Ebonridge Valley was still screaming.
Stone hadn't finished settling. Dust hung in the air like fog, charged with residual power from the labyrinth's collapse. Bodies—living and dead—were scattered across the valley floor, some groaning, some unmoving, some already being dragged away by allies or subordinates.
Volt stood among them, chest heaving.
Lightning cracked violently around his body, uncontrolled, lashing the ground like a tantrum thrown by the sky itself.
His hands were shaking.
Not from exhaustion.
From rage.
He stared at the distant figure standing calmly atop fractured ground, a small black box hovering inches above the man's palm.
The Pandora Box.
Volt's eye twitched.
"…That was mine to finish," he muttered.
Around him, some executives were just beginning to stir—groans, curses, the sound of fractured pride scraping itself off the dirt. None of it registered.
All Volt could see was him.
The slender man with black hair and obsidian eyes.
Standing like the world had never dared touch him.
Volt took a step forward.
Then another.
Someone shouted behind him.
"Volt—wait—!"
He didn't.
Lightning exploded beneath his feet as he vanished, turning into a streak of white-blue destruction ripping across the valley.
The air screamed as he reappeared mid-stride, fist cocked back, lightning compressed so densely around it that space itself warped.
"YOU—!"
He swung.
The punch should have erased mountains.
It didn't land.
Because the man wasn't there.
Volt's fist passed through empty space.
He skidded forward, boots tearing trenches into the earth as momentum carried him several meters past his target.
"What—?"
The world folded.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Space bent like a sheet of glass being twisted by invisible hands.
Volt felt it an instant too late.
His body slammed sideways into nothing—yet the impact shattered ribs and sent him crashing face-first into the ground.
He coughed blood.
Hard.
"What the fuck—" he started.
Then gravity inverted.
Volt was yanked upward, body flipping violently as the sky became the ground. He smashed into an unseen ceiling and hung there, suspended midair like an insect pinned to a board.
Lightning lashed out instinctively, frying empty air.
The man finally turned.
Slowly.
Calmly.
His eyes settled on Volt with mild curiosity—no anger, no tension, no urgency.
Just… assessment.
"…You're loud," the man said.
Volt roared.
Electricity detonated outward in a dome, vaporizing dirt, rock, and air itself.
For a fraction of a second—
The space manipulator vanished.
Volt grinned ferally.
"FOUND YOU—"
A finger pressed lightly against Volt's forehead.
Everything stopped.
Space locked.
Volt's lightning froze mid-arc, suspended like jagged sculptures of light. His muscles refused to respond. His breath caught halfway through a snarl.
The man stood inches away.
"So," he said quietly, "this is lightning."
Volt's pupils shrank.
The man twisted his finger slightly.
Volt screamed.
Not from electricity.
From displacement.
His internal organs shifted a fraction of an inch out of alignment with the space they occupied. Not enough to kill him.
Enough to make him understand.
"You're injured," the man continued conversationally. "Exhausted. Emotionally compromised."
Volt tried to move.
Nothing.
"Charging me was… predictable."
The finger lowered.
Gravity snapped back violently.
Volt collapsed onto the ground, convulsing, gasping for air as lightning fizzled uselessly around him.
He barely managed to lift his head.
"You think…" he coughed, blood splattering the dirt, "…you're untouchable?"
The man tilted his head.
"I don't think," he replied. "I observe."
He raised his hand.
Space peeled.
Not tore. Not shattered.
Peeled—layer by layer—like reality was an onion being calmly dissected.
Volt's body was lifted again, limbs splayed uselessly as invisible vectors pinned him from every direction.
His bones creaked.
His lightning died completely.
Executives nearby froze as they watched.
Some of them recognized the sensation.
The same one that had crushed them in the labyrinth.
Fear.
"This is the difference between power," the man said, stepping closer, "and dominance."
He flicked his wrist.
Volt was slammed into the ground again—harder this time—creating a crater that spiderwebbed across the valley floor.
Volt lay there, coughing, twitching, barely conscious.
Boots landed beside his head.
The man looked down at him.
"You wanted to kill someone weaker than you," he said calmly. "That urge blinded you."
Volt's vision blurred.
The man turned away.
Behind him, the Pandora executives were finally forcing themselves upright—bloodied, furious, humiliated.
The man lifted the Pandora Box slightly.
Then he spoke.
"Nice to meet you all," he said, voice carrying effortlessly across the valley.
"I'm Loki Reiner."
He glanced over his shoulder, obsidian eyes gleaming faintly.
"Your new boss."
Silence.
Pure.
Absolute.
Volt lay broken in the dirt, staring up at the sky, lightning gone, pride shattered.
For the first time since the awakening—
He understood what it meant to be trash.
***
Across continents, one name began to circulate.
Not officially.
Whispered.
Feared.
Loki Reiner.
***
Loki Reiner stood alone.
Not because there was no one around him—but because distance had instinctively formed.
Pandora executives gathered in loose clusters across the fractured terrain of Ebonridge Valley, pretending to tend to wounds, pretending to stabilize their energies, pretending not to stare at him.
None of them stepped closer.
Good, Loki thought.
Fear was honest.
The Pandora Box hovered beside him, rotating slowly, its surface folding inward and outward like breathing space. It responded to him without command. No resistance. No test.
So this is what he died for, Loki mused.
The former Pandora leader's last moments replayed faintly in his memory—not as emotion, but as data. A man who believed chaos could be sculpted into evolution. A man who thought brutality was refinement.
"He lacked imagination," Loki murmured.
A ripple passed through the crowd as a projection activated—the former Pandora leader protocol, self-executing, bound to the Box itself.
PANDORA SUCCESSION CONFIRMED. WINNER IDENTIFIED. AUTHORITY TRANSFERRED.
That was it.
No applause. No kneeling. No acknowledgment beyond the system's cold declaration.
Loki turned slowly, eyes sweeping across the executives.
Some looked away immediately.
Others stared with naked hostility.
Ragnar Voss's hand tightened on his sword. Syla Mourn's jaw clenched, venom coiling beneath her skin. Astrael's expression was unreadable—but calculating. Phoros Kain radiated barely restrained rage.
Resentment already, Loki noted with mild interest. Efficient.
"So," Darian Rho finally said, voice edged with forced bravado, "that's it? You just… show up, beat us half to death, take the Box, and we call you boss?"
Silence followed.
Loki tilted his head.
"No," he replied calmly. "You call me nothing."
The temperature dropped—not physically, but perceptually. Space bent, subtly, almost imperceptibly, enough that Darian's next breath came half a second late.
"I don't require loyalty," Loki continued. "Fear will do. Competence is optional. Disobedience is not."
Ragnar stepped forward half a pace before stopping himself.
"You haven't earned Pandora," he growled.
Loki's gaze snapped to him.
In that instant, Ragnar felt it—space constricting around his spine, not crushing, not attacking. Just there. A reminder.
"I earned it," Loki said quietly,
The pressure vanished.
Ragnar staggered back, face pale.
Loki turned away, already bored.
They won't follow, he thought. They'll watch. Plot. Wait.
Perfect.
Pandora didn't need unity.
It needed tension.
Far beneath the earth, far from Ebonridge Valley, Hope fell.
Not physically.
Internally.
There was no pain at first. Just sensation—heat, cold, pressure—cycling too fast to name. His consciousness drifted, unanchored, until something latched onto him.
Not gently.
WORTHINESS CHECK: IN PROGRESS.