He saw burning colonies, wreckage drifting through space, and people crying out as they died—whether Coordinator or Natural.
And that was exactly what he desired.
Not one side's victory, not one side's destruction, but the end of them all.
Let those who fancied themselves creations of God, those species steeped in hatred and arrogance, all return to nothingness.
He looked forward to it—to seeing those who proclaimed themselves righteous collapse before the truth, to watching this world march toward destruction within the lies he had so carefully woven.
From the night years ago when Al Da Flaga had regarded him as a "commodity" to be disposed of at will, this path had already been destined. He was merely returning that curse to this world, unchanged.
"Show me that you can transcend it, Xia Ya."
His voice echoed through the empty room, carrying an almost tender cruelty.
It was a father's expectation for his son, and a rival's provocation toward his nemesis.
The lingering taste of alcohol remained in his throat. He set down his wineglass and turned his gaze back to the screen.
That name rolled over his tongue, carrying emotions so complicated that even he could not put them into words.
He wanted to know what choice that "replacement," in whom Al Da Flaga had placed such high hopes—the one born through natural reproduction, the one who had inherited everything that should have been his—would make in the face of the coming storm.
The words that man had spoken at Mendel, the anger and sorrow burning in those eyes, and that stubborn, almost foolish persistence toward the future... all of it gave Rau Le Creuset a strange sense of pleasure.
Would he break? Would he curse his own birth in despair? Or would he use those bloodstained hands to