Ren adjusted his headset, the cool voice of his AI navigator, Echo , steadying his pulse. "Core integrity at 12%. Heat sinks failing. But the path is clear."
"They call me a copy," Ren whispered, his fingers dancing over the hilt of the kinetic blade. "But a copy can be refined."
The blade found the narrow seam in Malakor’s neck plating. Silence fell over the stadium, a vacuum of disbelief that lasted only a second before the scoreboard flickered, glitched, and finally stabilized. STATUS: CHAMPION
The crowd’s roar was a physical weight, vibrating through the floorboards of the arena. This was it: Chapter 12, the final stand. For Ren, known only by his pilot tag , the title of "Champion" was no longer a distant dream—it was a heartbeat away. The Final Approach