The project was called "The Aerie."
It was to be her capital. A sovereign nation, built on an uninhabited, storm-wracked archipelago in the South Pacific that she had acquired through a bewildering series of shell companies and "charitable" trusts.
She stood on the main island, the wind whipping her hair. It was a barren place of volcanic rock and crashing waves. A blank slate.
She had shipped in thousands of tons of raw materials: the metals from her burns, the ceramics from her lab, the components for a power grid and a desalination plant.
Now, it was time to build.
She closed her eyes, reaching for the Ember Core within her. She didn't summon fire to destroy. She summoned it to create. She visualized the foundation of the central citadel, a structure fused from the very rock of the island, impervious to storm and siege.
She opened her eyes and extended her hands. A wave of pure, controlled thermal energy, hotter than any conventional furnace, washed over the designated area. The rock didn't melt; it flowed, merging with the embedded metals and ceramics, rising from the ground in a seamless, obsidian-like structure. Towers began to form, spiraling towards the sky, their lines clean and severe.
It was not architecture; it was organogenesis. A city being born from will and fire.
The system hummed, not with the satisfaction of destruction, but with the thrill of genesis.
[Phoenix Forge activated. Structure Stability: 98%. Energy Consumption: High.]
As the first tower solidified against the turbulent sky, Mo Chen felt a sense of purpose she had never known. This was not a hiding place. This was a declaration.
The world had its nations, its empires, its shadows. And now, it would have The Aerie.
And its Queen.