“Calculation error rate 0.0001% detected. Initiating system revalidation sequence. All stations, stand by.”

  Aris’s icy command instantly froze the frantic noise of the Oculus. While the Commander’s roar blared through the speakers—threatening to split eardrums—Aris had already severed

  the console's emergency power and slipped through the pressurized back door.

  Leaning against the cold, vibrating metal of the corridor, he gasped for air. That was when a long, jagged shadow stretched across his field of vision.

  It was Han Do-jun, the Environmental Variable Monitor and the monster-tier engineering genius from Korea. He stood there, hands buried in the pockets of his monochrome tech-wear, rhythmically chewing gum with a look of utter boredom.

  “Team Leader. I saw that crimson warning window too,” Do-jun said, his voice low and surgically precise.

  “The warping of the cosmic axis? That’s no simple sensor glitch. It’s a systemic rejection. The Pyramid is screaming in protest, vomiting out coordinates that violate the fundamental laws of the Higher Universe.”

  As if the empire’s vaunted ‘ironclad security’ were a mere playground, Do-jun had already synchronized a ‘Ghost Protocol’ to Aris’s personal terminal.

  “Do-jun, this is high treason. If you step further, there is no turning back. Go back now,” Aris hissed.

  “Treason?” Do-jun let out a dry, mirthless chuckle.

  “I just detest anything geometrically imperfect. I couldn’t care less about grand principles like ‘justice.’ But pressing a button with tainted data? That’s a personal insult to my computational logic. Let’s go to the Central Core Archive. That’s the origin point of this fraudulent triangle, isn’t it?”

  With a casual flick of his finger, the surveillance cameras lining the corridor ceiling simultaneously bowed their heads, their lenses going dark. The two stepped into the hidden lift, plunging toward the Pyramid's mechanical heart—the vault where the primordial blueprints of the Higher Universe were entombed.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  High above the Oculus, Commander Barcas stood at the sealed observation deck. The Pyramid’s blue phosphorescence bathed his medal-laden uniform in a ghostly light, grotesquely distorting his features. In his gloved hand, he gripped a golden staff engraved with a jagged, asymmetrical triangle.

  “The rats have scurried into the engine room. Aris... you have finally crossed the line,” Barcas murmured, tapping the floor with his staff. The vibration rippled through the command center like an ill omen.

  From the shifting shadows behind him, Security Chief Killian manifested in a shroud of silence. His eyes were void of human emotion—a relentless hound who had purged every ‘impurity’ from the empire of Tetra.

  “Director Aris and Han Do-jun,” Killian whispered, his voice like sliding steel.

  “Shall I execute them immediately, Commander?”

  “No, Killian. Let them open the vault themselves. To fully overwrite the Higher Universe’s energy with our own, we need Aris's biometric resonance. Let them be our key. The moment the door opens, rip out their hearts and place them upon the altar. Every path to divinity requires a sacrifice.”

  Without a word, Killian checked the edge of his tactical monomolecular cutter and dissolved back into the darkness.

  The lift came to a jarring halt at the edge of an endless vertical abyss. Below, through the transparent reinforced glass, the massive rotor of the Pyramid Engine emitted a lethal blue mist, its thrum pounding against Aris's eardrums like the heartbeat of a captive god. It was an architecture of a higher dimension, far beyond human comprehension.

  Aris’s hand trembled as he approached the neutron-shielded door, a slab of lead and myth several meters thick. Do-jun glanced at him, then danced his fingers across his terminal with lightning speed.

  “Team Leader, the seal breaks in ten seconds. But watch your back—a vicious hound’s scent is burning hot on our trail. Don't worry, though. I’ve prepared a little ‘gift’ for our guest.”

  As Do-jun tapped the final sequence, the massive door, sealed for millennia, groaned open. The solid silence of the abyss was shattered by a flood of brilliant, sapphire-white light from the Higher Universe—a radiance humanity was never meant to witness.

  But standing at the center of that celestial glow, like a stain on the sun, was Killian. The cold muzzle of his rail-pistol was aimed precisely between Aris’s eyes.

  “This is as far as you go, Team Leader,” Killian stated flatly. “That code belongs to the Commander now.”