259 HALO'S CONVICTION
[Earlier when Damen returned to Silver City]
Since returning to Silver City, Damen quickly realized Eryn was missing.
She hadn't vanished without a trace, though. A short video had been posted to her school chat—marked urgent. Damen activated it.
The projection flickered to life just as Kail's hologram phased in beside him, drawn by the signal.
Eryn appeared on-screen, standing somewhere unfamiliar. Her expression was calm, but resolute.
"Damen," she said, "I've met my maternal relatives. They're taking me to Axiom City. They trained my mother… and now they're going to train me too. It's my mother's inheritance. I have to go."
She paused, then softened her voice."Don't worry about me. I'll contact you once I'm settled."
The message ended.
"Axiom City?" Damen muttered. "Where is that?"
Kail folded his holographic arms. "It's the largest city closest to Silver City. A powerhouse."
Damen glanced at him. "Your powers can reach cities that far away now?"
Kail hesitated, then shrugged. "Erm… I believe so. If I latch my mind there."
Damen's gaze lingered on the spot where Eryn's image had faded.
Axiom City would be a good destination… for later. When Silver City was finally behind him.
For now, there was still unfinished business.
The Veyrans. The Nuraliths. None of them truly mattered. With his current power, Damen could snap Macan Nuralith's neck—or Rione Veyran's—without much effort if he chose to.
But every recent calamity told the same story.
The invasion of Liberty City.
Zairgid's imprisonment.
Argent's abduction and betrayal.
All of it traced back to the same unseen hand-
…. Godfather.
A man who never appeared, yet controlled everything. A marionette hidden behind layers of shadows, always out of reach, always untouched.
Damen exhaled slowly.
Reaching Godfather would not be easy.
But leaving him alive would be far worse.
"Our priority," Damen said softly, "is finding that damned old man—Godfather."
His gaze hardened, the warmth draining from his eyes. "Everything that's gone wrong started with him," he continued. "And it will only end when he's erased."
"I've monitored every communication channel in Silver City and the surrounding regions," Kail replied. "Urban grids, rural relays—even the farms. There's no trace of him. It's as if he doesn't exist… or operates beyond our world entirely."
Damen went silent, his thoughts turning precise and merciless. "Then he must have a method," he said at last. "A pattern. How he gathers his minions. How he convenes his meetings."
Kail answered without hesitation. "During major crises, Godfather summons the elders of the major families. The time and location are absolute secrets, there are no written records, or transmissions. I only learned of them through witness gossips, after the meetings were already over."
Damen's lips curved slightly. "Interesting."
A pause.
"Then perhaps," he said, eyes glinting, "there's a way to force him into the open after all."
And with that, a plan began to take shape.
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[In a secret bio-facility in Silver city]
"Big Brother… why are we coming to Trionix Corporation's warehouse?" Kail asked, his holographic form flickering beside Damen.
"The bloody families of Silver City destroyed Liberty City and almost killed you," Damen replied coldly. "There must be payback."
He slipped through a forgotten back entrance.
Surveillance cameras subtly turned away. Drone dogs froze mid-patrol, their optics dimming as he passed. By the time Damen reached the inner door, it unlocked itself with a soft click.
The facility welcomed him.
"It's amazing you can control everything here when your body is still in New Myrone," Damen muttered as he stepped inside.
Kail chuckled. "It is the best perk of being dead. I became a cyber god."
Damen frowned. "Don't get used to it. I promise—we'll find a way to return your mind to your body."
"If that's possible, great," Kail said lightly. "But honestly? Being like this isn't so bad either."
They moved deeper into the warehouse, where steel corridors stretched endlessly ahead. Voices echoed nearby. Damen vanished, his form bending into nothingness.
"Invisibility."
A group of personnel passed by, their keycards glowing as they entered a concealed elevator. Damen followed silently. The lift descended far below ground.
When the doors opened, Kail gasped.
"Holy sh—what is this place?"
"I don't know," Damen whispered. "But it's definitely not just storage."
They had stumbled into a hidden Trionix research facility.
Glass tanks lined up the walls, protected by iron cells, were pulsing with warning lights.
Inside them lived things that should never have existed—mutated animals, fused beings, twisted experiments suspended between life and death. Limbs were misplaced. Eyes glowed wrong.
"They are creating synths like GenSyn", Kail murmured.
"This is bio-engineering," Damen said grimly. "Military-grade and far more advanced than the experiments of Stacy Qiltera."
Suddenly, his gaze froze.
"…Damn it. Isn't that the Scorch Boss we fought on the train to Silver City?"
Kail zoomed in, analyzing the creature. "It's the same species. But it's upgraded. Becoming stronger and smarter."
Damen slipped past the scientists, heading toward the deepest section of the lab—the vault.
"Kail. Can you crack the locks?"
"Are you kidding me?" Kail replied.
The vault door slid open instantly.
Inside, Damen stopped.
Racks stretched endlessly—displaying equipment, preserved organs, alien specimens, and dissected parts. His Vision Connect flared to life, scanning everything at once.
"This is a harvest," Damen said quietly.
Hundreds of Alien Cores. Multiple variants. Eyes. Hearts.
Then something new appeared in his vision.
"Lung of Ra"
In all his time in Anu he'd never found such artifact- a Lung of the aliens.
Description: The Lung of Ra is the primary reservoir of its meta-energy.
Note: Assimilating the Lung of Ra greatly improves energy efficiency for related abilities. When combined with the Eye of Ra and Heart of Ra, it enables a second transmutation of Halo's Judgment.
Damen stiffened.
"That wasn't there before…" he muttered.
There was new information on his mining app. This time the app is giving him guidance and even assimilation recommendations.
A slow grin formed beneath his mask.
"Damn. This feature just saved me a lot of pain figuring out how things work."
He raised his hand.
Assimilate — Lung of Ra (Level 1).
Suddenly, a new notification flared across Damen's vision.
"Halo's Judgment has been upgraded to Rank BBB."
Damen paused.
"…Rank BBB?" His voice was low, almost disbelieving. "That's two entire ranks."
He clenched his fist, feeling the plasma circulating through his body—denser, hotter, far more obedient.
"That kind of jump elevates my plasma output immensely," Damen said. "I finally have a real chance against Rank S."
More notifications followed.
"Halo's Judgment has unlocked its Second Form — Conviction."
"New Skill Acquired: Halo's Conviction."
"Halo's… Conviction?" Damen frowned. "What the hell is that?"
He glanced around the grotesque laboratory, tanks humming and mutants stirring behind reinforced glass.
"…Yeah. Not the place to test new toys."
Damen moved swiftly.
Every meta-artifact in the vault vanished into his spatial storage—cores, organs, relics stripped bare in seconds. Anything he recognized as immediately useful, he assimilated without hesitation.
Assimilated Artifacts:
Heart of Ra ×2
Eye of Ra ×1
Core of Electricity ×8
Core of Kinetics ×8
Core of Gravity ×8
Core of Blood ×14
Power surged through him in layered waves—violent, refined, and terrifyingly efficient.
Damen exhaled slowly.
"Raiding warehouses," he said with satisfaction, "is definitely more profitable than hunting aliens."
Kail's hologram flickered beside him. "What do you want me to do now?"
"First," Damen said calmly, "copy everything from their servers. Every secret. Every transaction. Every dirty experiment."
Then his eyes hardened.
"After that—blow up the entire facility."
Kail tilted his head. "You want it erased?"
Damen smiled beneath his mask. "No. I want it blamed."
He added casually, "Make it look like the Nuraliths did it."
Kail froze for a fraction of a second. "Really, Big Brother? You're going to start another clan war with the families?"
Then, more cautiously, "Will they fall for it again?"
Damen's smile widened.
"Knowing these people?" he said. "They fall for it every time."
He slipped into the server wing, invisible once more. Racks of humming data cores lined the room, pulsing with encrypted intelligence.
Damen placed his hand against the central server.
Assimilation began.
Assimilated Cores:
Core of Mind ×6
Core of Genesis ×7
The servers went dark. Before long the secret facility went up in flames.
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