The Undercroft was now filled with fire and collapsing tunnels. The explosion from the substation's power core had destroyed the foundations of the city above, and the everything was coming down around them.

"This way!" Seraph yelled, her voice a sharp order in the chaos. "Trace's signal is this way!"

Jonah ran, his chest burning, holding the data crystal Thorne had given him tightly. It seemed as if he held the world's burden in his palm. He, Seraph, and Vanessa climbed over piles of wreckage and got out of the way of falling concrete. Behind them, they could hear the quick sound of plasma guns. Silas and her hired soldiers were very close behind them.

They were being hunted.

They came out of a crumbling sewer entrance and into the streets of the Undercroft. A military-grade armored vehicle screeched to a stop in front of them, its door flying open.

"Get in!" Draven yelled from the driver's seat.

They quickly got inside, the door shut with a bang just as many plasma shots hissed through the air where they had just been. Draven pushed the gas pedal hard, and the vehicle shot off into the night, leaving the ambush behind.

________________________________________________

War Room.

The Headmaster and General Ironwood stood together, their faces serious, watching Vanessa as she worked. The data crystal Thorne had given them was connected into a console, and she was working hard to decrypt its contents.

Jonah stood by the holographic table, his body shaking from being both exhausted and full of energy. He couldn't stop seeing Thorne's face in the moment before the explosion. A monster had sacrificed himself to stop a bigger monster.

"I'm in," Vanessa finally said, her voice a tired whisper

Lots of information filled the holographic displays around the room. It was all there. Everything Thorne had promised.

There were financial records, showing billions of untraceable dollars flowing from the Sterling Syndicate into Thorne's offshore accounts. There were encrypted communications, detailing Sterling's partnership and his plans to "acquire" Thorne's research once it was complete. It was an undeniable amount of evidence, enough to reveal the Syndicate's crimes globally.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

Vanessa's fingers moved fast across the console, pulling up another file. A terrifying blueprint appeared, a 3D model of a big, orbital satellite.

"Project Damocles," Vanessa breathed.

It was exactly as Thorne had described. A doomsday weapon. A satellite designed to fire a beam that could neutralize all magical energy in a huge radius. It was a weapon that could hold the world hostage, a gun pointed at the head of every Awakened on the planet.

"Can they really build this?" General Ironwood asked, his voice a low growl.

Vanessa zoomed in on a part of the blueprint that showed a huge organic core. "Thorne's notes say the power source is the captive essence of a legendary-tier beast," she explained, her voice shaking a bit. "It's not theoretical, General. According to this, the main components are already in orbit. They're just assembling it."

The room grew colder. The danger was not a far-off chance anymore. It was real, being made silently above their heads.

"There has to be a flaw," Seraph said, her strategic thinking focused on finding a weakness.

"There is," Vanessa said, pointing to a blinking line of code in the corner of the schematic. "There's a completion date. An activation timetable."

She ran a quick calculation. A new set of numbers appeared on the screen.

"The weapon will be fully charged and operational..." she said, her voice barely a whisper.

"...in exactly one month."

Thirty days.

Thirty days until Julian Sterling held the power to switch off the world.

The war had just become a race against time.

General Ironwood hit his fist on the table. "We need a plan! We need to expose him! We need to get our own forces into orbit!"

"Exposing him will be difficult," the Headmaster said, his voice calm but laced with a serious, urgent feeling. "Sterling controls the media. He owns politicians. We can't just release this data. He would bury it, call it a hoax, and have us all branded as terrorists before the day is out."

The situation felt impossible. They had the proof, but they couldn't use it. They knew about the weapon, but they couldn't reach it.

Jonah stared at the model of Project Damocles. He saw the machinery, the powerful energy core, the weapon itself. He saw it not as a soldier, but as a creator. And he saw the flaw.

It was a fortress. Just like Thorne's mountain. And every fortress had a weak point.

But this fortress was not on land. It was not in a place where armies could march or where his current Progeny could fight. It was in an environment where nothing was meant to live.

A completely insane idea began to form in his mind.

He looked up, his eyes showing strong determination. "We can't fight the Syndicate on the ground," he said, his voice quiet but strong, calming the scared feeling in the room. "Not in thirty days. We'd lose."

He looked at the blueprint of the orbital weapon.

"So we have to take the fight to him," he continued. "We have to hit the weapon."

General Ironwood stared at him. "Son, that weapon is far out in space. We don't have a weapon that can reach it."

Jonah looked at his own hands, at the moving mark of power that lived under his skin. He thought of Atlas, the beast he had created to break a fortress. He had built a Progeny for a siege on land. Now, he had to build one for a different kind of war.

He looked at Vanessa, asking a question with his eyes. He saw the same flash of understanding in her eyes. They would face this together.

"No," Jonah said, with a strong and calm feeling in his voice. "We don't have a weapon that can get to it."

"Not yet."

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