Lyra’s body had been laid to rest peacefully atop a clean pile of rubble in a corner of the wrecked maglev train. Before leaving the site, Davin gazed at his comrade’s face for the very last time. No tears remained; what lingered inside Davin’s chest was now a cold, burning ember of wrath—a pure fury ready to tear down the entire corporate empire of Veridian Industries.

In his right hand, the data chip given by Lyra was gripped tightly, merging with The Ledger's hourglass symbol on the back of his hand, which now glowed with a sharp blue-red light.

Davin rose to his feet. Without hesitation, he walked alone through the city’s defense barricades toward the main reactor heart of the Neo-Veridia megacity.

That journey was an exhibition of merciless retribution.

The special Enforcers units and corporate combat drones deployed to intercept him along the path shattered into pieces not through brutal firefights, but because Davin utilized the Echo ability to rewind the structural integrity history of their armor and weapons to zero with a single touch. Every step he advanced toward the megacity's central tower left a trail of total chaos for the corporate security system.

He successfully breached the Aegis Core underground reactor’s primary control room—a vast chamber walled in black steel and filled with giant-sized plasma cooling tubes.

In the center of the room, the core AI terminal glowed brightly, projecting the tyrannical holographic face resembling Dr. Arthur Ronan.

"System error. Subject anomaly Davin Ronan detected approaching the core zone. Activating lethal execution protocol..." the AI’s cold voice thundered loudly across the room.

"Execution?" Davin muttered coldly, stepping forward unflinchingly. "You don't even know the meaning of life, how can you speak of death?"

Davin approached the primary terminal slot, then swiftly inserted Lyra’s data chip straight into the Aegis Core system core. Simultaneously, he pressed his right palm bearing the hourglass symbol against the main panel, fusing Lyra’s hacking code with the absolute power of The Ledger.

"Core data synchronization detected... Initializing total override command... Launching cosmic-tier [System Overload] command!" the mechanical voice of The Ledger rumbled loudly inside his head.

Instantly, a wave of golden-blue energy exploded from Davin’s palm, racing swiftly through the optical cables and spreading across the entire Neo-Veridia megacity network.

What followed thereafter was a visual spectacle of digital destruction both magnificent and terrifying.

Across every corner of the megacity, thousands of giant holographic billboards that had previously blazed bright with the corporation’s false luxury suddenly flickered wildly. Those screens displayed blood-red glitch code lines before finally exploding into pieces, becoming pixel light particles scattered by the night wind.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The neon lights on every skyscraper went dark in unison. The city that never slept instantly plunged into total darkness.

Inside the reactor control room, the Aegis Core holographic face projection began to flicker with errors. The AI’s mechanical voice morphed into a deafening digital static screech as its core memory was wiped clean by the System Overload command.

"No... impossible... I am the architect of the future... I cannot... be del..."

Crack... Zzzt!

The face projection shattered into pieces, disintegrating into millions of floating data shards before finally extinguishing permanently. The reactor plasma tubes abruptly ceased humming, and all corporate security facilities of Veridian Industries paralyzed completely in an instant.

Political chaos struck the corporate elites across the city who suddenly lost absolute control over their assets and citizens.

Davin stood alone amidst the now dead-silent control room, his breathing slightly ragged after expending all his energy. The mission was complete. The Aegis Core tyranny had collapsed.

Yet, right as the core AI was totally destroyed, the previously dark terminal main screen abruptly reignited with a faint beam of white light.

A secret password message opened automatically on screen, displaying text sent directly by The Ledger system without intermediaries:

[ HOST INTEGRITY WARNING ] SECOND FRAGMENT ABSORPTION PROCESS COMPLETED. DIMENSIONAL TRANSCENDENCE TAX: 30% PERMANENT MEMORY WIPED. NEXT DIMENSIONAL COORDINATES UNLOCKED: SECTOR [ ETHERIA-PRIME ]. PREPARE FOR THE THIRD LEAP.

Davin stunned momentarily, staring at the screen. He felt a sharp wave of dizziness strike his head once more—vital portions of his memories concerning the past before he died in his original lab grew increasingly thin, swept clean to leave behind a cold, barren void.

Before he could react, the floor beneath his feet began to glow brightly, and a dimensional gravity vortex opened a new cosmic gateway right before him.