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Chapter 123 - CHAPTER 123. GODKILLER PROTOCOL

Chapter 123: Godkiller Protocol

The Andes Base of the Hunter Society hummed with the sterile thrum of contained power. Deep within its reinforced heart, Kahn Ruhr stood before the central command console of Project Godkiller. The display showed a swirling, high-resolution map of the Barranco district, Lima. A pulsing red crosshair overlay the grid, centered precisely on the ruined safehouse location – the epicenter of the catastrophic energy signature Vargas had labeled Aphelion.

Vargas stood rigidly at attention nearby, his face pale beneath the harsh console lights. The sensor logs played on a secondary screen: the dissolution of the Echo Reapers, the terrifying bloom of the Veil of Sorrows, the subsequent collapse of the Aphelion signature into a chillingly low, almost inert reading. "Sir," Vargas's voice was tight, controlled, "the Aphelion event confirms catastrophic power, but also extreme instability and vulnerability post-discharge. We have operatives converging. Extraction is still feasible with specialized null-containers. The Godkiller… it's indiscriminate. The collateral damage—"

"Is necessary," Kahn Ruhr cut him off, his voice devoid of inflection. His fingers danced across the holographic interface. "Feasible extraction, Vargas, is irrelevant. The potential is confirmed. That corrupted core, that… Bloom… it represents a power source beyond soul energy. It consumes it. It negates reality itself. Imagine weaponizing that negation. Imagine a field that devours Magi spells, Martial Ki, Soulborne Domains. Imagine rendering the Elder Race, the Veil, the Spirit Tribunal… powerless." His eyes, cold and calculating, reflected the pulsing crosshair. "That power cannot be left uncontrolled. If we cannot harvest it immediately, we must deny it to anyone else. Especially not to the architect of its corruption." He tapped a final command. "Project Godkiller is authorized. Fire Control, synchronize orbital array. Target locked. Maximum yield."

A klaxon began to wail, deep and bone-chilling. Red lights strobed through the command center. Vargas flinched, his knuckles white on the console edge. "Sir! There are thousands of civilians within the projected blast radius! The energy negation wave will destabilize neural pathways, induce systemic failure in anything supernatural… and potentially fatal synaptic collapse in baseline humans! It's not a surgical strike; it's an extermination!"

"Acceptable losses," Kahn stated, his gaze never leaving the screen. "The birth of a new era requires sacrifice. The Godkiller will erase the Bloom and sterilize the area of any supernatural trace. A necessary purge." He initiated the final sequence. "Orbital array synced. Charging cycle initiated. Firing solution confirmed. Countdown: T-minus 60 seconds."

The countdown appeared on the main screen, large, digital, relentless. Vargas stared at it, then at Kahn's impassive profile. The image of Cassandra Ikemba, frozen in terror, then exploding in corrupted fury, flashed in his mind. The civilian sensor feeds from Barranco flickered on a tertiary screen – people oblivious, going about their rainy evening. Acceptable losses. The words echoed, hollow and monstrous.

---

Barranco District, Lima - Rooftop

Rain lashed Karen's face as she hauled Cassandra onto the flat, tar-papered roof of an adjacent building. The girl was a dead weight in her arms, her eyes vacant pools reflecting the stormy sky, her breathing shallow and mechanical. The frantic pulse of Muna's storm signature was terrifyingly close now, a beacon of maternal anguish slicing through the downpour. Joshua's calmer, anchoring presence was a tight leash barely holding it back.

Karen laid Cassandra down gently behind a vent stack, trying to shield her from the worst of the rain. She crouched beside her, heart pounding. T`halem's words warred with the psychic scream of Cassandra's name echoing in her mind. "Her presence will be counterproductive… The void must deepen…" But the void within Cass felt like death. Was this strength? Or just annihilation?

"CASSANDRA! ANSWER ME! WHERE ARE YOU?"

The psychic cry wasn't just sound; it was pure, unfiltered terror and love, amplified by Muna's High Soulborne power. It washed over the rooftop like a physical wave.

Cassandra didn't react. Her eyes remained fixed on nothing. But deep within the compacted darkness of her core, something stirred. Not power. Not fury. A ripple. Like a stone dropped into the profound silence T`halem had cultivated. The ripple resonated with the psychic cry. It vibrated against the cold, alien structure of the Dark Soul Core. It was… familiar. A ghost of warmth in an absolute void.

Karen saw it. A flicker. A single, almost imperceptible twitch of Cassandra's index finger against the wet tar paper. Her breath hitched. "Cass? Cass, can you hear me? It's your mom. She's close. She's looking for you." She poured every ounce of hope she had into her voice, trying to bridge the gap.

Below, on the street bordering the ruined safehouse, Muna Ikemba stood like a figure carved from lightning and grief. Rain sizzled where it touched the corona of black energy crackling around her. Her eyes scanned the shattered building, the alley, the rooftops, wild and desperate. Joshua stood beside her, a hand on her arm, his own face grim, projecting calm and focus, trying to pierce the rain and lingering corruption with his senses.

"She's here, Joshua! I feel it! The echo… the wrongness… it's her!" Muna's voice cracked. "That power… what did they do to her?" Her gaze snapped upwards, towards the rooftops, drawn by an instinct deeper than sense. "CASSANDRA! SWEETHEART, I'M HERE! FIGHT IT! COME BACK TO ME!"

The psychic cry intensified, laced with a Soulborne's command, a mother's plea. It struck the rooftop like a physical blow.

Inside Cassandra, the ripple became a tremor. The profound silence of her core shuddered. The ghost of warmth flared, clashing violently with the cold, structured darkness T`halem had forged. It was dissonance. Agony. A war fought in the depths of a shattered psyche. Her body remained limp, but her vacant eyes widened infinitesimally. A low, guttural whine, barely audible over the storm, escaped her lips.

Connection.

Muna gasped, staggering back a step as if struck. Her eyes, wide with shock and sudden, terrifying certainty, locked onto the specific rooftop. "She's there! Joshua! She heard me! She's… she's fighting!" Hope, fragile and desperate, warred with the horror of what she sensed – the cold, alien power warring against the flicker of her daughter's presence. "CASSANDRA! HOLD ON! I'M COMING!"

She moved to leap, lightning gathering at her feet.

"NO, AUNT MUNA!" Joshua yelled, grabbing her arm with both hands, his own spirit energy flaring to counter her storm. "Look! Look up!"

His voice wasn't just warning; it was pure, unadulterated dread.

Muna followed his gaze, past the rooftops, past the driving rain. High in the turbulent night sky, visible only to their enhanced senses, multiple points of searing, actinic light had appeared. They weren't stars. They were impossibly bright, impossibly wrong – orbital lenses focusing unimaginable energy.

Karen felt it too. A sudden, crushing pressure descending from above, pressing down on her Soul Spiral, making the Abyss writhe in warning. The rain seemed to slow, the air thickening, vibrating with a subsonic hum that rattled teeth. She looked up, terror icing her veins.

The points of light flared blindingly, converging into a single, terrible beam of pure, annihilating white light. It lanced down from the heavens, silent, inevitable, aimed with monstrous precision at the rooftop where she crouched beside the catatonic Cassandra.

The Godkiller had fired.

Time seemed to fracture. Muna's scream of denial was swallowed by the descending silence of the beam. Joshua threw himself in front of her, his own Soul Domain – the nascent Black Star– flaring defensively, knowing it was hopeless against this magnitude. Karen, staring into the blinding light, felt the Abyss surge within her, not in attack, but in a desperate, instinctive cry for survival. She threw herself over Cassandra's body, pouring every ounce of her unstable power into a shield, a desperate dome of writhing darkness against the oblivion descending from the sky.

And beneath her, still trapped in the silent war within her corrupted core, Cassandra Ikemba felt the touch of absolute annihilation. The profound silence T`halem had built shattered under its weight. The cold structure of her dark core screamed.

The beam struck.

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