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Manchester, 1866. Two years after the Rayleigh Castle incident, the world is still catching its breath. The O’Hara Foundation has been dismantled, but the scars of the Steam Wars remain. Young Ray Steam, now 17, works as a junior engineer for the International Steam Safety Commission (ISSC). He no longer dreams of glory. He dreams of stopping it.
One month later. Ray stands before the International Steam Tribunal, holding the ten inert Cores. He doesn’t destroy them. Instead, he proposes the “Manchester Accords”—a global treaty to seal the Nether-Steam gate forever and use the Cores only for regulated, peaceful energy, monitored by all nations.
Scarlett kisses him on the cheek. “You really think they’ll agree?”
He tosses the Core into a lead-lined safe, locks it, and climbs into the Steamhawk —not as a boy running from the past, but as a man flying toward the future.
Ray looks at the device. “And freeze half the world in the process? You’d become a god of winter, Father. That’s not peace. That’s tyranny.”