55

[Velmora – Ruined Launch Strip, Forty Minutes to Impact]

The air was thick with static.

Ash. Smoke. The hum of dying machines. Kiro sprinted across the cracked tarmac of the abandoned launch zone, the rebels close behind. Ahead, silhouetted in the fire-lit dusk, stood a half-loaded transport ship—its plating scorched, engines still hot.

Not all the ships had left.

"Get that hatch open!" Kiro barked, vaulting over debris. "Move fast!"

Two rebels ran ahead, forcing open the rusted loading bay doors with a scream of metal. Inside: crates of food, medical synths, weapons, armor—everything a survival colony would need. The ship had been prepared for an emergency.

Just not this one.

But it was theirs now.

"I can get it flying," Kiro muttered, sliding into the cockpit. The controls buzzed against his skin like they recognized him. Blood pulsed through the circuits, his system already interfacing.

And then—he heard it.

Screaming.

From the east side of the strip came a stampede. A flood of people. Hundreds—no, thousands—of Velmora natives, desperate and broken, sprinting toward the transport.

"Shit," one rebel hissed. "They're gonna mob us—"

"Let them in," Kiro said, standing.

"They'll overload the ship—!"

Kiro didn't answer.

Because the sky had opened again.

The rift.

It didn't scream this time. It whispered. A ripple tore the clouds, and from the swirling tear dropped a single shard of obsidian—smoking with pale fire.

The Void Stone.

It struck the earth like a divine hammer, embedding into the tarmac beside the ship, pulsing with unnatural gravity. Everyone froze. Even the stampeding crowd halted, as if the stone had sucked the very sound from the air.

And then—

[System Alert: Voidbound Resonance Detected]Touch the Void Stone.Initiating Spatial Reseed Protocol...

Kiro stepped forward, breath caught between fear and instinct. His Blood System flared, symbols racing across his vision. He didn't question it.

He ran.

The stone pulsed as he neared, calling not just to his blood—but to all blood. All life. A tether across dimensions. Across fate.

He reached out—

And touched it.

Light consumed the world.

[Elsewhere – World: Kyros One]

A distant sun cast amber light across the hills. Strange trees rose like spirals. The wind whispered across open plains untouched by war, untouched by Empire.

And then—

They arrived.

A storm of red light carved into the sky. With a crack of thunder, over a million people appeared—standing, gasping, sobbing. Velmora natives. Rebels. Children. Elders. Scavengers. Survivors.

In their center stood Kiro.

His body glowed with the markings of the Blood System, thorns and veins trailing his limbs like tattoos burned into divinity. His eyes, once hollow with rage, now shone with purpose.

The Void Stone hovered above his palm before vanishing into his core.

And above him appeared one last message:

[Core Update: Sovereign Path Unlocked]Title Gained: Blood ApostleRegion Registered: Kyros One – Dominion Status: Claimed

The survivors dropped to their knees.

Not out of fear.

But in worship.

Kiro turned, seeing the scale of what had just happened. He hadn't saved a few rebels.

He had delivered a people.

[Velmora – Orbit]

The World Eater detonated.

Velmora didn't explode—it was erased. A continent-sized ripple consumed the surface, turning cities to glass, oceans to void. The Empire's secret buried under fire.

But the planet had already been emptied.

And far away, on a quiet world with no surveillance satellites, no Empire strongholds, and no Void scars…

A new bloodline was being written.