Under the domes of New Star, the giant screens were on.
Every boulevard, every plaza, every cramped corridor between prefab towers—anywhere a projector could be hung—was flooded with the same feed: the launch.
Nine rockets, lined up like needles, their skins gleaming under the harsh dome lights. A staircase of metal ran up to each hatch, guarded by soldiers in black armor and live rounds.
The anchor’s voice—too bright, too practiced—rolled through the city.
“This is the New Star evacuation launch. Please remain calm. Only passengers with verified tickets may enter the launch zone. Anyone without authorization will be removed. Please cooperate—”
The camera cut to the base of one staircase.
A woman in a pressed blazer shoved herself against the security line. Tears streaked her mascara, turning it into ugly ink.
“Please… please, I’m begging you,” she sobbed at the soldier blocking her. “I’m a citizen of New Star too. I’ve been on-air every day. I told everyone to stay inside. I did what you asked. You can’t leave me here—”
The soldier didn’t even look at her.
“Step back. Ticket.”
“I— I don’t have it on me. I can get it. I can—”
“Step back.”
The crowd behind the barrier pressed in, hungry for a miracle. A few people shouted for her to be let through. Most just watched, hollow-eyed.
The woman’s sobbing hit a wall. Something in her snapped—like a switch.
“I have a ticket!” she shrieked, voice suddenly sharp enough to cut glass. “I have a ticket! Let me through!”
She fumbled inside her jacket, yanked out a thin card, and thrust it toward the camera like a trophy.
The on-site staff froze. The soldier finally took it, scanned it, and the security light turned green.
For a heartbeat, the woman’s face glowed with triumph—then she turned, grinning at the crowd like they were a joke.
“You idiots,” she laughed, loud enough for the microphone to catch. “You really believed all that ‘stay calm, trust the plan’ crap? Of course it was a lie.”
The plaza went dead silent.
“I helped them lock you up and milk you dry,” she went on, voice warm with contempt. “Why would anyone like me stay here with a bunch of peasants? Move, move—don’t touch me!”
Boos erupted. Someone hurled a bottle. It shattered against the barrier.
But the rocket crew didn’t care about the crowd’s rage. The staircase gate opened.
The woman scrambled upward, clutching her ticket like a lifeline, vanishing into the hatch.
Below, the people who’d been left behind stared at the screens as if their eyes could burn a hole through them.
A young man in Zone 6 uniform whispered, “So… even the one percent… they’re still leaving.”
A gray-haired woman laughed once, brittle and broken. “Leaving? They’re escaping. We’re the fuel.”
More voices rose, messy and desperate—arguments, sobbing, prayers.
Ethan Vale stood among them, face shadowed by the brim of his hat. To them, he was just another stranger in the crowd.
To the city’s rumors, he was Rhine—the man the gods seemed to keep dragging into their wars.
At his side, in the thin overlap between worlds, the Dream Twins watched through his eyes. Their voices brushed his mind like silk.
“Rhine,” one of them murmured, softer than sleep. “Do we stop this?”
Silvermoon’s cold gaze lingered on the rockets like a knife.
Ethan didn’t answer right away.
The launch sequence began.
On-screen, technicians ran final checks. The cameras panned across the nine towering rockets, their engines starting to glow.
The city held its breath.
A horn blared. A countdown flashed in bright block letters.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Somewhere, someone started clapping. The sound died almost immediately.
Three.
Two.
One.
The ground trembled as the engines ignited.
Flame poured out beneath the rockets, turning the launch pads into suns. The domes reflected that light back down, making the streets feel like they were burning too.
The rockets rose, steady at first—then faster, streaking toward the artificial sky above the domes.
For one aching second, the plaza erupted in cheers. Even the people who’d been abandoned cheered, because cheering was easier than screaming.
The sky blossomed.
Nine flashes—perfect, simultaneous—like someone had detonated fireworks inside the rockets’ ribs.
The screen went white.
A shockwave hit the city a heartbeat later, a deep, heavy thump that rolled through concrete and bone. People staggered. Glass shattered in a thousand places.
When the feed recovered, the rockets were gone.
Only burning debris rained down in slow arcs, falling like meteors.
The crowd’s cheers twisted into shrieks.
Ethan watched the flaming fragments, and his stomach went cold—not with surprise, but with confirmation.
Someone hadn’t sabotaged one rocket.
They’d executed the entire launch.
Silvermoon’s sight narrowed, threading a line through the chaos, through the city’s layered systems—toward a single signature.
Ethan exhaled.
“White Lion,” he said under his breath.
Greed Wolf’s hound.