The minigun on Lyra's right arm spun wildly. Its barrel glowed red, releasing thick smoke. Her final rounds ripped through the bodies of Ya'juj and Ma'juj, splitting and burning them apart.
They kept coming—clawed hands, gaping jaws, leaping from ruin to ruin. But Lyra spun swiftly, planting her mechanical feet into the ground and firing relentless bursts that tore their ranks into a rain of flesh.
Every pull of the trigger was a dance between life and death. She rolled, leaped onto piles of corpses, fired while kicking away two creatures that lunged at her. Her movements were no longer mere AI routines, but human instinct still breathing within her. Fabrizio had not only built a machine—he had forged a soul that refused to be broken.
Inside the helicopter slowly lifting off from the blood-soaked ground, Kaivan supported the violently trembling Fabrizio. Fabrizio's eyes were nearly closed, yet he kept looking down with quiet guilt. Dried blood stained his temple, and his breathing was ragged.
Levan stood by the open door, his body swaying with the engine's vibrations. Rotor winds slapped against his face as he stretched out his hand.
"Hurry! Don't waste time!" he shouted.
Kaivan gripped the edge of the door and looked back at Lyra, still surrounded.
Her mechanical body was cracked and scorched. Exposed cables dripped coolant that froze instantly in the air. Electricity sparked from her shoulder, yet she remained standing. Her emerald eyes shone sharply—her resolve stronger than steel.
Kaivan's heart tightened around a feeling he could not explain. It was not just fear, not just sorrow. Something clawed at his chest, cutting softly yet deeply.
Amid the roar of the rotors and the final screams of the Ya'juj and Ma'juj, Kaivan whispered—his voice nearly drowned by the night storm.
"How can Lyra control that robot from so far away?"
Levan stood inside the helicopter, struggling to keep his balance while holding up Fabrizio's collapsing body. His jaw tightened. For a moment, he was silent—then his voice came out low and heavy, striking like a war hammer.
"She isn't controlling it remotely. Lyra… transferred her consciousness into that body. Fabrizio built it specifically for her. But she knew the risk. She planned to blow herself up with that robot… once we were safe."
Those words split Kaivan apart like a blade of ice. The world fell silent in an instant, leaving only the pounding of his heart.
Fragments of memory burst forth—Lyra's gentle, awkward digital voice:
"I'm so jealous of living beings… I want to try your cooking someday."
"Hey, Kaivan, what are you doing today?"
"It sounds fun to visit your country."
"If I had a body, I'd want to see the world with my own eyes."
Back then, those words had meant nothing more than passing wind. Now, each sentence struck like a meteor shower. Kaivan clenched his lower lip, tears pooling in his eyes.
"She just got a body… and now she has to die with it?!"
Without thinking, Kaivan threw the Tome of Omnicent into the helicopter and jumped.
"KAIVAN!! THIS KID ALWAYS—!" Levan shouted, his hand reaching too late.
Kaivan's body sliced through the freezing air. His jacket flapped wildly, the wind screaming in his ears. The world slowed—five seconds, four, three, two—then he crashed into a pile of snow mixed with blood and ice. He rolled, slammed into metal debris. Pain surged through him, yet he forced himself up.
His teeth clenched, his hands shaking. Kaivan planted his feet into the snow and forced his body to stand.
Before him, the massive minigun spun red, nearly melting from heat. Its final bullets poured into the Ya'juj and Ma'juj still crawling out of the darkness—scaled bodies, split jaws, blazing red eyes. They leaped like starving wolves.
Lyra forced her body to move. Her control systems wavered, her power nearly gone. Yet she remained standing, guarding the last line between life and destruction. Every burst from the minigun ignited flames that pierced the fog, lighting up the rain of blood and spinning fragments of flesh.
Then, suddenly, from within the mist, appeared a figure who should not have been there.
Small against the vast battlefield, yet challenging the very existence of hell itself.
Kaivan.
His combat suit was torn, soaked with blood and dust. His face was covered in wounds, his hair wild and partly burned. But his eyes—his eyes burned with an overwhelming resolve, like a tiny flame that refused to go out in the storm.
He ran.
His feet struck ruins and frozen ground with strength impossible for such a slender body. He broke through small fires, brushed aside debris and embers, even stepped over the bodies of fallen creatures that still groaned.
"Lyraaaa!!!"
His scream shook the sky, tearing through wind, snow, and the sound of death.
Inside Lyra's system, her audio sensors trembled. That voice—the one variable she had never included in her death algorithm. That voice was an anomaly. A disruption. And yet, for some reason, she could not ignore it.
"Why?! What are you doing, Kaivan?!"