The air in Tian Hao’s private study was thick with heat and something fouler—burnt circuits and betrayal. Holographic projections danced like dying embers around the room, flickering against the obsidian walls. Alarms buzzed softly beneath it all, a low drone that seemed to hum inside his skull.
Vaults were being breached. Accounts drained. Trusted escape routes flagged as compromised. The steady collapse of an empire once thought untouchable was unfolding right before him.
His war room, once a cathedral of precision and power, now bled crimson across every screen. Lines of code collapsed into error messages. Datastreams crackled and died mid-transfer. Red floodlights cast a hellish tint on every surface, turning the marble floor into something that looked suspiciously like blood.
Tian Hao stood at the center of it all, unmoving.