The blue marble of Earth spun quietly below the Stratos Forge, its atmosphere a thin, shimmering veil hiding billions of lives.
Vekom stood on the bridge, arms crossed behind his back, as thousands of automated drones swarmed around the forge, constructing newer weapon arrays. His clone engineers were perfecting the next phase of deployment: kinetic orbital strikes.
No explosives. No fuel.
Just solid tungsten rods, dropped from orbit.
"Rods from God," they used to call it.
Now Vekom owned the sky.
In the South China Sea, tensions had been rising between Taiwan and the mainland. Naval vessels crowded the straits. War was close. But it needed a spark.
That spark came in the form of a Taiwanese surveillance ship that exploded overnight. The world blamed China.
China blamed rebels.
Vekom knew the truth: a clone had done it.
With war on the brink, Vekom made his move.
He sent a message to both governments through separate channels. Each thought he was an insider from the other side, offering exclusive arms packages: anti-air systems, stealth drones, cyber weapons.
Each deal worth billions. Each delivery encrypted and untraceable.
Both sides bit.
Taiwan, desperate to defend. Beijing, determined to crush.
And Vekom played both like puppets.
In Myanmar, the military junta was collapsing under civil resistance. Vekom offered them AI-operated gunships. In return, they gave him access to rare earth mines.
In North Korea, a rogue general reached out. He wanted a private army.
Vekom didn't give him one.
He sold him three.
Clones trained in guerrilla warfare, untraceable by satellites, programmed with real war memories from every modern battlefield.
By the time Pyongyang realized, the general had already seized a nuclear silo.
Meanwhile, the world's intelligence agencies were running simulations day and night, trying to find the pattern. Who was selling these weapons? Who was orchestrating coups, manipulating wars, whispering into generals' ears?
The CIA called him "Phantom Zero."
Mossad called him "Shaitan."
MI6 called him "The Architect."
None of them were wrong.
Vekom reviewed a new system prompt:
System Opportunity Detected: Collapse of NATO Eastern Command
Suggested Action: False-flag bioterror event. Frame local separatists. Profit: $5.6B.
He approved it.
Within minutes, a clone in Poland launched a custom-designed drone carrying a synthetic pathogen. The target: a NATO forward operating base. Hundreds fell ill. Panic ensued. Borders closed. Governments accused each other.
Vekom sent offers for medical drones, gene-editing nanobots, and mobile quarantine systems.
Even chaos was a commodity now.
By nightfall, the world was holding emergency summits.
But Vekom wasn't listening.
He was in the cloning chamber.
A new batch was growing.
These wouldn't just be soldiers.
They would be leaders.
Mayors. Ambassadors. Military attachés. News anchors.
Every face familiar. Every voice trusted. Every word calculated.
He wasn't just shaping wars anymore.
He was shaping reality.
Far below, children in warzones played with toy guns made in secret factories Vekom owned.
Their parents died in conflicts he orchestrated.
Their governments rose and fell on his whim.
And still, the world had no name for him.
But one day, they would.
Because Vekom wasn't building an empire.
He was building a new order.
One war at a time.