The underground war room known as Boilerhold had never been so quiet.
A cold current moved through the space as Veil approached the central table. The vampire's steps made no sound on the stone, but his presence shifted the very weight of the air. Ancient, coiled, restrained. At the table were Lyra, Tyren Vox, Jassa Vell, and a handful of the rebellion's top Spark-kin operatives. All waited.
He stopped before the glowing stone map of the city, veins of rune-light flickering across its surface like heartbeat rhythms.
"It must be Zero," Veil said, his voice low and final. "It is the heart. We bleed the heart."
Tyren leaned over the map and tapped the mark labeled Obelisk Zero—deep beneath the ancient capital's ruins, long since repurposed into the Skyborne High Sector.
"It's suicide," he muttered. "It's not like the other Obelisks. This one's layered. Outer bunkers. Sentinel patrols. Arcane dampeners. A field of drones. And a central core no one's even seen in decades."
Lyra crossed her arms. Her skin bore faint shimmer-lines—Spark channels that had grown stronger the closer they came to the city's magical heart. "But it's the source. Right? The others are feeders. This one… this one controls the grid. The ley lines, the Null protocols, the rationing systems. If we take it…"
Veil nodded. "Then the surface will feel what it is to be unmoored."
Jassa grunted, tightening the straps on her shoulder harness. "Then let's stop talking about how hard it is and start talking about how we break it."
Tyren sighed. "Fine. You want to know how to do it? You'll need four synchronized breaches: two on the lower maintenance levels to disable the Null Field generators, one on the main control deck to seize the console, and a final push into the Wyrm Core Chamber itself."
"The Wyrm Core?" Lyra repeated.
Veil's eyes darkened. "It predates the Obelisks. A relic of the Age of Binding. They didn't build this tower on empty ground. They built it over a weapon they couldn't understand. So they chained it. Caged it in circuits and steel."
Jassa smirked. "Good. Maybe we can break it out."
Tyren rubbed his temples. "There's more. Intel suggests Chancellor Varik is on-site. Not a puppet. The face of the High Houses. If he's there, we're not just facing military resistance. He'll have Sentinels—the fully converted Spark-hunters."
A murmur moved through the table. Everyone had heard of Sentinels. Once Spark-wielders, twisted into biological weapons, their minds erased, their powers inverted.
Veil's voice was quiet. "We will need more than weapons. We'll need faith. And fury."
They met again in the crypt tunnels beneath the city, old railways and sewer paths that hadn't seen sun or sound in generations. It was a graveyard for a forgotten civilization.
Veil stood at the front, the rebel strike teams behind him. He looked like a statue carved from night. Only his eyes glowed faintly—red coals beneath a cold exterior.
"You should know what we face," he said, addressing the fighters. "We go to the foundation of their power. We go not just to take it—but to undo it. We go to break the machine that broke the world."
A dozen Spark-kin stepped forward, each bearing a different aspect of magic once lost—healers, elementalists, kinetic shieldbearers. They bowed silently.
Tyren leaned toward Lyra. "You're sure about this?"
"I have to be," she whispered. "Every dream I've ever had… ends at Zero."
The tunnel to the tower base was sealed by ancient tech—smooth metal, encoded wards, three locks that pulsed with detection magic. The team crouched at a junction point as Niko, the youngest Spark-kin, stepped forward.
He was thirteen, mute, and something more than human.
Veil watched silently as Niko pressed his hands to the door. His fingertips glowed blue-white, and a geometric pattern spiraled from his palms. Slowly, with no sound but a hiss of releasing gas, the massive gate split open.
The team slipped through.
The descent was long, silent, tense. They passed old war banners. Carved stone engraved with the High Houses' iconography. Pipes that hummed with faint energy. Jassa led the front. Tyren worked on a portable interface strapped to his wrist.
They reached the lower vault—massive, circular, and littered with patrol bots. Tyren activated a decoy system, drawing several away. The team made their breach, flooding the hallway beyond.
The interior of Obelisk Zero was nothing like the others.
It wasn't just a tower. It was a city's skeleton. Endless halls, command bridges, mechanical arteries. All centered on a singular glowing core, visible from the catwalks high above.
"This place feels… alive," Lyra whispered.
Veil stopped. "Because it is."
That's when the lights flickered—and a voice echoed.
"Welcome, trespassers."
A hologram flared to life above them. Tall, aristocratic, dressed in deep blue and silver: Chancellor Varik. He smiled with lips too thin.
"You've come so far. Burned so many bridges. Killed so many fine assets. Tell me… do you think this ends with your names in song?"
Jassa spat on the ground.
Veil stepped forward. "I think it ends with your corpse in the dirt."
Varik's image blinked out.
And the Sentinels descended.
Ten of them. Leaping from catwalks. Shimmering with Null armor and implanted arcsteel blades. They moved too fast. Too perfect.
The chamber erupted in chaos.
Lyra flung a sparkshield just in time to stop a blade from cutting Tyren in half. Jassa met one Sentinel in hand-to-hand, swinging her hammer with shattering force. Veil surged into the air, cloak unfurling like wings, and landed in a cyclone of blood and steel.
Tyren screamed, "I need sixty seconds to reach the Wyrm controls!"
"You've got thirty!" Jassa roared.
Lyra dropped to one knee beside Niko, who was clutching his head, shaking violently. The Null field was choking his powers.
"I can't reach him!" she cried.
Veil landed beside her. "Let me."
He knelt and pressed his palm to Niko's chest. A pulse of old magic, colder than Spark and older than the Obelisks, surged outward. The Null haze peeled back just enough.
Niko opened his eyes—lit like stars.
And then he rose.
No one touched him.
He floated to the center of the chamber, lifted both arms, and screamed—a soundless cry that tore through the air.
The Sentinels froze.
Every spark in the room flared.
The floor beneath them cracked open—and the chamber shifted.
From the core, light poured out. Real, old, primordial magic.
The Wyrm Core was awakening.
Tyren's interface lit up. "We're in! I'm redirecting the tower's leylines. Funneling everything back down!"
Jassa destroyed the last Sentinel with a decapitating swing. "Then get us to the center!"
Veil nodded. "The Throne of Zero."
They raced across catwalks now illuminated by veins of golden energy. Automated defenses came alive, but now Spark magic flowed freely. Lyra cast walls of force. Tyren disabled targeting systems. Niko, still silent, parted sealed doors like paper.
They reached the inner sanctum.
The Wyrm Core pulsed in a vat of crystal and glass, suspended above a sea of circuitry. Runes older than the High Houses ran in jagged loops. Everything vibrated with pressure.
A figure waited in the center.
Chancellor Varik.
His robes were gone. Now armored, eyes glowing with stolen magic, veins blackened with Spark inversion. His voice echoed.
"You fools. You've doomed yourselves. The Core isn't a battery. It's a lock."
"On what?" Veil asked quietly.
"On the end of the world."
Veil stepped forward, slow and deliberate. "Then perhaps it's time the world ended—and began again."
Varik attacked, casting twisted bolts of corrupted Spark, summoning constructs of anti-light. Lyra countered with pure force. Jassa rushed him. Niko raised a barrier. Veil met the Chancellor mid-strike, claw to blade, blood to magic.
It was brutal. Terrifying.
But not eternal.
Veil reached through the storm and drove his claws into Varik's chest.
As the Chancellor crumbled, the Core lit up like a sun.
Alarms rang across the Obelisk—but they were not warnings.
They were celebrations.
Magic surged through the tower, washing away the Null tech. Systems failed. Lights overloaded. Across the Undercity, Spark returned in a wave.
The rebellion cheered.
Veil turned to Lyra. "It is done."
She looked up, eyes wide. "No… it's starting. Look."
The Wyrm Core opened—splitting in half.
A voice spoke. Female. Old. Kind. Angry.
"I am the Core. I remember what was taken. I remember what you are. You lit the fire. Now let it burn."
The tower began to rise—not collapse, ascend. A reverse Obelisk, rising from the depths.
A Throne for the Undercity.
A challenge to the skies above.
The surface would feel it.
And soon, the High Houses would answer.