The Wraith was no longer a ship it was a spear hurled into a god's eye.
It tore through the Nexan Cloud at full throttle, streaking past Architect defense grids with Nova piloting like she'd decided death wasn't an option and physics was optional. Enemy fire screamed around them, lightning-bright and absolute, but nothing hit. Not yet.
Inside the vessel, chaos moved with purpose.
Valen's infiltration pod disengaged with a hiss, spinning toward the Nexus under cover of a magnetic pulse ripple. Inside, he crouched in zero-grav silence, helmeted, focused, heart steady. He watched the Architect AI clusters flicker beneath him a city of impossible design suspended in orbit around a dying sun.
He grinned under his breath. "Let's break your spine from the inside."
Elsewhere aboard the Wraith, Elara and Aeron prepped for the final descent.
The heart of the Nexus waited below: the Fifth Seed's sanctum. No clear entry points. Just energy. Raw, volatile, sentient. And familiar.
