The Final Firewall

The command center, once the nerve center of the Nine Dragons’ empire, now resembled a battlefield. Monitors dangled from torn cables, their shattered screens flickering like dying fireflies in the smoke-choked dark. The air was thick with the acrid tang of scorched circuitry and melted insulation—a toxic incense to the death of a kingdom built on power, precision, and fear.

Luo Jian sat hunched at the central console, a fallen monarch on a throne of rust and ruin. Age had carved deep lines into his face, but it was rage—or perhaps the exhaustion of betrayal—that made his hands tremble as they danced across the grime-slick keyboard. Each keystroke echoed with the finality of a death knell, the last gasps of a system in its death throes.

A crimson holographic prompt blinked in front of him, floating like an omen in the smoke:

"Failsafe Protocol Engaged. Awaiting Final Authorization."