Berou didn't look back.
Lira remained on the floor behind him, alive but silent — not out of fear, but shame. He knew that silence. He'd worn it before. Worn it like a second skin for years while the Abyss carved pieces out of him and called it discipline.
The corridors beyond the training atrium narrowed. Sleek steel replaced bone. Lights flickered above, motion-triggered, each one a pale eye observing, judging, calculating the trajectory of his presence.
He had reached Sector Zero.
The place where command operated. Where decisions became doctrine. Where men behind masks carved the future of thousands with a word.
Berou remembered this place. Not from memories — from scars.
The corridor ended in a large black arch, unmarked.
Berou stepped through it.
The air inside was different — thicker, laced with psionic pressure. His skin prickled. The Apostate stirred beneath his flesh. It wanted out. It felt something ahead that deserved it.
Then — voices.
No.
A voice.
Not spoken.
Broadcasted.
Into his mind like a needle shoved through thought.
Welcome home, Berou.
He froze.
That voice.
It didn't belong to a soldier. Not a scientist. Not a torturer.
It belonged to a man Berou thought long dead.
Director Vane.
The room he entered was a massive rotunda. The floor was glass. Beneath it, a shifting sea of neural circuits pulsed with living energy. The ceiling was open to a dark void that did not show sky — only endless depth.
And in the center stood a single chair.
Empty.
Until Vane stepped out from the shadows behind it.
He looked older, but not weak. His black coat still bore the insignia of the Abyss Council. One hand was gloved, the other mechanical — gold-veined and twitching.
"You killed the prototype," Vane said, as if commenting on the weather.
Berou didn't answer.
"You broke the gate," he continued. "You left Lira breathing. Kind. Tactical."
Still, Berou said nothing.
Then — Vane turned. Smiled.
"You're exactly what I hoped you'd become."
Berou moved fast.
One step, then two — his sword drawn in a blur.
But Vane didn't flinch. Instead, a surge of invisible force slammed into Berou's chest and sent him sliding backward across the floor, armor sparking against the glass.
"I didn't come here to praise you," Vane said calmly. "I came to witness the end result of my greatest project."
"You didn't create me," Berou growled, standing again.
"I finished you," Vane corrected. "They all said you were unstable. A waste. But I saw the fracture in your soul, and I knew — a god could be born from that kind of pain."
"I'm not your god."
"No. You're something else. A weapon without control. A myth wrapped in hatred. But the beauty of a weapon, Berou, is that it only needs the right target."
Berou's wings flared.
The Apostate surged.
Black armor crawled down both arms, his face flickering with red heat. Eyes burning.
"Then aim me," he said, voice low. "See what breaks first — me, or you."
Vane stepped back, slowly — amused, not afraid.
"Good," he whispered. "Come. Let me see the truth of what we made."
They collided.
Power cracked the rotunda in half. Walls shattered from the shock. Berou's blade slammed against Vane's force barrier, and Vane retaliated with a blast of psionic pressure that warped the very air.
Berou didn't care.
He didn't need control.
He needed release.
They fought like fire against glass — one trying to burn, the other trying to reflect. But Berou was changing. Every blow made his armor thicken. Every scream from the Apostate inside made his form darker, heavier.
And Vane, for the first time, was forced to step back.
"You're not just rage anymore," Vane muttered.
"No," Berou said.
"I'm what you built in the dark.
And forgot to chain."
The final blow sent Vane crashing across the chamber. His barrier shattered. His mechanical arm sparked, half torn. He coughed blood onto the black tiles.
Berou stood over him, blade raised.
But Vane laughed.
Even bleeding.
Even broken.
"I knew it," he whispered. "You're the perfect ending."
Berou paused. His grip tightened.
And for the first time since his exile — he hesitated.
Because something deeper than vengeance was whispering now.
Not rage.
Not grief.
Purpose.
He turned his blade.
And stabbed it into the floor beside Vane's head.
"I don't need to kill you," Berou said, voice hollow. "I just need them to see you fall."
Then he turned.
And walked toward the chamber's exit.
As alarms across the HQ began to scream.