The collision of the Stone Key and the Prime Node didn't just make a sound; it altered the fundamental physics of the room. The moment the ancient, jagged stone touched the hyper-advanced glass of the column, the air between them ignited. A white-hot shockwave erupted from the point of contact, expanding in a perfect, lethal sphere.
I watched in slow motion as the blast hit the garden. Julian Vane’s prized, genetically modified trees—oaks that had been engineered to grow in moonlight and ferns that glowed with a soft bioluminescence—were flattened like dry matchsticks. The artificial suns hanging from the cavern ceiling, those massive glowing orbs that had provided a false sense of peace, exploded in a cascading rain of glass and white-hot sparks.
Then, the darkness hit.
It was a hea
