[ Underground City ]
The underground city didn't welcome visitors. It tolerated intruders.
Seraphina D'Angelo didn't believe in luck and power doesn't come from chance. It comes from preparation, manipulation, and walking into the unknown knowing the world will bend — or burn — before she ever will.
Air was thick with dust and ancient secrets. Her boots hit the stone floor in clean, measured rhythm, echoing through the tomb-like silence. Concentric tunnels spiraled inward like a trap designed by obsessive geometry gods.
"Of course," she muttered, running a gloved finger over a carved wall, "the aliens had a thing for circles. How original."
She'd started walking at noon. Eight hours later, she hadn't seen a single soul, not even a dead one. But that was fine. People complicated things. Rocks, at least, didn't betray you.
Seraphina marked her path with thin slashes from her blade. Every two hours, she paused. Hydration. Tactical scan. Silent recalibration. Her instincts purred in the quiet. Danger was distant, but real.
She was alone, yes. But not powerless.
After retrieving the obelisk with Sitwell's naive help, she'd spent week preparing.
She learned fast.
"You're too elegant for a gun," the Mossad handler had said during their final session.
Seraphina smiled coldly, firing a perfect headshot. "Elegance doesn't mean weakness. It means precision."
That precision carried her through the maze beneath Puerto Rico.
By midnight, fatigue threatened. But Seraphina didn't bend to tiredness. She measured it, folded it, and shelved it.
She finally stopped beside a pillar shaped like an obelisk's twin. Pulling a nutrient bar from her satchel, she took a bite and immediately regretted it.
"Tastes like betrayal," she said aloud. Her voice didn't echo. The silence here had teeth.
Hours passed. Her body begged for rest. So she allowed it—ten minutes. Lying with her back against stone, obelisk cradled against her chest, she shut her eyes.
Sleep came in fragments: a war zone, a piano, a child laughing, blood. And a memory she never had. The name Quake whispered like static.
She awoke. Something had shifted.
The tunnels had narrowed.
She was close.
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[The Evolution Chamber]
The heart of the city resembled a sanctuary carved by ancient engineers with a flair for drama. Six stone gates stood like judges. The center held a raised platform bathed in light that had no earthly source.
Seraphina approached with the gait of a queen entering court. Dust clung to her boots, but her coat remained immaculate. Her hair, now platinum-blonde, was tied back. Every line of her body whispered control.
She placed the obelisk on the platform.
The room responded with a sound like a glacier cracking. Gates moved. Stone groaned.
"Showtime," she murmured, stepping back.
The obelisk began to spin. Click. Click. Click.
Metal peeled away to reveal the Terrigen crystal. Blue. Alive. Hungry.
Seraphina narrowed her eyes. "Let's see if you're worthy of me."
Gas hissed from the crystal. She didn't flinch. It stung her throat, and stone began to spread across her arm.
Still, she stood tall.
"Routine petrification," she muttered dryly. "My therapist will love this."
Stone wrapped around her. Her heart slowed. Breath shallow. Her body frozen in command, not fear.
Then darkness.
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[Rebirth]
Cracks.
A hum began deep inside her chest. It pulsed, surged, rose.
CRACK.
Fingers shattered free first. Then her arm. Her chest. The stone exploded off in all directions.
She just standing there, gasping.
The air tasted like lightning.
Seraphina lifted her gaze.
She felt everything. Air, movement, even the ancient energy clinging to the chamber like cobwebs.
Her skin glowed faintly. Power thrummed beneath it.
She clenched her fists.
The stone beneath her cracked.
Smiling, she whispered, "Now we begin."
The Queen had risen.
The world just didn't know it yet.
To be continued...
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[ POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS ]