They killed my father. They hunted my family. They tried to erase our legacy. Now we run. Igbayilola Oladapo remembers when his family was whole, when his father's laboratory hummed with discovery, when his sister's laughter filled their home, and when safety was not a foreign concept.

But everything changed the night they became fugitives. Under the orders of a ruthless Prime Admiral, the Oladapo family was branded national criminals, accused of stealing state property and murdering innocent civilians. His father's greatest creation became their greatest curse.

Now Igbayilola carries a secret that could save or destroy the world: the Edun Ara, an ancient Thunder Stone that pulses with the lost power of Sango himself.

With his family hunted across a poisoned continent, he must navigate a landscape where water is more precious than blood, where death-wrestling decides the fate of nations, and where the line between friend and enemy shifts like desert sand.

Danger lurks in every shadow, from the genetically enhanced Public Safety Humanoids that track their every move, to the ruthless mountain dwellers who worship the old gods, to the street lords who traffic humans like cargo in a slum called Nomercyland.

Yet the greatest danger may be Igbayilola himself, as a fatal disease eats away at his body and a mysterious power awakens within him, a power that whispers to him from the realm of the dead.

In a world where magic has been weaponized and history has been erased, one boy must decide: does he carry the weight of his ancestors' power, or does he let the world consume it whole? "As long as we breathe, we stand."