Back deeper inside the barrier dome, Captain Fergo's squad from the Essence Enforcement Division (EED) swept into tight formations. Most of them were only Tier 2 or 3 Essence users — Wielders and Specialists — but their equipment was designed for suppression, not destruction.
Reinforced containment rigs.
Binding talismans.
Suppression anchors.
They weren't there to kill.
They were there to stop Klein from slipping through their fingers again.
Klein — Tier 4, Phenomenon Class. A master of Spiritual Essence. Dangerous not because of brute strength, but because of what he could do to a soul.
He didn't just attack people.
He took them.
Slipped inside their minds like fog through cracks and left their bodies hollowed out, puppeted like meat shells with no idea they were already gone.
That was how he got caught, the first time.
It had taken the Bureau nearly a year to realize that an entire district hadn't just gone quiet — they'd been hijacked. Over 4,000 people still smiling, shopping, living their lives… all while Klein controlled every last one of them like a puppeteer pulling invisible strings.
When they finally cornered him, it was only thanks to a spike in spiritual residue — a rare signature picked up by one of the older Bureau watchers. Even then, it took six casualties and two high-tier Mental-Class operatives to sever the tether and drag him out.
That should've been the end of it.
They locked him away in Raven Nest.
And for eight years, that worked.
Until today.
"Klein!" Fergo's voice cracked through the barrier's air, magically amplified. "Stand down. Now."
A chuckle slithered out from the mist like smoke curling around your throat.
Then the attack came.
Klein's incorporeal form surged forward — a seething spiral of soul-mist brimming with malicious intent. He hit Fergo's containment ward head-on, silver arcs of Essence exploding on contact. Fergo's hands blurred with motion, inscribing mid-air glyphs as he poured energy into the barrier.
It held.
Barely.
But three anchoring runes cracked under the pressure.
The mist flared, then slipped sideways — Klein darting into a nearby guard like ink sinking into water.
The man stiffened. His eyes rolled back. And then—
"Host compromised!"
"Sever the tether — now!" Fergo barked.
Two Specialists leapt into action. A Mental-Class launched a psychic disruptor. A Construct-Class followed with a soul-splitter charm — a ripple of Essence that ripped Klein out mid-possession.
The guard collapsed. Still breathing.
But Klein wasn't slowing down.
"You've trained well," his voice echoed, from everywhere and nowhere at once, "but you can't stop a ghost with nets."
Fergo didn't respond.
He was focused on the barrier.
The dome flickered again — subtle, but undeniable. Another crack in the integrity. And that was bad.
The barrier had to stay sealed.
Because if it didn't, Klein wouldn't need to fight. He'd vanish.
Slip out into the civilian population like smoke.
Start again.
And no one would know until it was too late — just like before.
Fergo growled and slammed his palms together, igniting a burst of Dimensional Essence through his body. Runes along his bracers lit up, feeding directly into the barrier, manually reinforcing its weave.
That's why he had to do it himself. Again.
Because the automated seal hadn't been enough. His haste to deploy it — to catch Klein before he slipped away — had left a flaw.
A hairline fracture.
And now he was paying the price.
Klein struck again, surging toward him, but Fergo met the charge mid-air with a sudden wall of blue energy — a precision-cast barrier that stopped Klein cold.
"You're fast," Fergo muttered, "but I'm the wall."
Klein's mist twisted, forming a grinning face before darting sideways.
A decoy.
Fergo's instincts flared — too late.
The real Klein swept behind him, disrupting an anchor rune with a pulse of Essence. Another flicker in the dome. The barrier strained, teetered—
"Buy me five seconds!" Fergo roared.
The EED squad responded instantly, hurling phasing chains and glyph-nets into the air. But Klein slipped between them, weaving through the gaps like breath through cracked glass.
One of the guards screamed. Klein had tagged him.
Not a full possession — just enough to throw them off.
Another distraction.
Fergo moved fast, hands blurring as he rewrote the broken runes — one, two, three — embedding the glyphs deep into the anchor lines.
Stabilization confirmed.
But by the time he turned—
Klein was gone.
Vanished into the ruins near the barrier's edge.
And just past that...
Were civilians.
Fergo's jaw tightened.
This couldn't happen again.
He activated a scan node from his armband, rerouting energy through the PulseID tracegrid.
[Scan Engaged]
Location: Sector C – Riverside Park
Entity Detected: Civilian (Human)
Name: Jake Zesgarth
Essence Tier: 0 (Dormant)
Aura Signature: Stable
An ordinary civilian.
But inside the barrier.
Which should be impossible.
Fergo's chest sank.
"Damn it," he whispered. "Someone slipped through…"
It shouldn't have been possible — not with the barrier in place, not with the PulseID grid active.
The PulseID was supposed to catch things like this.
A sleek device worn on the wrist, no larger than a watch. It tracked Essence signatures, verified identities, and monitored threat levels in real time. Every citizen in the modern world wears one, same as carrying a phone or ID badge. You didn't leave the house without it.
But it did more than just scan.
The PulseID was also a warning system. A personal early-alert grid for supernatural danger. If an anomaly opened nearby, if a hostile aura was detected, or if a fugitive's signature came close — the device would flash, buzz, or even lock down depending on the severity. Most people trusted it with their lives.
And they had good reason to.
The PulseID system had been jointly developed by the Bureau of Dimensional Affairs and the Four Great Families — powerful bloodlines of ancient Essence tradition who had once ruled quietly from the shadows.
That changed seventy years ago.
The First Rift Crisis shattered the veil between dimensions. Essence awakenings surged. Creatures from unstable realms spilled into cities. Governments faltered under the strain.
In the chaos, the Bureau and the Four Great Families rose to meet the threat — combining modern science with ancient mysticism to stabilize society.
The PulseID was their legacy.
A compromise between bureaucratic control and old-world sovereignty. A tool forged in crisis to bring order to a fractured, supernatural Earth.
So how the hell had someone with no aura slipped into a barrier-locked zone?
Fergo didn't like that question.
Not one bit.
Meanwhile, back to Jake strolling down a side street, completely unaware of any barrier, prison chase, just him and his thoughts.
His hands were in his pockets, with his bag of leftover bread from his wrist as he glanced up at the dusky sky.
"Do I want ramen or eggs tonight?" he muttered. "Or maybe... toast again? No, too much bread already…"
He stopped at a crosswalk, idly tapping the PulseID on his wrist. The screen stayed blank for a moment too long before finally blinking to life — low battery. Typical.
Jake sighed.
"Grocery store it is," he decided, stepping onto the crosswalk just as the light turned green.
And above him, far, far above, the barrier shimmered again, unseen by all but those meant to see.