I didn't wait for court protocol. No royal summons, no council meeting. I moved with silent fury, slipping through the palace like a shadow with purpose.
The North Tower—my mother's private chambers—was warded with twelve protective enchantments. But I knew them. I had personally reverse-engineered the palace's magical defense lattice six months ago.
Not to spy.
To prepare.
I whispered the counter-sequence:
"Aequitas. Volantis. Trei'on."
The wards bent to my voice.
The door unsealed.
And I stepped into the heart of betrayal.
Tharion stood at the center of the moonlit room. He was holding a silver dagger over my mother's sleeping form, the Spiral symbol etched into the blade.
He didn't flinch when I entered.
Didn't even turn around.
"I wondered when you'd come, boy," he said.
Boy?
No.
Not anymore.
[Skill Activated – Spear of the Void Prince: Blink Strike]
[Distance: 7 meters → Traversed in 0.3 seconds]
[Result: Target unarmed, disarmed, and disabled – Status: Crippled]
Tharion's dagger clattered to the floor.
My spear impaled his right shoulder, pinning him to the stone wall.
I stared into his eyes.
"Why?" I asked—not because I didn't know, but because I needed to hear it.
He smiled.
"The Spiral offered truth. A mind like yours shouldn't be chained to mortal ambition. You were meant to ascend, child. They can help you break the world—rebuild it!"
I twisted the spear.
He screamed.
"You were always short-sighted," I muttered. "The Spiral isn't offering salvation. They're running from something worse."
[System Detected: Hostile Neural Core Linked to Tharion]
[Suggestion: Extract for interrogation? [Y/N]]
I confirmed: [Y].
A sliver of code—black, writhing, part-organic—rose from his body as I activated my secondary interface lens.
[Spiral Shard Extracted – Initiating Containment Protocol]
[Warning: Data Structure is Fractalized – Conscious Fragment Detected]
The shard… spoke.
"You're too late, Architect."
"The girl is awake."
I froze.
"The girl" could only mean one thing.
My sister.
She wasn't supposed to be born yet. Not for another month.
But I checked the interface.
[New Lifeform Detected – Codename: Aelya]
[Status: Incubation Interrupted – Awakening Triggered by Dimensional Surge]
[Mana Profile: Dual-Elemental (Light + Void)]
[Soul Signature: Unknown Entity Coalescence – Warning: Class Omega Presence Detected]
An Omega Presence? Already?
No...
Not already.
They were waiting for her.
I turned to my mother—still asleep, breathing steadily, unaware of the cosmic tremors her womb had begun to stir.
Tharion, slumped on the wall, bleeding and broken, began to laugh.
"She isn't yours anymore, prince. Not fully. They whispered into her cradle while you were playing at engines and thrones."
I silenced him with a pulse of my mana.
He wouldn't die.
Not yet.
But he would remember the moment his Spiral overlords abandoned him.
That night, I moved my mother to the Lower Vaults, hidden beneath the ancient cathedral.
I initiated Protocol Aelya—a plan I'd only theorized in case of interdimensional contamination during her birth.
Magical shielding. Neural stasis. Purity runes from Earth combined with Soulward tech from this world's high priest caste.
And beside the stasis chamber, I began constructing a secondary forge.
Not for ships.
For armor.
Because whatever had stirred inside my unborn sister wasn't just watching me.
It was testing me.
And I never lose to my own creations.