The Five Evolution

『"Aura farming just became a liability." 』

Daniel Hale slipped out of the War Room and moved through the Convergence Facility the moment Konstantin decided to literally turn the War Room into one.

The corridors around him shuddered with distant impacts as the entire facility groaned under the strain of multiple intense battles.

Yelena stayed at his shoulder, her expression tight with the effort of restraint. Every crash, every scream, every tremor made her flinch toward the sounds of combat.

Her hands itched for her weapons. Her bars—three of them, glowed faintly right above her chest with the desire to engage.

This was supposed to be her opportunity to pay back what the Collector owed her. But Hale had given her an order, and Yelena, for all her ferocity, was a soldier first.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The Axis," Hale replied, not slowing his pace. "The Convergence Facility was built around a Singularity Engine that keeps all the pocket dimensions from collapsing into one another."

"So what do you intend to do in Engine Room?" she asked as they arrived at a platform, which teleported them once Hale pressed a button.

Blue cylindrical light beamed them to a different location and they kept moving.

"The Axis Core powers the Reality Engine that controls every spatial partition, simulations, and barriers in this facility. If I can extract it and attach it to the configuration disc in my cane..."

He did not finish the sentence. But Yelena understood.

The Axis Core was the heart of the facility. Remove it, and every pocket dimension would collapse inward, the entire structure imploding into a single point of infinite density.

It was a doomsday weapon. A final option. A suicide switch.

They reached the entrance to the Axis moments later. And unlike the rest of the Convergence, the corridor leading to it was completely silent. There were no alarms or flashing lights.

A single circular door stood at the end of the hall, seamless and metallic, its surface reflecting distorted images of anyone who approached.

Yelena frowned. "That’s it?"

"That’s it," Hale replied.

He stepped forward, placing his palm against a recessed panel beside the door, and the surface lit up instantly.

BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION INITIATED

Thin lines of blue light crawled across his hand, mapping every ridge, scar, and fingerprint in microscopic detail.

A second later:

PALM PRINT VERIFIED

The panel shifted, and a narrow needle extended from the side pricking his fingertip before he could even react.

Yelena raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

A tiny droplet of blood disappeared into the scanner.

DNA CONFIRMED

The next panel opened higher up, and a beam of white light swept across Hale’s face.

It passed over one eye, then the other, lingering for several seconds as millions of microscopic details were recorded.

RETINAL PATTERN VERIFIED

A soft chime echoed through the corridor, but the door remained shut.

"Of course there’s more," Yelena muttered.

"Indeed," Hale said.

Then a small speaker emerged from the wall.

"VOICE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED."

Hale folded his hands behind his back. "Director Daniel Hale. Clearance Level Sun. Authorization request for Axis access."

The corridor fell silent.

Then:

"VOICEPRINT VERIFIED."

Another compartment opened. This one revealed a small holographic keyboard, and Hale immediately began entering a password.

The symbols weren’t letters. They were shifting archaic patterns that changed position every few seconds. Even standing directly beside him, Yelena couldn’t have memorized them if she tried.

When he finished, the keyboard vanished.

"PASSWORD ACCEPTED."

A heavy mechanical sound echoed somewhere deep behind the walls, and the locks disengaged. One. Two. Three. Then several dozen more.

Yelena’s eyes narrowed. "This is a bit overkill, no?"

Hale didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his coat and produced a black access card.

Unlike every other Institute credential she’d ever seen, this one had no markings whatsoever. No name. No rank. Nothing. Just a featureless black rectangle.

The final scanner emerged from the center of the door and Hale inserted the card.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the entire corridor trembled. Finally, a deep voice resonated through hidden speakers.

"FINAL AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED."

"WELCOME, DIRECTOR HALE."

The black card dissolved into particles of light, and the remaining locking mechanisms disengaged behind the walls.

The circular door split apart along invisible seams and slowly began to open.

Beyond it, darkness stretched into the distance as cold air spilled from within.

Yelena stared into the opening.

All of that.

For one door.

Hale stepped forward without hesitation. "The Axis," he said quietly, and together, they entered.

"Over there." Hale pointed at the Reality Engine. It was massive, and at its side, a doorway was built into it, which led to its center— where the Core lay.

He scanned his prints again, opening up the door, and they stepped through.

At its center, suspended in a null-gravity well, rotated the Core itself: a sphere of compressed dark matter, surrounded by orbiting rings of stabilized energy that regulated its output.

Hale approached a terminal and his fingers tapped across holographic interfaces. Suddenly, alarms began to blare within the Axis as warning lights bathed the chamber in strobing crimson.

"Get the Zero-Suits," he ordered. "Emergency locker, east wall."

Yelena moved without question, yanking open the locker and withdrawing the twelve suits of woven spatial-fiber and unstable molecules.

"Only twelve?" she asked, tossing one to Hale, and began pulling on the other, her eyes never leaving the Core as its rotation began to slow.

"What can I say?" Daniel began putting his on as well. "I designed the contingency for the Directors alone."

Yelena rolled her eyes. "Being narcissist must come with gig."

***

Michael pointed the greatsword at Ethan. Along its length ran an inscription written in a language Ethan had never seen before. Yet, somehow, he understood every word.

What is believed can be broken. What is broken cannot be believed.

Michael held the blade in a two-handed grip that spoke to years of training. "Bastion," he said quietly. "It supposedly manifests belief into physical form."

His eyes found Ethan’s, and for a brief moment, there was something almost sad in them.

"Faith Breaker here does the opposite." He looked at his Spirit Weapon. "It destroys belief itself."

"Oh yeah?" Raj launched himself skyward, clasping both fists overhead. "Well, my fists destroys evil Apostle dudes!" He brought it down with a roar.

Michael turned Faith Breaker horizontally, catching Raj’s descending fists against the broadside of the blade.

The impact blew up the floor beneath them, and a crater spread outward as dust and debris erupted into the air.

Raj grinned through the cloud of dust. "Got—"

A hand emerged from the smoke and wrapped around his face.

Michael stood at the center of the crater, unmoved. One hand held Raj effortlessly at arm’s length, while the other gripped Faith Breaker.

The script running along the greatsword ignited crimson as red light traveled from the blade, through Michael’s arm, and into his body.

Then he threw Raj, turning him into a human projectile hurtling toward Ethan with no control.

"Incoming!" Raj yelled just before Ethan caught him with one hand and skidded backward several feet to a stop.

Raj groaned. "What the hell?" he muttered, rubbing his face. "That felt... weird."

Ethan’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

Raj shook himself once and grinned. "Let’s try that again. Move two?" He glanced upward.

They hadn’t trained it perfectly yet— two people instead of five changed the difficulty. But Ethan nodded.

A translucent platform formed beneath Raj’s feet, lifting him into the air. At the same time, Ethan sprinted forward.

Michael planted Faith Breaker into the fractured ground and set one foot back, taking a fighting stance. He was willing to face Ethan barehanded.

Ethan reached him, immediately throwing a sharp right cross, and Michael tilted his head just enough for the punch to whistle past his ear.

Ethan quickly followed with a left elbow, but Michael caught it at the forearm. However, Ethan smoothly chained another move with the previous one as he drove a knee toward his ribs.

Yet again with another counter, Michael’s palm met his thigh and pushed him off-angle, creating enough space in his guard to step into.

Ethan didn’t bother reacting, a small forcefield automatically manifested between them. He tried to capitalize by pivoting around the barrier and delivering a back-hand strike to his face.

But Michael pushed through the shield with a shoulder check that sent cracks spiderwebbing across the construct before it collapsed, forcing Ethan to retreat a few steps back.

He exhaled and dashed forward again, launching straight into a rapid combination of three quick jabs, a feint, and a powerful spinning backfist.

Michael avoided the jabs by taking measured steps backwards. He refused to take the bait of the feint, and slipped the backfist by stepping back half a pace again.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he summoned a shield behind Michael, hoping to limit his movement and cut off his backward retreat.

Instead, Michael glanced at it once, then stepped backward onto it deliberately, before pushing himself off of the construct, shattering it beneath his heel like glass.

Their eyes met as he rocketed towards Ethan. Then he spun, delivering a sidekick into Ethan’s shielded crossarm-guard with devastating force, launching him backward through the air.

Ethan twisted mid-flight, hand shooting downward, and blue light flared brightly as massive spikes erupted from the ground beneath Michael.

At the same moment, Raj dropped from above. His feet had expanded to the size of a building, wrapped in a translucent blue field.

"Suck on this!" His kick came down like a falling meteor.

Michael glanced upward, just long enough to see Raj’s colossal foot stomping down as it collided with the earth.

The impact unleashed a shockwave so violent it flattened nearby structures and drew the attention of anyone conscious.

Across the battlefield, Sebastian paused mid-exchange with Okoye’s guard. Babydoll, seated casually atop a corpse, rested her chin on both hands, watching with interest.

Protective barriers also bloomed around the surviving Directors and guards.

Okoye, still bleeding on the ground, disappeared behind a dome, and the shockwave passed harmlessly around them.

When the dust settled, at the center of the gigantic crater stood Michael. Faith Breaker rested in his hand as its script burned crimson.

Michael looked at Ethan. Then at Raj. "You believed that was going to work, didn’t you?" His voice remained calm. "The same way you believe you’ll see when you open your eyes."

He took a step forward. "The same way you believe your hand will feel heat when it touches fire."

Raj cracked his knuckles again. "Okay! Big sword. Weird glowing letters. Still punchable." He paused as the grin on his face faltered.

"Wait." His brow furrowed. "Why am I suddenly not sure about that?"

The scripts on Michael’s blade glowed red again, and stored up energy began to flow into his body as every bruise or scratch he received since the fight started faded.

Ethan felt it immediately. Michael’s Spirit Weapon wasn’t just destroying belief, it was draining whatever confidence or faith they had in their abilities and converting it into his own power.

"Can you see it now?" Michael sounded disappointed as he stepped out of the massive crater. "The stronger your faith in your ability, well..."

Ethan finally understood. Faith Breaker existed to devour certainty. And certainty was what Bastion was all about.

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