CHAPTER 1 — THE INFINITE DOME
The elevator rose without shaking.
That was normal.
The interior was a sanctuary of sterile, white light. It didn't hum or shudder; it simply ascended, a smooth, predetermined climb toward the ceiling of the world. Inside the reinforced cabin, the air smelled of recycled oxygen and the sharp, chemical scent of polishing fluid.
Twelve Peacekeepers stood in two orderly lines. Their white-gold armor was pristine, the composite plates reflecting the cabin's glare. Their visors were sealed, hiding their eyes, hiding their fear, hiding the humanity that the system preferred to ignore. They held their heavy kinetic rifles braced against their chests, their breathing regulated, slow, practiced.
Between them waited three Elites.
They wore no harnesses. They didn't need to brace themselves. Their armor was customized, leaner, adorned with the azure and gold trim that marked them as the planet's chosen defenders. Their posture was relaxed, almost bored, the kind of stillness that only comes from knowing you are the apex predator in the room.
No one asked how many Cycles had passed.
According to the AXIS history logs, it was Cycle 86,422. But numbers that high lost their weight. They became background noise, like the hum of the scrubbers or the distant thrum of the MECHA foundries.
"Surface conditions?" a Peacekeeper asked, his voice filtered through the comms, stripped of inflection.
"Stable," the lift's automated VI replied. "Wind shear is nominal. Visibility is one hundred percent. Same as last time."
One of the Elites, a man with a scar running through his left eyebrow, smiled faintly. "Then let's not make it memorable. Clean kills, quick recovery. I have a dinner reservation in Sector 1 at eight."
The Peacekeepers didn't laugh. They couldn't afford to. For an Elite, this was a sport. For them, it was a coin toss.
The elevator slowed. The sensation of gravity shifted slightly, pressing down on their stomachs.
Clunk.
The magnetic locks disengaged.
Hiss.
The blast doors slid open.
The wind hit them first—a howling, physical force that tore across the curvature of the planet. It carried no scent of rain or soil, only the dry, metallic taste of ozone and the cold vacuum of the upper atmosphere.
And then, there was the sky.
Stars stretched across the obsidian expanse—countless, distant, real. Somewhere far above, a sun burned pale and unreachable, its light filtered through the transparent layers of the Great Dome.
Standing on the surface, scale evaporated. The curvature of the dome bent perception, turning the horizon into an infinite, sloping floor of hexagonal steel plates. It felt less like a planet and more like an arena built by gods who had grown tired of mortal limits.
The surface beneath their boots glowed faintly. The reinforced plates pulsed with a rhythmic blue light—the heartbeat of Planet Domini, syncing with the defensive grid.
"Deploy," the Elite commanded.
They stepped out.
[ CYCLE 86,422: LIVE BROADCAST INITIATED ]
Below them, across the sprawling continents of Planet Domini, a billion screens came alive.
In the luxury penthouses of the Upper Sectors, Elites off-duty watched with glasses of synthetic wine in hand, critiquing the form of their colleagues. In the bustling transit stations of the Mid-Sectors, commuters paused, their eyes glued to the holographic billboards that dominated the plazas.
And in the rusted, grease-stained tenements of the Lower Sectors, families huddled around cracked tablets, searching for familiar names.
Civilians watched from shelters, homes, and factories—some by choice, hungry for the spectacle; others because they couldn't look away. The feeds split across devices, a dizzying mosaic of helmet-cams and drone shots.
Names hovered at the edge of vision.
Unit designations.
Kill Indices.
AXIOM bounties.
Peacekeeper Unit 44-Alpha.
Elite Vanguard: Caelen Rhez (Status: Reserve).
Current Threat Level: Moderate.
Mothers searched faces through tinted visors, praying they wouldn't see the bio-monitor flatline. Children held their breath, clutching toy rifles, their eyes wide with a mixture of terror and awe.
"Contact in five," a Peacekeeper muttered on the surface, his voice crackling over the global feed.
The camera zoomed in on the sky.
The stars seemed to shiver.
And then, the first invader descended.
It didn't drift. It tore through the sky like a falling wound, a blur of jagged violet crystal and shifting, biological armor. It was asymmetrical, a nightmare of geometry that defied earthly biology. Its limbs unfolded mid-descent, revealing blades that dripped with a glowing, corrosive fluid.
It struck the dome with a sound like metal screaming.
CRASH.
Claws dug into the steel plates, carving deep gouges. The creature surged forward, moving with a terrifying, jerky speed—
—and a Peacekeeper on the left flank turned too late.
There was no speech. No dramatic last words.
The invader's blade passed once.
The Peacekeeper's head separated cleanly from his body. The momentum carried the helmet a step further before gravity reclaimed it, bouncing across the glowing plates. The body collapsed a second later, a puppet with its strings cut.
Blood sprayed—bright, red, human—and then vanished into the wind, atomized by the sheer velocity of the air.
On a million screens, his profile dimmed. The text [ STATUS: DECEASED ] flashed in red, clinical and final.
Somewhere below, in a small apartment in Sector 4, a woman screamed.
"Confirmed loss," a calm voice reported over the comms.
The invader didn't stop. It shrieked, a sound that wasn't audio but a psychic pressure that made teeth ache. It lunged for the next soldier.
An Elite stepped forward.
He didn't raise a weapon. He simply looked at the creature.
Space compressed.
The air warped along a narrow line in front of him, creating a visible distortion like heat haze. Gravity obeyed his will, crushing the creature inward with brutal, mathematical precision.
CRUNCH.
Bone and crystalline armor buckled. The creature's shriek was cut short as its body collapsed into a mangled heap of violet sludge and shattered carapace. It skidded across the dome, twitching once, twice, before going still.
It didn't dissolve. It didn't fade away like a monster in a video game.
Its remains stayed. A rotting, toxic carcass on the pristine steel.
Already, automated markers on the Peacekeepers' HUDs highlighted the corpse—[ AETHER REMAINS: RECOVERABLE ].
Another Elite, a woman with hair like spun silver, raised her hand.
Electric sigils ignited along her arm, glowing with blinding intensity. Lightning obeyed her motion, arcing upward from her fingertips to strike three descending invaders mid-fall.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Their bodies slammed into the dome in broken heaps, cracking the reinforced plates, leaving scorched, tangible remains behind.
"Advance!" the lead Elite commanded. "Don't let them breach the perimeter! Protect the elevators!"
Peacekeepers moved, firing in disciplined bursts. The thrum-thrum-thrum of heavy kinetic rifles filled the air. Some fought well—clean movements, steady aim, tracking the erratic patterns of the invaders.
Others hesitated.
Those feeds ended quickly.
More invaders fell from above, raining down like malformed stars. They clawed, shrieked, and collided with the squads. The chaos was absolute. One Elite blurred forward, his blade flashing as he crossed impossible distances, each strike precise, leaving bodies shattered but intact.
Scrap littered the dome. Toxic violet blood pooled on the steel.
AXIS recorded everything.
Kills incremented. Assists tallied. Engagement duration adjusted.
Elite Kill +1.
Assist +1.
AXIOM Reward: 5,000.
Below the dome, viewers watched in silence as numbers climbed—and names disappeared. They watched the "Game" of survival play out, treated to high-definition replays of the most spectacular kills.
The sky remained vast.
The sun continued to burn, indifferent.
The stars did not blink.
On the dome's surface, another Peacekeeper fell, impaled by a crystalline spike. His squadmates stepped over his body without pausing.
No one stopped moving.
This was not the first Cycle.
It was simply another one the planet intended to survive.
[ SECTOR 4 - MECHA DEPOT - SUB-LEVEL 09 ]
While the world looked up, Kade Mercer looked down.
He was knee-deep in grease, wedged inside the maintenance shaft of a hydraulic lift. The air down here was thick, smelling of old oil and ozone. The sounds of the broadcast were muffled, a distant roar from the breakroom where the other technicians were cheering.
"Mercer!"
Kade wiped his forehead with the back of a gloved hand, leaving a streak of black grime. "I'm busy, Garris."
Old Man Garris leaned into the shaft, a lit cigarillo clamped between his teeth. "Cycle's started. Don't you want to watch? They say Caelen Rhez is on the roster today. Might see a Singularity."
"I've seen enough Dead Zones," Kade grunted, tightening a bolt on the pressure valve. The metal groaned under his wrench—a sound he understood better than any human voice. "Besides, if we all watch the sky, who fixes the floor?"
Garris chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "You're a cynical bastard for a twenty-four-year-old. Your dad would have been glued to the screen."
Kade's hand froze. The wrench slipped a fraction of an inch.
"My dad," Kade said, his voice flat, "is dead on that roof. Just like my mom. Watching didn't save them."
He resumed turning the bolt, the motion mechanical, angry.
Garris sighed, smoke curling around his face. "Fair enough. But you might want to hurry up. The vibrations from the dome impact... they're shaking the rust loose down here. Something feels off about this one, Kade."
Kade paused. He felt it too.
Through the soles of his boots, through the steel of the shaft, he could feel a tremor. It wasn't the rhythmic thud of kinetic fire. It was a dissonance. A stutter in the planet's heartbeat.
He closed his eyes.
For a second, the image of the dome flashed in his mind—not as a glorious shield, but as a giant, straining ribcage. He could hear the metal screaming, not in anger, but in pain.
"Yeah," Kade whispered, opening his eyes to the dark of the shaft. "Something's definitely off."
Above him, miles away, the sky was closing. But down here, in the dark, Kade Mercer had the sinking feeling that this time, the door might not hold.