While Kane lay in a coma-like sleep in the High Sanctum of the new Citadel, Earth was burning with a different kind of fire.
In the ruins of Philadelphia, Mia—the first "Void-Witch"—was standing on top of a rusted bus. Around her, a crowd of a thousand survivors watched with wide, terrified eyes. These weren't the "Ranked" elite of the Consortium. These were the dregs, the ones who had been left to starve when the System took the world's resources.
"You feel it, don't you?" Mia shouted, her silver-veined arms raised to the grey sky. "The Ranks are flickering! The 'Order' is lying to you! They say you are Tier-0! They say you are worthless!"
She pointed to a Consortium Enforcer-Droid hovering nearby. The machine raised its laser-cannon, its red eye pulsing.
[PROHIBITED SPEECH DETECTED. RANK-LEVEL INSUFFICIENT. TERMINATING.]
Mia didn't dodge. She didn't use a shield. She simply opened her mouth.
A vortex of black mist erupted from her throat. It didn't destroy the droid; it unmade it. The metal turned to dust, and the blue mana-core of the machine flew into Mia's hand. She crushed it, and the energy flowed into her skin, making her glow with a sickly, beautiful silver light.
"The man in the sky sent us a gift!" Mia cried, her voice echoing through the ruins. "He broke the jar! He says we don't have to pray to the Gods for a Level anymore! We can just... take them!"
The crowd let out a roar—not of joy, but of a long-suppressed, predatory hunger.
"Is this what he wanted, Doc?" Vance asked, watching the scene from the shadows of a nearby alley. He was wearing a heavy cloak to hide his golden-iron skin, but his size was impossible to mask.
Doc leaned against a crumbling wall, her fingers playing with a small vial of emerald spores. "Kane didn't want an army of saints, Vance. He wanted an army that could survive the Reapers. If that means turning Earth into a planet of monsters... then that's the price of sovereignty."
"They're tearing each other apart," Vance noted, pointing to a group of men who were currently "eating" the mana-threads of a dead Consortium Paladin. "If they don't get a leader soon, there won't be an Earth left to save."
"That's why we're here," Doc said, her eyes turning cold. "Mia is the spark. But we're the ones who have to build the furnace. We need to find the others—the 'Glitches' who haven't lost their minds yet."
Suddenly, the sky above them rippled. The grey clouds parted, and a massive holographic projection of Kane's face appeared, visible from every corner of the globe. It wasn't the Kane they knew. This face was cold, ancient, and wreathed in violet fire.
[THE HARVEST IS OVER. THE SOVEREIGNTY IS DECLARED.] [ALL CONSORTIUM ASSETS ARE TO BE DISMANTLED.] [CLAIM YOUR HUNGER. OR BE CONSUMED BY IT.]
"The Sarge is awake," Vance whispered, a chill running down his spine. "And he sounds... different."