Chapter 1111: Inevitable (1).
Cain’s blade pierced the hum. Metal kissed energy, and the heart of the Grid convulsed. The chamber erupted in light, blue and violent, as if the city itself screamed. The sound went beyond ears—it shuddered in bones, in nerves, in memory.
Steve staggered back, shielding his eyes. "It’s...splitting itself—like it’s alive!"
The coils running along the walls thrashed, arcs of lightning snapping free and carving burns across steel. A smell of scorched air filled the room. Susan fired at a conduit that began to crawl open like a wound, her bullets sparking uselessly against energy that refused to die.
Roselle fired too, not to damage, but to buy seconds. Her jaw clenched as heat singed the skin of her hands. "Finish it, Cain!"
Cain pressed the blade deeper, feeling resistance not from matter but will. The Grid fought him. Every motion was a war. His arms quaked, but his eyes stayed locked on the blade’s glow as it drove into the core.
Hunter shouted over the chaos, his voice raw. "You’ll kill them all! The council, the children, the workers—they’re tied to this machine!"
Cain didn’t look at him. "Then let them see the chains before they choke."
The Grid wailed, a thousand overlapping voices rising into shrieks. For the first time, its illusion of silence fractured—memories, commands, whispers bleeding out, filling the air with fragments of lives stolen and rewritten. Cain heard laughter that wasn’t his, screams he never made, orders spoken in his voice that he never gave.
He clenched his teeth, forcing the blade down another inch. "They’ve used us like ghosts," he growled. "We cut, and we end it."
Steve dropped to his knees beside the console, fingers racing, trying to seize what fragments he could. "If I can pull pieces—just pieces—we might keep the city breathing long enough—"
"Pull nothing!" Cain barked. "No half-measures. The Grid dies tonight."
Hunter lunged, seizing Cain’s wrist. His grip was iron, desperation carved into his face. "You’re not a liberator—you’re a butcher! They’ll curse your name long after your bones rot!"
Cain stared into him, the clash of will louder than the storm. "Then let them curse a free man."
With a roar, he ripped his hand free and drove the blade through.
The heart split.
The chamber imploded in silence. Not soundless—absence. Every hum, every pulse, every whisper that had filled the city for decades was gone. A void pressed into their skulls, as if the world itself had been unplugged.
Then came the collapse. Screens shattered, conduits split, sparks raining like fire. The floor lurched, steel buckling under weight the Grid once carried.
Susan stumbled, clutching the wall. "We did it—gods above, we actually did it."
Roselle’s eyes darted to the door, where distant boots thundered closer. "Not for long. We just set fire to their crown jewel. They’ll bring the whole spire down on our heads."
Steve pounded at his salvaged console, face pale. "They already are. Fail-safes are tearing through the city’s bones—bridges, lifts, supply lines. It’s unraveling."
Hunter stood apart, face hollow. He watched the heart flicker its last, a titan slain by their hands. "You don’t understand. You’ve not just gutted their power. You’ve gutted trust itself. No one will believe their own eyes after this. You’ve stolen certainty."
Cain pulled his blade free, the metal glowing hot, veins of light crawling up his arm before fading into ash. He didn’t flinch. "Good. Certainty is their prison."
Alarms blared, harsher now, not the Grid’s tones but human-made klaxons. The hunters were almost here.
Susan shouldered her rifle, blood still dripping from her side. "So what now? We run? Or do we make our last stand here?"
Roselle checked her magazine—half-empty, her lips pressed thin. "A stand means nothing. We need the council to see what we’ve done. To see it’s not a wound they can close."
Steve’s hands trembled as he disconnected the console, cramming its burning circuits into his pack. "Then we move fast. If the spire seals, we’re buried alive."
Cain looked at each of them—Susan’s fire dimming but not dead, Roselle’s resolve like tempered steel, Steve’s fear sharpened into defiance, Hunter’s grief carved into stone.
"Then we climb higher," Cain said. "We make the council watch as their world collapses."
The chamber groaned, the ceiling fracturing. Sparks fell in sheets, fire spilling through broken ducts. Cain turned toward the stairwell that twisted upward, still unbroken—for now.
Behind them, the Grid’s heart gave one last pulse, like a dying breath. A wave of static rippled through their minds, a final whisper of the voices it had stolen. Cain felt it brush him—memories not his own, griefs, dreams, terrors. Then nothing.
The silence was complete.
They climbed.
Every step was chased by thunder, the spire tearing itself apart behind them. The walls shook, hunters’ shouts echoing closer, boots hammering up the lower levels. But Cain didn’t look back. His eyes stayed fixed on the council chambers above, on the place where power sat smug on its throne.
Susan coughed, blood streaking her hand, but her pace never slowed. Roselle’s jaw stayed set, pistol ready. Steve gasped with every climb, pack dragging him down, but he clung to it like salvation. Hunter walked last, his gaze heavy on Cain’s back, unspoken judgment burning in his silence.
The stairwell opened into a vast platform, windows stretching floor to ceiling. Beyond the glass, the city flickered. Towers that once glowed steady now blinked erratic, sections of darkness spreading like rot. Transports froze mid-air, some falling, some slamming into buildings. Streets below erupted in chaos—millions crying out as the world they knew failed under their feet.
Steve fell to his knees, breath ragged. "Gods. What have we done..."
Cain stood at the window, watching the sprawl unravel. His voice was quiet, yet it cut through the others. "We’ve done what they feared most. We proved they’re not untouchable."
The doors behind them shuddered, locks exploding as hunters forced entry.
Susan tightened her grip on her rifle. "Then let’s make sure they remember who did it."
The hunters burst through.
Cain raised his blade, eyes cold fire.
And the war inside the spire began anew.