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

"They call me a copy," Ren whispered, his fingers dancing over the hilt of the kinetic blade. "But a copy can be refined."

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."

Across the digital expanse of the stadium, his opponent—the reigning Titan, Malakor—loomed like a mountain of chrome and malice. Malakor hadn't lost a match in three years. To the world, Ren was just a glitch in the system, a "dubbed" recording of a better era. The Turning Point