Chapter 16: The Hollow Crown.

The ruins of Zero Wing smoldered in the aftermath, the skyline choked with embers and the distant wail of Syndicate alarms. Leonis knelt amid the wreckage, his shadow-arm coiled around a fractured data terminal, tendrils sifting through the dying whispers of the network. The bloodlines within himnow a tempest of fused shadow and flamethrummed with restless energy, as if sensing the storm yet to come.

Celia stood at the edge of the crater where the tower had collapsed, her moonmark pulsing in time with the erratic glow of the Lunar Shard's remnants. The wind tugged at her silver hair, streaked with ash and blood. Behind her, the surviving copiesther* copiesstood in fractured silence, their expressions vacant yet trembling with the ghost of rebellion.

*"Theyre still connected,"* she murmured, pressing a hand to her scar.*"The Syndicate's signal is weak, but its there. Like a leash."*

Leonis's gaze cut to the copies. Their eyes, once hollow, now flickered with something *human*. A flaw in the design. A spark the Syndicate had failed to extinguish.

*"Can you free them?"* he asked.

Celia's fingers tightened around the shard. *"I can try."* ---

The lab's sublevel was a graveyard of glass and twisted metal. Rows of shattered pods lined the walls, their occupantsmore Celias, more experimentsdiscarded like broken tools. The air reeked of antiseptic and burnt wiring, the floor slick with coolant and old blood.

Leonis's shadow-arm lashed out, carving through a sealed door. Beyond it lay the heart of Zero Wing's neural network: a cavernous chamber dominated by a monolithic core, its surface etched with Syndicate runes. The *Hive Mind*.

*"This is how they controlled them,"* Thoren's voice crackled through a salvaged comm unit. Celia had patched it into the system, his

consciousness still lingering in the code. *"'A centralized nexus. Sever it, and the copies will be free."*

Fenrir's absence was a fresh wound. Leonis could almost hear the wolf-prince's growl: *"Then what are we waiting for?'*

Celia stepped forward, the shard's light splintering across the core's surface.*"It's shielded. Itll fight back."+

Leonis flexed his arms, the fused bloodlines seething. *"Let it."*

The core *awoke* the moment Celia touched it.

Tendrils of liquid data erupted from its surface, latching onto her moonmark like parasites. She gasped, her back arching as the Hive Mind's will flooded hera-tidal wave of screams, of *commands*:

*Hill the anomaly*

*Obey

*¥ou are nothing

Leonis moved, but the copies *reacted faster*.

They lunged, not at him, but *for Celia*, their hands clamping around her wrists, her shoulders, their voices a chorus of broken defiance:

*"We remember."**"We *choose*."*

The core *shrieked*, its bindings fraying as the copies *pulled*, their collective will tearing at the Hive Mind's grip. Celia's moonmark *split*, silver light bleeding into the chamber-beacon, a rebellion.

Leonis didnt hesitate.

He *Voidstepped*.

For three seconds, he was *everywhere*aghost in the Hive's veins, a spark in its shadow. He saw the truth: the Syndicate's CEO, his consciousness woven into the core like a spider in its web. And he saw the flaw.

The Hive wasnt just a prison.

It was a *crown*.

And crowns could be *shattered*.

Leonis rematerialized at the cores apex, his flame-arm igniting. *"This ends now."*

He *slammed* his fist into the runes.

---

The explosion was silent.

For a heartbeat, the world was *nothing*no light, no sound, no breath. Then the backlash hit.

The core *imploded*, its data streams unraveling like severed nerves. The copies collapsed, their scars burning silver as the Hive's grip dissolved. Celia staggered, her moonmark now a jagged *brand*, but her eyeshers again*h ocked onto Leonis.

*"You saw him,"* she panted. *'The CEO. He's not just in the game. He's*here*."*

Leoniss shadow-arm twitched. The core's remnants flickered, projecting a final image: a throne room, high above the ruins, where a man sat cloaked in static.

The *real* Sovereign.

The *real* war. --.

In the ruins of the Hive, the copies stirred.

One by one, they rose, their movements unsteady but their gazes clear. The firstthe one who had turned her blade on Veynestepped forward, her voice raw with something like hope.

+"What now?"*

Leonis turned to the horizon, where the Syndicate's towers still clawed at the sky.

*"Now,"* he said, *'we take their crown."*

The copies smiled.

And the *Hollow Crown* burned.

---

**End of Chapter 16**