The boardroom exploded into motion the moment Ikris stepped forward with fire in his eyes.
Dr. Selene Raas lunged for a console embedded in the table. Ikris reacted first. He slid forward with trained precision, kicking the table edge and sending her chair toppling. His katana hummed as it carved the button panel in half.
Sevik flanked right, pistol up, while Lyssa sent a burst of compressed air to blast back another executive who had drawn a concealed weapon.
"No one moves," Sevik barked, voice like a razor. "You so much as twitch and we paint this obsidian red."
The remaining board members froze. Except Marius.
The old man stood tall, unshaken.
"I wondered how long before you'd storm the summit," he said, voice calm, arrogant. "But I didn't expect you to bring the storm with you."
He looked to Lyssa.
"Air-bender. Lineage unknown. Likely offspring of the Aeolus variant serum. You're unstable, but impressive."
"Flatter me again," Lyssa sneered, "and I'll collapse your lungs."
Ikris stepped forward, ignoring the weight of his father's words.
"You lied about Darian's condition."
Marius's eyes flicked. Just for a second. A crack in the mask.
"He's not stable," Ikris continued. "The fire inside him isn't controlled. You're pushing him down the same path as me, only faster."
Marius turned, slowly.
"I had to accelerate the program," he said. "Time waits for no dynasty. The world is shifting. And you were… a failed vessel."
"You're killing him."
"No," Marius said. "I'm transforming him. Into a god."
Ikris ignited the katana—red fire licking along the blade's edge.
"Then I'm here to slay one."
He charged.
Marius didn't flinch.
But the floor did.
Suddenly, it dropped.
Literally.
A section of the obsidian cracked and collapsed beneath Ikris's feet, and he plummeted into a black shaft.
"IKRIS!" Lyssa screamed.
Before Sevik could react, armored drones erupted from the ceiling, guns trained.
The summit room was no longer a room—it was a trap.
And Marius Igan had just separated his son from the only two people who could help him fight.
Darkness swallowed him.
The fall wasn't long, but the landing was rough. Ikris rolled hard across steel plating and came to a stop near a humming vent system. For a moment, he lay there, winded. Then his instincts kicked in.
He sat up, lit a small flame in his palm, and surveyed the room.
A cube. Clean. Sealed. An observation chamber.
He was alone.
Except for the flickering screen on the far wall.
It activated, showing Marius's face.
"This is where the first experiment took place," his father's voice echoed. "The chamber where I watched your body ignite and survive."
Ikris stood slowly, katana in hand. "You're sick."
"No," Marius said. "I'm focused."
Another screen lit up. This one showed Darian—his younger brother—strapped to a hospital bed. Tubes in his arms. Flames pulsing beneath his skin, uncontrolled.
"I wanted him to succeed where you failed," Marius said. "But his cells are breaking down faster than yours ever did."
Ikris gritted his teeth. "Let him go."
"He has one week left," Marius continued, unfazed. "Unless you give yourself up."
"Why?"
Marius leaned closer to the camera. "Because your fire is unique. The only stable compound. We need your DNA. Your core."
Ikris's heart pounded. Not from fear. From rage.
"You'd cannibalize your own son to save another?"
"I'd do anything to ensure the Igan name reigns forever."
"You already destroyed it."
Ikris raised his katana and slashed the screen in half. Sparks flew.
He took a deep breath.
And then, he reached down, touched the steel floor.
Fire spread from his palm, redirected through the grid of circuits beneath him. It snaked along the power lines, igniting junction points, frying cameras.
If Marius wanted to use this room to trap him—he'd burn it from the inside out.
Upstairs, Lyssa dodged a barrage of bullets.
"Where is he?" she yelled, flinging a concussive air pulse that shattered one of the drone chassis.
Sevik fired a magnetic EMP burst, disabling two more.
"He fell into the lower floors!" he shouted. "Some kind of containment!"
"We have to get to him."
The board fled, except Marius, who remained seated, untouched, as if chaos had no place in his world.
Lyssa stalked toward him.
"You play god with your own children," she growled. "You're a monster."
Marius simply smiled. "And yet… your loyalty to him is admirable. Misguided, but admirable."
"I'm not loyal," she said coldly. "I'm in love."
That, finally, wiped the smile from his face.