[Oliver's PoV]

  The ballroom shuddered.

  At first, it felt like another aftershock from Odin’s blows. Another ripple through shattered marble and dead bodies, but the vibration didn’t fade.

  Then the sound came.

  A sharp, metallic snap of space folding. Teleportation. Close and loud enough that the air itself seemed to flinch.

  Another snap.

  Another.

  Each arrival struck the room like a drumbeat, the floor pulsing beneath Oliver’s boots.

  Six figures appeared beside Oliver in quick sequence. They wore different armors. Different outlines and plating, different Energy signatures. Yet the same white masks, each face marked by a number like an identity carved into porcelain.

  Three of them stepped in closer, forming a partial wall between Oliver and Odin without needing to be told.

  “You’re alright?” they asked, voices overlapping. No rank, no hesitation, no time wasted on ceremony.

  Oliver’s throat still burned from Odin’s boot. His lungs felt scraped raw. He forced the word out anyway.

  “Yes,” he said, and it came out rougher than he wanted.

  His gaze passed over them. Numbers. The sight should have been reassuring. It was, in a distant way. It also made something inside his chest tighten, because he knew what it meant for them.

  Across the hall, Odin watched them arrive as a man watching new insects crawl into a trap.

  His purple eyes tracked each new silhouette with a quiet interest. The last real droplet of blood at the edge of his eye had dried.

  The teleportation didn’t stop at six.

  It sped up.

  The floor’s tremor became a constant vibration. Teleportation cracks overlapped until the air filled with a stuttering rhythm of displacement.

  Hippeus pilots appeared, armored and masked. Nautes followed, naval and orbital specialists in darker gear, their uniforms marked for shipboard combat. Hoplites arrived in heavier plating, their silhouettes unmistakable even among the crowd.

  Then the rest came, faster than Oliver could count.

  Soldiers materialized in staggered rings around the hall, filling the open spaces between corpses. Officers appeared with their sidearms already raised, stepping into formation.

  Hermes. Midas. Daedalus.

  The ballroom that had felt empty became crowded in seconds.

  Oliver stood near the center of the growing formation. He could feel the strain in every breath, the ache where his right arm had been, the tight burn of his hastily sealed wound. He didn’t allow himself to sag. Not yet.

  Odin’s gaze swept across the gathering force.

  He didn’t step back.

  He didn’t look worried.

  If anything, the Sovereign seemed to settle, as if the room finally contained enough prey to be interesting.

  Daedalus-1 and Daedalus-2 pushed through the newly formed ranks with weapons that looked obscene inside a ballroom. Two enormous cannons, thick-barreled and braced with reinforced grips.

  They didn’t ask for permission.

  They didn’t hesitate.

  The cannons fired.

  The discharge was brutal. A heavy projectile tore through the air toward Odin, leaving a bright trail of compressed Energy that made the blood on the floor ripple again.

  Odin lifted one hand slightly, as if to catch the strike on his palm.

  He did not move his feet.

  The ogive hit.

  Heat and light detonated across the hall. For an instant, the room turned white-hot, and the line between ballroom and sterile hall blurred into a single glare.

  Odin stood in the center of it as if the explosion had been weather.

  “You brought more ants,” Odin said, voice flat. “More sacrifices.”

  A few claps sounded before the last of the dust even settled. Oliver couldn’t tell if it was mockery or approval.

  “I thought Mordred was cold,” Odin continued, gaze drifting across the crowd as if counting bodies already claimed. “But you… You surpassed him.”

  He shrugged, casual, as though the massacre behind him and the army in front of him were the same kind of inconvenience.

  “All their lives will be harvested. Not that they would’ve stayed alive after helping you anyway, but perhaps they could’ve tried to run.” His eyes returned to Oliver. “Instead, you dragged them here to be erased. Meat shields. For you.”

  “Shields,” Oliver said, voice rough. “Maybe.”

  He glanced at the ring of masked faces. Not fear in their stance, not blind obedience. He could see the choice in it, the way their feet had planted themselves and stayed there.

  “But none of them came because I ordered them,” he said. “They came because they wanted to.”

  Odin’s expression twitched, a brief cloud of confusion crossing his face as if that answer didn’t fit the model he used to understand mortals.

  Oliver swallowed blood, forcing the next words out through the taste of iron.

  “I wanted to be here,” he added.

  Odin’s gaze sharpened, as though he was trying to decide whether that was bravery or stupidity.

  “Listen,” Oliver said, voice still strained. “My father… he never got to see the result of his creation. Or his creations.”

  Odin’s head tilted slightly, the way a scientist might react to an unexpected variable.

  “But in his desire to see me again,” Oliver continued, “he didn’t notice what he’d made.”

  Oliver’s eyes stayed on Odin’s face, measuring every tiny change.

  “The greatest weapon against a Sovereign,” Oliver said. “Someone who doesn’t obey.”

  Odin’s mouth curved, the interest draining back into boredom as though he’d already categorized the idea.

  “Yes, yes,” Odin said. “You and Mordred. Two genetic aberrations.”

  Oliver didn’t flinch at the word. He let it hang in the air, then pushed past it.

  “Yes,” Oliver said. “But not only us.”

  Odin’s eyes narrowed.

  “You think every other Nameless has the same shackles?” Oliver asked.

  Odin laughed, amused, confident. “Yes. I made sure to check that my cattle were healthy.”

  Oliver’s gaze didn’t change. His face stayed calm in a way Odin clearly didn’t like, because it didn’t give him anything easy to read.

  “But once there’s a defective product in the market,” Oliver said, voice low, “how do you check that more of them weren’t produced?”

  He let the silence stretch long enough to make it uncomfortable.

  “Especially,” Oliver finished, “when there’s someone who knows the recipe.”

  Odin went silent.

  The Sovereign’s purple eyes stayed fixed on Oliver, but the certainty in his posture faltered for a brief, almost imperceptible moment, as if a calculation had produced an answer he didn’t like.

  Oliver moved while the silence still held.

  He stepped toward One. His remaining hand rose and took the mask by the chin.

  The porcelain face felt cold.

  He pulled.

  The mask came away with a soft hiss of seals releasing, and the face beneath it made the ballroom feel even more unreal than it already was.

  It was Oliver’s face.

  Same bone structure, same mouth, same jawline. Everything is identical down to the smallest asymmetry that makes a person unmistakable. Only the eyes were different: where Oliver’s had been altered by his Boon.

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  Odin didn’t speak.

  Oliver didn’t stop.

  He moved to Two and tore away the mask. Then Three.

  Three more faces that were his.

  Three more pairs of eyes that looked at Odin with the same cold intent Oliver carried.

  Oliver turned back toward Odin.

  Oliver swept his gaze across the Numbers, across the soldiers that had teleported in behind them, across the ring of masked figures. “None of them are here as shields.”

  He stepped back half a pace, making sure Odin could see all of them at once.

  “All of them are weapons made to bring you down,” Oliver continued. “I am. We are.”

  “They have my memories,” Oliver said. “My emotions. My will to end you.”

  One’s voice cut through the blood-stained air, low and absolute.

  “We will destroy you.”

  A Hermes operator spoke next, his tone clinical and calm as if he were delivering a routine status report instead of a vow.

  “Even if none of us remain.”

  A Daedalus lifted his chin slightly.

  “But tomorrow,” Daedalus said, “there will be no Sovereign left in humanity.”

  Around the room, more masks came off.

  Not all at once. One here, another there, then another. Until it became impossible to deny what Oliver had forced Odin to see. Oliver wasn’t alone. He wasn’t unique. There were enough of them in this room to turn a god’s certainty into a problem.

  Oliver’s remaining hand dropped to his side and closed around one of the Green Armor’s daggers.

  A Hoplite’s voice rose behind him, loud enough to shake the room.

  “To the end!”

  The Hoplite surged forward.

  Then another.

  Then the entire line moved.

  The ballroom exploded into motion under sudden acceleration, weapons igniting with hard, violent light. Prometheus flames crawled up Hoplite arms in white-gold ribbons. Lasers snapped outward in disciplined volleys, cutting red lines through smoke and dust. Energy pistols barked in sharp bursts, their impacts scattering sparks off Odin’s outline.

  Odin didn’t retreat.

  He stood as the wave hit him, and for a heartbeat, Oliver thought the sheer mass of bodies and firepower might force the Sovereign to give ground.

  Odin moved.

  A single gesture like flicking ash from a fingertip.

  The front rank of Hoplites detonated.

  Not burned. Not cut down. Simply ripped apart by a concussive force that turned armor into twisted shrapnel and bodies into mist. The shockwave slammed through the soldiers behind them, knocking several off their feet.

  Another gesture.

  A second cluster of soldiers was erased mid-charge, their silhouettes vanishing in a flash that left only heat distortion and falling fragments.

  Odin’s power was still far above anything mortal. Even reduced, even bleeding.

  Yet the assault didn’t stop.

  A Hoplite fell, and another stepped into his place before the smoke cleared. A soldier was torn apart, and the gap in the formation closed immediately.

  Daedalus cannons fired again, heavier shots that shook the fractured seam between rooms. Nautes and Hippeus personnel spread along the hall’s edge, laying down suppressive fire and targeting patterns, using the sterile white half of the room as a staging corridor for reinforcements.

  Prometheus and Lasers hit Odin in bursts. Oliver saw the faintest effect. Tiny showers of Energy sparks, tearing away from the Sovereign’s surface.

  But it was so little it was almost insulting.

  Odin turned his head slightly, as if listening to an insect buzz too near his ear. Another flick of his hand, and a dozen attackers were thrown back in mangled arcs, bodies slamming into walls and collapsing into the blood.

  Oliver felt it in his chest like a weight that wouldn’t shift.

  Not fear, something far worse. The pain of watching friends, comrades, brothers step into the last seconds of their lives against a thing that did not fight, but culled. He could hear their armor alarms through the chaos, the clipped final bursts of comms, the brief, strangled sounds of impact before the line went silent and another voice replaced it.

  But this was what they had chosen.

  They had come here not because Oliver commanded it, but because they had decided. That there were fates worse than dying. Letting Odin walk away was one of them.

  Blood turned the floor into a reflective lake. Bodies piled and slid. The fracture in reality at the hall’s edge flickered under repeated shockwaves.

  Oliver watched it for one heartbeat longer before moving.

  He kicked off the slick marble, driving his body forward. His missing arm threw his balance, but the Green Armor compensated. He slipped between collapsing Hoplites, under the arc of a Daedalus blast, past a Hermes drone that spun and burned out midair.

  Odin’s attention was everywhere and nowhere.

  That was the opening Oliver would get.

  He tightened his grip on the dagger and raised it as he closed the final distance.

  [Prometheus Strike]

  White fire ignited along the blade. The dagger’s edge became a bright, silent line cutting through the gloom.

  Oliver swung with everything he had.

  The blade met Odin’s side and bit deep.

  This wasn’t the faint spark-shedding scrape from earlier. The cut opened clean and unmistakable, and for the second time in the fight, Odin’s blood fell.

  But now it didn’t fall as a single humiliating droplet.

  It poured.

  A thick spray of red arced outward and splattered across the air and the bodies in front of Oliver. The universe itself had been forced to admit Odin could be harmed.

  Odin’s roar shook the hall.

  Not the amused annoyance he had called them ants with.

  This was hatred. Even the remaining attackers hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second, stunned by the sound of divinity enraged.

  Blood and viscera flew as Odin’s counterattacks ripped through another rank.

  Oliver struck again, stepping through a spray of blood that wasn’t his, twisting his torso to compensate for the missing arm, forcing the dagger into another line of attack.

  [Prometheus Strike]

  Another white flare.

  Another clean cut.

  Odin’s body shuddered. Sparks of Energy bled from the wound alongside real blood, and the Sovereign’s expression twisted into something no longer bored.

  One, Two, and Three fought beside Oliver as long as they could. Their strikes landed as hammer blows, each impact forcing Odin to give a fraction of space, each fraction costing someone their life. They didn’t retreat. They didn’t look for safety.

  They simply kept hitting.

  Seconds stretched.

  Minutes turned into hours.

  Suddenly, the noise thinned.

  No more overlapping comms.

  No more bootfalls behind him.

  No more synchronized volleys.

  Oliver’s next breath sounded too loud.

  He blinked, vision blurred by sweat and blood, and realized the space around him had opened.

  Bodies lay everywhere. Not only Imperial Guards now, but his own. Masks shattered. Armor broken.

  Oliver turned his head slowly.

  There was no one left standing.

  No Numbers.

  No Hoplites.

  No Hermes, no Midas, no Daedalus.

  Only him.

  And Odin.

  His dagger trembled in his remaining hand. It wasn’t the blade’s weight that threatened to drop it; it was the exhaustion in his forearm, the raw tremor of muscles pushed beyond their limit.

  He should have had nothing left.

  But between his fist and the dagger’s grip, something small pressed against his palm.

  A fragment.

  A sliver of the lance.

  It was no longer the weapon, no longer the terrible bronze shaft crowned with three Unique cores. It was only a piece. Small enough to hide in his hand, almost lost in the darkness of his glove and the smear of blood coating everything. Its glow was faint, easily drowned by the room’s shadows.

  Yet it was there.

  A Golden Crystal shard, still alive with quiet pulse.

  Oliver stared at Odin across the ruined hall.

  The Sovereign was no longer untouched. No longer immaculate. He was covered in wounds. Some shallow, some deep enough to carve through whatever lay beneath his skin. Blood streaked his body in real, heavy lines. Energy sparks still shed from some injuries, but the illusion of invincibility had collapsed.

  Odin stood tense now, shoulders set, his stance no longer relaxed. His purple eyes carried something Oliver hadn’t seen before.

  Fear.

  Not panic. Not pleading.

  The awareness of a god who finally understood that existence could end.

  Odin spoke, and there was almost celebration in his voice. Relief wrapped in cruelty.

  “You’re alone.”

  Oliver’s lips parted. His throat burned, but the answer came anyway.

  “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

  He swallowed, tasting iron.

  “I still have me.”

  His HUD flickered weakly.

  [Combat Mode]

  [Select your Crystal]

  Oliver looked down at his palm.

  He didn’t know how much it would amplify him. He didn’t know whether his body could withstand it. He didn’t even know if the Crystal would reject him now.

  However, he didn’t have a better option.

  Oliver clenched his fist around the shard.

  [Golden Crystal selected]

  Tiny motes of light formed around his chest and shoulders. Then the motes thickened and aligned, layering themselves above the green armor.

  For one last moment, Oliver stood as something more than mortal. Green and gold, fractured and burning, held upright by will alone.

  He drove forward, dagger raised in his remaining hand, feet slipping through blood and broken bodies. Odin’s purple eyes widened, his posture tightening as he tried to shift into one of those impossible half-steps beyond time.

  Oliver didn’t allow it.

  He brought the dagger down and through with a motion so clean it felt like the universe had been commanded rather than struck.

  [Prometheus Divide]

  The space where Odin stood didn’t merely tear.

  It separated.

  There was the moment before. Odin whole, furious, wounded, still a god.

  And the moment after.

  The division wasn’t a cut that traveled. It wasn’t a blade slicing through resistance. It was an absolute line imposed on reality, as if the universe had been folded.

  Odin’s body split perfectly in two.

  No gore sprayed. No convulsion followed. The halves remained suspended for a heartbeat. Chains tightened around his limbs again, humming with judgment.

  They didn’t restrain him anymore.

  They consumed him.

  Odin’s form began to crumble from the edges inward. Not flesh rotting, not bone breaking. Energy itself disassembling, turning into dust that drifted upward and vanished as if it had never been. Layer after layer collapsed, the purple-eyed certainty reduced to nothing but fading particles.

  His existence unraveled.

  It was gone.

  Oliver felt as Odin disappeared. A pressure that had lived in him his entire life. A collar he’d never been able to see, released.

  His own chain.

  His own destiny.

  Free.

  The dagger slipped from his weakening fingers. It fell and struck the blood-slick floor with a soft, wet sound, then lay still.

  Oliver’s armor began to fail. The gold plates dimmed first. The green shell followed, dissolving in fragments of Energy.

  Without it, his body gave up.

  He fell backward, heavy and unprotected, landing among the dead.

  He stared up at the chandelier, his vision blurring at the edges. His mind didn’t form thoughts anymore, only loose, drifting impressions.

  He knew what this was.

  The end of his line.

  The last breaths of a body that had spent itself completely.

  The cold of the room seeped into his bones, slow and inevitable, and for a moment, his chest tightened.

  Fear.

  Confusion.

  He wasn’t sure what waited beyond this. Peace, maybe. Or nothing. Or something worse.

  But he wanted to believe.

  He wanted to believe he would finally see his mother again. His father. Faces that had lived in memory longer than reality.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t.

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