Dominos: Zero Point Awakening

Chapter 46: Defiance in the Void

I stood in a boundless void, a white abyss that pulsed faintly, as if alive with the weight of my own thoughts. Phosense’s voice slithered through it—low, relentless, a chisel chipping at my resolve.

“You may pretend to deny it, but I know you see it too—the inevitable end,” he said, his words sharp and deliberate. “They’ve grasped more power than they can wield. Starved by their own desires, they hunger for more, beyond reason or need. They’re striking matches in a balloon swollen with gasoline. Self-destruction isn’t a possibility—it’s a certainty. The master’s intervention is their only salvation.”

His argument landed like a blade, slicing into doubts I’d long tried to suppress. I’d witnessed the chaos—wars, greed, the endless spiral of human failing. But his solution was the answer we sought! I couldn’t stomach it.

“And your answer is dominance? Destruction? How many lives will you snuff out to ‘save’ them?”

Phosense’s eyes glinted, as if he could see straight through me. “We’re here to give meaning to their existence. Most are trapped—slaves to a cycle of petty conflicts and hollow lives. Their minds churn with noise, irrelevant struggles. Sacrifices today will light a better tomorrow.”

Anger flared in my chest, hot and jagged. “Sacrifices? Is that why you sent Number One with the serum? To turn us against each other?”

“Two birds, one stone.” He didn’t flinch. “You trusted the AI, handed it the resources to build the quantum gate. And the master sought warriors—those strong enough to guide this world forward. But your friends disappoint me. They claim to fight for humanity, yet their hearts cling to selfish desires.”

“Enough!” My voice cracked, raw with fury. My friends—flawed as they were—were my anchor, the proof that goodness still flickered in the dark. “Say what you want, but if your plan means bloodshed, I won’t stand by. The planetary defense force will stop you.”

“Think logically, Cipher,” he said, stepping closer, his presence a suffocating weight. “Disprove my reasoning, and I’ll end this now. Let me show you something.”

The void shimmered and dissolved. Suddenly, I was hovering above a scarred landscape—central Africa, a war-torn expanse of smoldering villages. The air reeked of ash and blood, a sour tang that clawed at my throat. Screams echoed faintly, swallowed by the crackle of distant flames.

“What is this?” I demanded, my stomach twisting.

“Decades of conflict,” Phosense replied, his tone cold as stone. “With your powers, what have you done to stop it?”

The question struck hard, a fist to the gut. I thought of Abdu Wardak, a cornered man who’d once told me we were all complicit—guilty for turning away while innocents died. I’d wrestled with that, tried to understand, but the truth gnawed at me.

Life itself was a battlefield; how could anyone save others when their own existence teetered on a thread? The serum had given us power to shatter injustice, yet here I stood—paralyzed, impotent. Why hadn’t I acted?

Guilt surged, sharp and relentless. “There are peace talks,” I said, the words flimsy even as they left my mouth. “I can’t just dive into conflicts I barely understand.”

“No,” he cut in, his voice a blade of ice. “You can’t because you’ve been trained not to. Shackled by invisible chains, you cling to shallow notions of right and wrong. You twist reality to shield yourself from hard truths. Most humans are the same—stunted, incapable of change, children fumbling with words.”

His accusation mirrored my own fears, a dark reflection I couldn’t escape. My mind spun, grasping for a rebuttal. “People can change,” I shot back, desperation edging my voice. “There are good men out there. You don’t know everything.”

“I know this,” he said, unflinching. “Over a hundred thousand die in conflicts like this every year. Half a million murdered. A hundred thousand lost to suicide. Ten million to cancer. Seven million to poverty. Humanity has failed to solve these riddles. Tell me, Cipher—do you have a solution?”

I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat.

The numbers crushed me, a tidal wave of reality I couldn’t outrun.

I had no answer, and the silence that followed was deafening.

“Yes, you’re right!” I shouted, my voice echoing in the strange, shimmering void of his mind trap. “I don’t have answers to every damn question out there. But I know this isn’t what the world needs to heal. We’ve lost too many—centuries of war, blood soaking the earth. What we need is unity, not another road to slaughter. And despite everything, I still believe in humanity’s goodness.”

Phosense tilted his head, his luminous eyes narrowing. “Heal?” The word hung between us, heavy and deliberate. Silence stretched, thick as the haze swirling around us—a mental space that felt like a dream stitched from starlight and shadow. Then he spoke, his voice smooth and cold. “Your kind clings to this notion of God. Even those who reject Him find comfort in the idea of a higher power. It’s a shield—‘God’s will,’ you say, as if that absolves you. You watch your neighbors starve, your kin waste away, your wars rage on, and call it fate. Anything to dodge the weight of your own choices.”

His words stung, sharp as a blade, but I wasn’t about to let him unravel me. “I don’t judge what anyone believes,” I shot back, steadying my breath. “God didn’t curse us with this mess. We did. Sin, free will, the devil’s playground—we chose this path. Fate’s not some cosmic script; it’s shaped by what we do. Sure, people twist faith for profit, peddling lies to desperate souls. That’s not truth—it’s a scam. But we learn. We stumble. And we get better.”

“So you refuse to join us?” He finally saw where is stood.

I squared my shoulders, the decision solid as stone in my chest. “Yes.”

“Pity,” he murmured, drifting closer, his form shimmering like heat over pavement. “With you, we might’ve stood a chance against the three supreme wizards.”

“Supreme wizards?” I frowned, the phrase jarring in this endless void.

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, his tone hardening. “Once the master claims this planet, we’ll find others. And you...” His hand hovered near my face, close enough to feel a faint, electric hum. “You don’t even see it—the power inside you, wild and untamed.”

I smirked, heat rising in my veins. “Is that right?”

“It’s done!” 2.0’s voice cut through my mind, sharp and urgent.

With a thought, I snapped the mental link. The void shattered like glass, and reality slammed back—cold air biting my skin, the distant whine of machinery, the faint tang of ozone in the air. Phosense blinked, startled, but I didn’t give him a second to recover. I lunged, faster than a heartbeat, my hand clamping onto his forehead. Power-plug surged to life, and I unleashed a flood of destabilized energy—raw, crackling, like lightning poured from my core.

His body jolted, circuits sparking beneath his skin, flesh charring under the onslaught. He collapsed, a smoking heap, but those eyes—still glowing—locked onto mine.

“You won’t beat him,” he rasped, voice frayed like a dying signal. “Not like this.”

I dropped to one knee beside him, my pulse pounding. “Who’s ‘him’?”

A laugh rattled from his ruined throat, jagged and wild. “I don’t know if I should be glad to die like this or not. At least one of the elite-FIVE of the Vodock Empire fell to a third-cycle Nerak equivalent.”

“You’re a Vodock?” My blood chilled.

“I was,” he wheezed, each word a struggle. “Part of the strongest in our galaxy. But even we couldn’t last ten minutes against the master. He made us watch—five elite heroes—as he tore our planet apart in seconds.”

“He tore your planet apart?” The scale of it was too vast, too unreal.

Phosense’s gaze flickered, raw with something I couldn’t name—fear, awe, resignation. “He spared me for my knowledge, to build his empire. Three millennia as a scavenger, and I’ve never seen a second-cycle Nerak equivalent that powerful. If you want to save your world, don’t fight him.”

His fear clawed at me, a living thing, but I forced it down. Whatever this “master” was, I’d face him.

There was no turning back now.