Silence settled over the library, broken only by their breathing.

Catherine lay against Alex's chest, dark hair spilling across both of them. Her hand rested over his heart, feeling it gradually slow from its racing pace.

Victoria had drifted off long ago, curled against his other side. Her breathing had settled into the deep, even rhythm of exhausted sleep... Peak Mortal endurance spent completely.

The scattered cushions and displaced furniture bore silent testimony to what had transpired.

Alex's fingers traced idle patterns along Catherine's shoulder, feeling the warmth of Apex-enhanced skin beneath his touch.

"So," he said quietly, his voice carrying deliberate amusement. "Ready for another round? Or have you finally admitted defeat?"

Catherine's breathless laugh carried genuine exhaustion.

"You're a monster," she murmured, though affection colored the words. "An absolute monster."

She shifted slightly, tilting her head to meet his gaze.

"I need time to recover. Even Apex realm has limits when facing whatever monstrous stamina you have."

Alex's smile widened slightly at the acknowledgment.

Catherine was silent for a moment, then spoke again.

"Till I recover," she said, "let me tell you more about the book. The Genesis Chronicle. You wanted to know what happened next, didn't you?"

Alex's attention sharpened despite the comfortable exhaustion.

"Where were you?" Catherine asked. "When I interrupted your reading. What section?"

"The fog investigation team had just returned," Alex replied. "Volkov was calculating odds, pushing toward Phase Three authorization. Nuclear deployment against the fog."

Catherine nodded, her expression turning serious.

"Then I'll tell you what came next. What the Chronicle probably sanitizes. What my family's records show actually happened."

Catherine shifted slightly against Alex's chest, her voice taking on the measured tone of someone recounting historical events she'd studied extensively.

"After that UN meeting, they gave themselves three days," she began. "Seventy-two hours to find alternatives, to conduct more research, to somehow discover a solution that didn't involve nuclear weapons."

Her fingers traced idle patterns against his skin as she continued.

"But those three days became the most panic-stricken period in modern history for anyone who knew what was actually happening. The world leaders. The scientific community. The military brass. Everyone who understood that humanity was facing something completely beyond conventional response."

Alex listened intently, his strategic mind already processing implications.

"India and China were hit hardest," Catherine said. "They knew... absolutely knew... that no country would prioritize their territorial concerns over existential threat. The international community had made that clear. So both nations accelerated their evacuation operations to maximum capacity."

She paused, remembering details from House Blackwood's records.

"India tried to move ten million people from the northern zones in seventy-two hours. Officially, they called it 'disaster preparedness exercises.' Told civilians it was about seismic activity. The reality was mass panic barely contained by military coordination."

Victoria stirred slightly against Alex's other side, listening even in her exhausted state.

"China was worse," Catherine continued.

"They evacuated entire provinces under martial law. Moved twenty million people south and east, away from the Himalayas. The logistics were nightmarish... railways operating at maximum capacity, highways turned into one-way evacuation routes, temporary camps established hundreds of kilometers from the danger zone."

Her voice carried a hint of dark amusement.

Alex could picture it... millions of people being moved without real explanation, governments maintaining official silence while preparing for potential nuclear deployment.

"Meanwhile," Catherine said, "Secretary-General Silva and the scientific community were desperately trying to find alternatives. They pushed for more research on Dr. Webb's symptoms. Conducted extensive medical analysis on the investigation team that returned. Tried to identify any pattern, any mechanism they could exploit."

She shook her head slightly.

"It was useless. The autopsies confirmed what they already knew: the fog contained energy concentrations that human physiology couldn't process. Exposure caused catastrophic systemic failure as the body tried to absorb what it couldn't handle. There was no treatment, no protection beyond complete atmospheric isolation, no way to safely investigate further."

Her hand tightened against his chest.

"The investigation team members who'd survived were quarantined and studied extensively. Blood work, tissue samples, psychological evaluation... everything. The scientists were looking for any indication that brief fog exposure might cause delayed effects or mutations."

"And?" Alex prompted.

"Nothing," Catherine replied. "The survivors were physiologically normal. Their protective equipment had worked exactly as designed. But that just reinforced the conclusion: you either had complete protection or you died within seconds. There was no middle ground, no partial resistance, no adaptation possible."

She was silent for a moment, letting that sink in.

"So those three days passed. India and China evacuated what they could. Scientists confirmed there were no alternatives. And the international community came to the inevitable conclusion."

Her voice dropped slightly.

"On the fourth day, Secretary-General Silva convened another emergency Security Council session. The chamber was packed... every permanent member present, dozens of observers, military advisors, scientific consultants. Everyone knew what was coming."

Catherine's fingers traced a pattern that matched her rising tension.

"Silva opened with a final summary. Seventy-two hours of research had produced no new options. The fog remained lethal, persistent, and completely resistant to investigation. Forty-seven operatives were dead. Dr. Webb was dead. And the phenomenon showed no signs of dissipating naturally."

Alex could imagine the atmosphere... world leaders facing the unthinkable.

Her voice carried bitter irony.

"And that was it. No dramatic speeches. No philosophical debate. Just cold calculation that everyone in the room had already reached independently."

Catherine shifted position slightly, preparing for the next part.

"The vote wasn't even close. Permanent Security Council members: unanimous authorization. Extended membership: overwhelming majority. Only India and China abstained, and even they didn't vote against it... they knew better."

She paused, then delivered the critical detail.

"But here's where it gets interesting. No single country wanted sole responsibility for what came next. The massacre of potentially hundreds of thousands of civilians, even to save billions, was too much political liability for any one nation to carry."

Alex's eyebrows rose slightly. "So they..."

"Shared it," Catherine confirmed. "Every nation with nuclear capabilities agreed to simultaneous deployment. Multiple warheads from multiple launch sites. Coordinated detonation."

Her voice carried dark satisfaction.

"My ancestor noted the irony: the same nations that had spent decades in nuclear standoff, threatening mutual annihilation, were now cooperating on humanity's first coordinated nuclear strike. Not against each other. Against a natural phenomenon they couldn't understand."

Alex processed the strategic brilliance and moral cowardice simultaneously.

"The specifications were precise," Catherine continued. "Five tactical nuclear weapons, each approximately twenty kilotons... similar to the Nagasaki bomb but with modern precision guidance. Target coordinates calculated to create overlapping blast zones covering the entire fog concentration."

She pulled up technical details from memory.

"Launch time: 0600 hours GMT, seven days after the investigation team's return. Simultaneous detonation within microseconds of each other. The military planners calculated that coordinated strikes would maximize thermal and kinetic disruption while minimizing individual nation accountability."

Her smile was bitter.

"They even drafted joint statements for afterward. Coordinated press releases. Unified messaging about 'necessary action to protect human civilization.' Every detail designed to spread responsibility so thin that no single government could be held fully accountable."

Alex's mind was already moving ahead. "And the evacuation zones?"

"Expanded massively in those final seven days," Catherine said. "India and China went from 'disaster preparedness' to full military evacuation. Moved another fifteen million people. Established quarantine perimeters. Prepared emergency response for potential fallout."

She paused.

"The rest of the world was told it was a joint military exercise. 'Coordinated readiness operations' between nuclear powers. The cover story was thin, but most civilians didn't question it. Those who did were dismissed as conspiracy theorists."

Her voice dropped again.

"Seven days of preparation. Seven days of evacuating millions. Seven days of humanity preparing to nuclear strike itself in desperate hope of destroying something it didn't understand."

Catherine met Alex's eyes directly.

"And on the seventh day, at 0600 hours GMT, five nuclear weapons were armed and ready for launch from five different continents, all targeting the same fifty-kilometer radius in the Himalayas."

She paused, her expression shifting.

"But they never launched."

Alex's eyebrows rose. "What?"

"At 0557 hours... three minutes before authorized deployment... the satellite monitoring stations detected something."

Her voice carried the weight of disbelief even decades removed from the event.

"The fog cleared. Spontaneously. Completely. Within the span of approximately ninety seconds, the entire phenomenon simply... dissipated."

Catherine's fingers tightened against his chest.

"Command centers worldwide went into chaos. Launch codes were active, warheads armed, coordination protocols engaged... and suddenly the target ceased to exist."

She smiled without humor.

"Some leaders were shocked. Others were relieved... the worst-case scenario had resolved itself without nuclear deployment. No civilian casualties. No international blame. The fog had simply disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared."

Her next words carried darker weight.

"Then the reconnaissance drones reached Aethros Valley."

Alex waited, recognizing the shift in her tone.

"The valley was... devastated," Catherine said carefully. "Not from any human action. Not from the fog itself. From something else entirely."

She pulled up details from memory, choosing words with precision.

"My ancestor's records describe the initial footage: massive sections of terrain simply gone. Not eroded. Not collapsed. Gone... as if someone had taken an eraser to geography and removed entire mountainsides."

Her voice dropped.

"Three peaks that had stood for millennia were reduced to rubble fields. The valley floor showed impact craters kilometers wide, but with characteristics that made no geological sense. Heat signatures indicating temperatures far beyond anything natural. And radiation readings that shouldn't have been possible without nuclear detonation."

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