The air across the summit altar platform grew razor-thin, suffocated by an unyielding wave of cosmic gravitational pressure. The mastermind’s grip around Zulfa’s throat felt like a bar of searing-hot iron, instantly severing his oxygen supply and plunging his vision into a darkening shroud at the edge of consciousness.

At the platform’s rim, Naya dragged herself up with agonizing effort, tears mixed with blood and sweat streaming down her cheeks. "Zulfa...! No... please, don't give up!" she shrieked hysterically, striving to reach the youth even as the altar’s residual energy waves hurled her back down.

Across the altar, Captain Danu slowly clawed his way back from unconsciousness, groaning in agony while clutching his bleeding head. Spotting Zulfa dangling helplessly in mid-air, the veteran widened his eyes, struggling to stagger to his feet to render aid despite his thoroughly exhausted frame.

Amidst the lethal grip choking the life out of him, Zulfa's consciousness drifted past the boundaries of time. Within the receding darkness of his mind, fragments of memory spun at breakneck speed like a fast-forwarded film reel: Naya’s warm smile back at the hideout, Captain Danu’s authoritative gaze leading guerrilla warfare on the streets, his late father's parting words in the void of the dimensional chamber, and his sacred vow to rebuild the city upon an honest foundation.

“We have to make sure this city stands on honest foundations, not lies, Zul...” Naya’s voice echoed deep within his core.

“Stop the mastermind at the highest tower, Engineer. That’s my final order...” Captain Danu’s echoing voice surged to reinforce his willpower.

Zulfa jolted inwardly. Not yet... I can't close my eyes here. There are still too many promises I have to keep!

In the real world, Zulfa’s eyes—nearly sealed shut just moments prior—snapped wide open.

His gaze flared with a brilliant, blazing blue luminescence, scorching away every shred of despair into the pure fury and unyielding iron will of a true engineer.

The mastermind, locked in deep concentration to siphon the final remnants of Zulfa's consciousness through his right palm, jolted in shock at the drastic shift in the youth's glare.

"What...? How on earth do you still have the scrap of consciousness to fight back?!" the mastermind snarled in shock, tightening his chokehold on Zulfa's neck until a creaking sound rang out. "Surrender! You are merely dust before my divinity!"

"I am not dust... I am an engineer..." Zulfa rasped out, his voice choked yet laden with heavy emphasis amid the lethal squeeze. "...and I know precisely where the weakness lies in your manufactured machine!"

With the final ounce of strength summoned from the deepest recesses of his soul, Zulfa’s free left hand moved with lightning speed. He didn't strike with a weapon or a conventional punch. His fingers whipped toward a specialized Aether-Tech mechanical ring looping his left ring finger—a maximum-voltage emergency shock module engineered specifically as his ultimate failsafe.

Bzzzt—Click!

Zulfa snapped the emergency override switch on the mechanical ring. In a fraction of a second, the band spat out a blinding, high-density blue electric surge.

Without a shred of hesitation, with a piercing thrust executed with absolute precision, Zulfa drove his left hand—crackling with the emergency shock module—straight into the center of the mastermind's chest core, right where his remaining biological heart and cosmic crystal core fused.

BARRR-GH!

A detonation of pure energy erupted violently from within the mastermind's chest that very instant.

"ARGHHHHH—!"

For the first time, a roar of fury laced with excruciating agony tore from the mastermind's lips. The semi-divine entity was hurled backward by the pure electromagnetic shock blast, shattering every cosmic frequency synchronization wired inside his body.

"No... impossible! My system... my divinity... Why is it destabilizing?!" the mastermind screamed hysterically, clutching his own chest with both hands as the purple glow encrusting his frame fractured and splintered apart.

That fatal instability triggered a terrifying chain reaction. Every bio-electric energy tube ringing the altar detonated in succession, and the satellite relay disc hovering above the mastermind's head spun wildly, spitting electrical sparks that scorched the air.

Rizzzt...

KABOOOOM!

An explosion of brilliant blue and white light detonated across the summit altar platform, sweeping the altar clean of every residual magical particle and dark shadow in a heartbeat.

Zulfa pitched backward onto the altar stone floor, hacking violently as he clutched his bruised throat, while Naya and Captain Danu raced over immediately to steady the youth.

"Zul! You did it! You pushed them back!" Naya cried out in a mix of joy and weeping sobs, throwing her arms tightly around Zulfa's limp frame.

Zulfa smiled weakly, regulating his ragged breath as he gazed toward the center of the altar.

There, the supreme mastermind—whose powers had utterly collapsed—knelt upon the scorched altar stone. His luminous divine form had vanished, leaving behind a frail, helpless mortal shell.

Yet before they could celebrate their victory, the cosmic dimensional rift previously torn open by the mastermind abruptly reversed its pull. A massively powerful negative gravitational vortex sucked inward toward the altar core, dragging everything in its radius.

The mastermind shrieked hysterically as his body was dragged inch-by-inch into the vortex. "If I must perish, then this city... then all of you shall burn with me!"

With one final, heart-wrenching roar, the mastermind collapsed entirely into his own closing dimensional rift, vanishing from the face of the earth forever.

Silence descended over the altar platform for a breathless beat.

Yet that peace lasted mere seconds. The moment the dimensional rift in the sky sealed completely, the primary purple light pillar that had pierced the earth's ionosphere had already triggered irreversible structural damage deep within the tower's reactor core.

Kr-r-ack... BOOM!

The entire structural framework of the corporation's highest tower shuddered violently. Deafening emergency alarms wailed from every floor, while concrete walls began to fracture and crack.

Zulfa, Naya, and Captain Danu widened their eyes in horror as they grasped the bitter reality: the primary light pillar overhead had already triggered the countdown to a total tower collapse, leaving them trapped atop a summit apex preparing to crumble into an ocean of debris in a matter of minutes.