Cyrus Thorn opened his eyes, slow and deliberate.
They gleamed with a sharp intelligence, cold and calculating, reflecting a mind that had never stopped planning.
"So… it begins," he muttered under his breath, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
The world was going to change again—but not for the better.
The fragile balance that had barely formed over the past year was already beginning to crack.
More bloodshed awaited.
More pain, more suffering, more screams swallowed by ruined streets and empty skies.
Entire settlements would rise only to fall, and countless lives would be extinguished before they ever understood why.
Cyrus Thorn felt nothing.
The fate of the world did not concern him.
The living, the dead, the desperate struggles of survivors—none of it mattered.
Compared to the chain wrapped around his very existence, the apocalypse itself was little more than background noise.
A full year had passed.
