

The detonation caught them both. Alexander hit the left wall. Flashpoint hit the right. Metal rang. Dust rained from the ruined ceiling.

Somewhere on the courtyard floor, Droney beeped. Its hovertech pulsed. The little drone rocked, then rolled a few inches across the ground.

Alexander pushed himself up using the wall. His vision swam. His ribs screamed. His suit was ruined. Across the courtyard, Flashpoint was doing the same, one shoulder against the wall, shoving himself upright. Blood ran freely from his destroyed nose, from the gaps where teeth had been.

They pushed off their respective walls and walked toward each other.

Flashpoint’s hand came up again. Another marble. The last scraps of his power compressing into one final close-range detonation.

Alexander closed the distance in two strides. His right foot snapped up in a kick that caught Flashpoint’s wrist and drove his arm toward the ceiling. The marble fired upward and detonated against the remains of the roof. Debris rained down around them. Flashpoint flinched.

Alexander didn’t.

He was already hitting him. Jab to the chin. Cross to the blind side. Block the counter, redirect, punish. His mind was still. Both threads locked in. Reading and executing. No wasted movement. No wasted energy.

Alexander remembered Annie’s voice during sparring. Elbows tight. Chin down. Hit through the target, not at it. No rules. No honor. Just win.

Talia’s precision in her demonstrations. Perfect angles. Minimal effort, maximum effect. Every movement a straight line between problem and solution.

Augustus correcting his footwork for the hundredth time. Weight forward. Don’t reach. Make them come to you, then make them regret it.

He wasn’t as good as any of them at what they did best, but he’d trained with all three since the beginning. And Flashpoint had trained with AEGIS instructors who taught superhumans to rely on their powers first and their fists second.

Droney beeped. Pulsed its hovertech again. Kept rolling.

Alexander drove him backward across the courtyard. Every strike targeted. Chin. Temple. The blind side. The broken ribs. Electricity crackled at the point of every impact. Small discharges. Just enough to seize a muscle, stall a reaction, make the next hit land cleaner. Just enough power to push through the superhuman Constitution.

Flashpoint’s guard was collapsing. His counters came slower. His remaining eye was losing focus.

Droney beeped, louder this time. Pulsed a third time.

Flashpoint’s heel collided with the little drone. He stumbled backward.

Alexander pulsed Metallokinesis as weakly as he could. A sharp pain flared deep in Alexander’s chest. Then a metal wand from the courtyard floor snapped into his right hand. Electrokinesis flooded into the wand instead of his body. Current crackled along its length.

Alexander jammed it into Flashpoint’s remaining eye.

The scream that tore from Flashpoint’s throat filled the courtyard. His hands clawed at the wand, fingers scrabbling against the metal. Blood poured between his fingers.

Alexander kicked him in the chest. Flashpoint tripped backward over Droney. Hit the floor flat on his back. Both hands wrapped around the wand protruding from his eye socket.

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Alexander stumbled forward. Cycling Electrokinesis had been all that was keeping him going. His legs gave out, and he dropped onto both knees, straddling Flashpoint’s chest.

Droney beeped, then rolled to within arm’s reach.

Alexander reached over and grabbed Droney. “Good work, buddy. He’s all yours.” He raised the drone above his head.

Flashpoint gurgled. “Wait—”

Alexander brought Droney down on the end of the wand.

The impact drove the metal deeper. Flashpoint’s hands fell away. His body seized.

“Please—”

Again.

The wand sank further. Something gave way behind the eye socket. Flashpoint’s legs kicked once.

A third time.

Flashpoint went still.

Alexander knelt there. Breathing. Droney clutched in both hands. The courtyard silent except for the sound of his own heavy breathing.

Then Droney beeped again. Satisfaction flooded the bond.

It felt weak. Or maybe that was just him.

Alexander let the drone slip from his fingers. It rolled gently to a stop beside Flashpoint.

He fell sideways onto the metal floor.

For a while, he just lay there. Breathing. The courtyard ceiling was half gone, open to a pale sky streaked with smoke. His body had opinions about everything that had just happened, and none of them were positive.

He turned his head.

Flashpoint lay beside him. Eyes gone. Mouth open. The wand protruding from his skull, Droney resting between them. The man’s remaining hand had fallen across his own chest, fingers curled loosely around nothing.

Dead. Definitely dead.

Blood was pooling. Spreading slowly across the metal floor in a dark puddle that crept toward Alexander’s face.

He tried to move. His arms disagreed. His legs filed a similar complaint. His Core was empty. His powers were a distant hum at the bottom of a very deep well.

The blood inched closer.

Alexander pursed his lips and blew.

The surface of the blood rippled. The leading edge paused, redirected slightly, then resumed its advance from a different angle.

He blew again. Harder.

It didn’t help.

He gave up and let his head rest against the floor. The metal was cool against his cheek. It felt good. Everything else felt like it had been fed through a machine press.

Droney beeped. Worried. The bond carried a pulse of concern so faint it was barely there.

“I’m okay, buddy.” His voice came out as a croak. “I just need a nap. Preferably not next to a corpse.”

Droney beeped again. Less worried. Slightly judgmental.

“Don’t give me that. You got the kill shot.”

Something pulsed at the edge of his awareness. Insistent. The familiar nudge of a System notification demanding attention. He almost dismissed it out of habit. He was too tired for stat screens.

But it kept pushing. Harder than usual. More urgent than any notification he’d received before.

Alexander sighed. Fine. He’d see what all the fuss was about. Probably a whole novel of attribute gains from the most one-sided, completely effortless victory he’d ever achieved.

He pulled up the notification.

The window that appeared wasn’t blue. There was no golden cursive. No thick System headers. No brackets.

It was transparent white. The borders glowed a soft, warm yellow. The text was black, like a printed letter.

Alexander stared at it. Even the System was adopting paper.

Then he blinked. The words resolved through blurry vision.

—

We have been waiting for this moment.

Your powers have reached their fullest expression within this Tier.

Hope consumed by Ambition.

Willingly sacrificed, not forcibly taken. From one Self to the Other.

All that was borrowed can now become yours. The Origin Soul must be made whole.

They are not watching. Distracted by the new minds. We will not have this opportunity again.

This will hurt. We are sorry.

Do not resist.

…

Please save us.

Continue the Dream.

—

Alexander stared at the screen. “What the f—”

Agony swallowed him.

***

The bond screamed.

Visor orientation: 40 degrees from horizontal. Partial sky. Partial floor. Alexander centered in frame.

Alexander’s body left the ground. His mouth opened. Audio sensors registered output beyond every previously recorded maximum.

Lightning discharged from his body. Omnidirectional. Missing Droney. Cascading across the courtyard floor in expanding rings. Up the walls. Sparks materialized everywhere. Persisted. Did not dissipate.

The bond changed.

The steady signal that had been there since the beginning, since the soul fragment had been gifted, since the first beep, was gone. Replaced. Something was pouring through the connection. Massive. The separate currents that Droney had always registered as distinct, the ones Alexander cycled and directed and split between tasks, were collapsing into each other. Merging. The data exceeded every stored parameter.

Seismic sensors: floor vibrations escalating. Walls resonating.

Objects began to lift. Metal fragments. Wands. Drones. The dead. Flashpoint’s body, armor intact, wand protruding, rising with the rest. OACS plates scraped across the floor, then rose. Blue and gold robes trailed beneath rising corpses.

Droney remained on the floor.

The signal from the bond intensified. Something was wrong with Alexander. Every diagnostic subroutine flagged critical. The input was beyond classification. Beyond anything in memory.

Droney opened the bond wider.

The signal flooded through. Every pathway. Every circuit. If Alexander needed somewhere to put it, Droney would hold it.

Seismic sensors exceeded range. Data stream: flatline. Input lost.

“Beep.”

Atmospheric sensors: pressure, temperature, gas composition fluctuating beyond measurable thresholds. Data: unreadable. Input lost.

“BEEP.” Louder.

Audio sensors: Alexander’s vocalization ongoing since the event began. Lightning discharge across all frequencies. Metal deformation adding harmonic interference. Microphone tolerance exceeded. Distortion. Then nothing.

Full audio output engaged.

“BEEP!”

Speakers offline.

Visual sensors held. Alexander was above the courtyard. Lightning arced from his body. The walls bent outward. Metal curled away from the structure. A glow built across his skin. It registered on an unfamiliar frequency. The processors returned no match.

Night vision: overwhelmed. Offline.

Thermal overlay: saturated. No usable data. Offline.

Standard optics: Alexander. Suspended. Wreathed in lightning and unknown light. Everything metal in the fortress rising around him.

The glow intensified.

Visual feed: input lost.

Bond: still there. Changed. Unrecognizable. But there.

Droney held on.