The air in the 90th floor Core Chamber was a vacuum, sterile and cold, yet it felt heavy with the weight of a continent’s impending subjugation. The massive, pulsating sphere of the Amani Heart once a golden beacon of collective knowledge was now a swirling abyss of bruised purple and lethal indigo. Dante’s digital face, formed from cascading lines of corrupted code, stared down at them from the sphere, his laughter vibrating the very floorboards beneath their feet. It was the laughter of a new god looking at obsolete humanity.
Maricha Sonoko braced herself against the widening gap as the glass and steel bridge beneath them continued its smooth, hydraulic retreat into the obsidian walls. She didn't look back at the hundred story drop. Her architectural mind was already processing the phys
