The corridor stretched before them like a throat—narrow, cold, lined with frozen corpses and the remnants of violence.
Jade moved through it slowly, carefully, the unconscious boy cradled against his chest.
Behind him, Fourteen's sister supported the younger girl, their footsteps hesitant, unsteady. Every few steps, one of them would stumble, and Jade would pause, waiting without comment until they found their footing again.
He didn't rush them.
Couldn't.
These children had forgotten what it meant to move at their own pace, to exist without fear of punishment for being too slow, too weak, too human.
So he waited.
The frost beneath their feet had begun to melt in places, thin rivulets of water trickling between cracks in the stone. The suppression runes carved into the walls flickered weakly, their power disrupted by the violence that had torn through the complex.
Overhead, somewhere far above, Jade could feel the faint hum of the city—the distant thrum of hover-cars, the pulse of energy conduits, the heartbeat of Nexus carrying on as if nothing had happened.
As if children hadn't been caged and broken in the dark beneath their feet.
His jaw tightened.
"Almost there," he murmured, more to himself than to the others.
The main hall came into view—the larger space where he'd first found Fourteen, where rows of cages still lined the walls.
Most were open now, their occupants huddled together near the far wall, as far from the carnage as they could get.
They'd heard the fighting. The screams. The silence that followed.
And now they watched as Jade emerged from the corridor, bloodied and carrying one of their own.
A few of them flinched. Others stared with hollow eyes that didn't quite focus.
One girl, maybe nine,took a hesitant step forward. "Are... are we really...?"
She couldn't finish the question. Didn't dare.
Jade met her gaze steadily. "You're leaving.
All of you."
The words hung in the air for a moment, fragile as glass.
Then, slowly, something shifted in the room. Not quite belief. But the shape of it—the outline of a hope they'd forgotten how to name.
Jade moved toward the cage where he'd left Fourteen.
She was still there, sitting in the same corner, knees drawn to her chest. But when she saw him and the girl behind him, her eyes widened.
"Mira..." she whispered.
The sister—Mira—let out a choked sob and stumbled forward, nearly collapsing.
"Sister!"
Fourteen scrambled out of the cage, her movements clumsy, desperate. The two girls collided in the center of the hall, arms wrapping around each other, clutching so tightly it looked like they were trying to merge into one person.
They didn't speak. Couldn't.
They just held each other and wept.
Jade looked away, throat tight.
He set the unconscious boy down gently near the other children, checking his pulse—weak, but steady—before straightening.
His shoulder throbbed where the plasma bolt had grazed him, the burn raw and angry beneath his torn sleeve. He ignored it. Pain was information. Nothing more.
He turned his attention to the others, doing a quick headcount.
Sixteen children in total, including the three he'd brought from the back room.
Sixteen lives.
"Listen to me," Jade said, raising his voice just enough to carry. The children closest to him flinched at the sound, and he softened his tone immediately. "The people who hurt you are gone. They won't come back. But we need to leave before anyone else arrives.
Can you walk?"
Some nodded hesitantly. Others just stared.
One boy—older, maybe fourteen—spoke up, his voice hoarse. "Where... where are we going?"
Jade met his eyes. "Somewhere safe."
"There's no such thing," the boy said flatly.
Jade didn't argue. He understood that kind of cynicism—the kind born from having safety ripped away so many times you stopped believing it existed.
"Maybe not," Jade said quietly. "But it's better than here."
The boy held his gaze for a moment longer, then looked away.
"Okay," he muttered.
It wasn't trust. But it was compliance. And right now, that was enough.
Jade turned toward the exit—the narrow stairway that led back up to the false mansion above. The barrier was broken, the illusion shattered. City drones would have detected the energy surge by now. Guards would be coming.
He just needed to keep them alive until—
A sound.
Faint. Wet.
Breathing.
Jade's head snapped toward the corridor behind him, eyes narrowing.
His Void Sense flared outward, brushing against the source
There.
One of the mercenaries. The one he'd impaled earlier, pinned to the wall with a spear of ice through his chest.
The body shifted.
Jade's pulse quickened.
Impossible.
He'd seen the man die. Had watched the light fade from his eyes, felt the absence of life through his mana sense.
But the corpse moved.
Slowly. Jerkily.
Its hand—pale, trembling—reached up and gripped the ice spear embedded in its chest.
And pulled.
The sound of tearing flesh filled the hall—wet, visceral, wrong. Blood—black, not red—oozed from the wound as the man wrenched himself free, the ice spear clattering to the ground.
He stood.
His eyes—glassy, bloodshot—fixed on Jade with a manic, feverish intensity.
Stimulants, Jade realized. Combat-grade.
The kind that override pain, and death for a brief period of time.
The man's lips pulled back in a rictus grin, revealing teeth stained black with blood. In his hand, half-hidden behind his back, something glinted—
A plasma pistol.
Time seemed to slow.
Jade's eyes widened in calculation. His Void Sense screamed danger, but his body was already moving, mana flooding through him, activating [Belgusari's Hunger].
The mercenary raised the pistol, finger squeezing the trigger.
And then—
A body slammed into Jade from the side.
Small.
Fragile.
Fourteen.
"NO!"
Jade's breath caught as she collided with him, her momentum knocking him off-balance. He stumbled, arms instinctively wrapping around her to keep her from falling.
The plasma bolt screamed through the air.
It missed Jade.
Hit her instead.
The smell of burning flesh filled the hall instantly—acrid, sickly sweet, wrong.
Fourteen gasped—a small, broken sound—and her body went rigid in Jade's arms.
"No—" Jade breathed.
Behind them, the mercenary's grin widened for one brief, triumphant second.
Then the shadows erupted.
They didn't rise slowly. Didn't creep.
They exploded from every corner of the hall—from the floor, the walls, the ceiling—coalescing into a writhing mass of pure darkness that descended on the mercenary like a living nightmare.
He didn't even have time to scream.
The shadows tore into him with savage, mechanical precision. Not consuming.
Shredding.
Limbs separated from torso. Torso split open. Organs spilled across the floor in wet, glistening pieces. Blood—so much blood—sprayed across the walls, the cages, the frost.
Within three seconds, there was nothing left.
Nothing but meat and bone and the lingering echo of violence.
But Jade wasn't watching.
He was falling to his knees, Fourteen's body cradled in his arms, her weight suddenly too light, too wrong.
"No, no, no—" His voice cracked, hands already glowing with golden light as [Advanced Healing] activated at full strength.
The wound was catastrophic.
The plasma bolt had struck her in the back, burning clean through her spine, her lungs, her heart. The edges of the wound were cauterized, blackened, the smell of cooked flesh making his stomach turn.
"Stay with me—" Jade's hands pressed against her back, magic flooding into her, knitting flesh, sealing blood vessels, forcing her body to heal.
But the damage was too deep.
Too much.
"Why—" His voice broke. "Why did you—I wasn't—I could have—!"
He didn't need to say it. They both knew.
His [Belgusari's Hunger] could have devoured the attack. Redirected it into the void. He could have dodged. Teleported. Anything.
But she didn't know that.
She'd only seen the gun first. Seen him standing there. And acted.
Fourteen's eyes fluttered open—just barely.
Her lips moved, trying to form words, but only a wet, rattling sound escaped.
"Don't talk—" Jade's hands trembled as the healing light poured into her, brighter, desperate. "Just—just hold on, okay? I can fix this. I can—"
Her hand—cold, shaking—lifted weakly and touched his cheek.
The gesture was so gentle it shattered something in him.
"You... you looked..." she whispered, each word a struggle. "...distracted..."
Tears blurred Jade's vision. "I wasn't—you didn't need to—why—?!"
A faint smile touched her lips—broken, sad, but somehow still there.
"You... saved me..."
"I'm saving you now—!" Jade's voice rose, raw and ragged. "Just—just stay with me—please—"
But the light was already fading from her eyes.
He could see it—the way her aura stuttered, weakened, the way her remaining lungs struggled to pull in air that wouldn't come.
The way her body, despite all his healing, was giving up.
"My sister..." Fourteen breathed, tears slipping down her cheeks. "Mira... please...."
"You'll take care of her—" Jade choked on the words. "You're going to be fine—"
"And... the others..." Her fingers trembled against his face. "Get... justice... for us..."
"I will—but you have to stay—!"
The healing magic flared brighter, golden light spilling across the hall, illuminating every shadow, every corner. But it wasn't enough.
It wasn't enough.
"Thank you..." she whispered, her voice so soft he almost didn't hear it. "For... for being kind..."
Her hand slipped from his cheek.
Fell.
Her chest rose once more—a shallow, shuddering breath.
Then stopped.
The light in her eyes went out.
Jade sat there, frozen.
The golden glow faded from his hands, leaving only bloodstained skin and the weight of a body that no longer breathed.
Around him, the hall was silent.
The children who'd been watching stood paralyzed, eyes wide, too shocked to move or speak.
Mira had collapsed to her knees, hands pressed over her mouth, a soundless scream trapped in her throat.
And Jade...
Jade stared at the girl in his arms. At her face—peaceful now, finally free of pain. At her half-open eyes that would never see sunlight again. At the faint smile still lingering on her lips.
She'd died thinking she'd saved him.
Died believing her sacrifice had mattered.
And she didn't even know it had been pointless.
Something cracked inside him.
A low sound escaped his throat—raw, broken, inhuman.
The temperature plummeted.
Ice exploded outward from where he knelt, jagged and violent, tearing through the hall in chaotic spears. They punched through walls, shattered cages, punctured stone with explosive force.
The frost spread like wildfire, consuming everything—the bodies, the blood, the remnants of violence—encasing the hall in a tomb of crystalline white.
The children screamed and rushed towards him in fear, pressing against each other as much as they could.
But Jade didn't see them.
Didn't hear them.
He kept looking at her.
The girl who'd forgotten her own name.
Who'd been called a number until she believed that's all she was.
Who had suffered so much the universe owed her a lifetime of happiness.
Who'd thrown herself in front of a bullet for a stranger because no one had ever shown her kindness before.
And he'd failed her.
Failed.
A roar tore from his throat—anguished, furious.
The walls groaned under the assault of ice and cold. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling. Somewhere above, alarms began to wail.
And still, Jade held her.
Cradled her body while berating himself for being so weak!. So weak , he couldn't even protect a young girl.
He had seen her pain, her anguish. She had been through so much even Jade's past life couldn't compare.
When Lio had saved her , he had wondered how such a flickering soul could still hold on to life barely.
When she had woken up and begged for death, Jade had thought it might actually be better for her .
But now, looking at her lifeless body, lying limply in his arms, Jade grieved. He roared .
As if his grief alone could undo death.
Footsteps echoed from the stairway—rapid, urgent.
Voices shouted commands, weapons charged, boots pounding against stone.
The city guard had arrived.
And at their head, moving with the swift, lethal grace of an A-rank awakener, was Governor Kael Varros.
He descended into the frozen hell below, his aura blazing, a pressure that made the air itself tremble.
He stopped at the threshold of the main hall.
And froze.
The scene before him was... apocalyptic.
Ice covered everything—walls, floor, ceiling—jagged and merciless. Bodies lay scattered among the frost, shredded beyond recognition. The stench of blood and burned flesh hung thick in the air.
And in the center of it all,
A small figure knelt, holding the lifeless body of a child.
Silver-white hair streaked with blood.
Clothes soaked crimson.
And the silver eyes that lifted to meet Kael's were so hollow, so broken, that even the Governor, who'd witnessed war, who'd seen atrocities that haunted his nightmares, felt his breath catch.
"Jade..." Kael said softly.
The boy didn't respond.
He just held her.
Kael's jaw tightened. His hands clenched into fists.
Behind him, medics rushed in, beginning to tend to the surviving children. Rescue teams moved with practiced efficiency, checking pulses, administering aid.
But Kael's eyes never left Jade.
He stepped forward slowly, carefully, as one might approach a wounded animal.
"Jade," he said again, voice gentler this time. "She's gone."
Jade's hands tightened on the girl's body.
"She saved me," he whispered, voice raw and broken. "She didn't need to. I could have—I should have—"
His voice cracked.
Kael crouched beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"This isn't your fault."
"She died because of me."
"She died because monsters hurt her," Kael said firmly. "And you stopped them. You saved fifteen others. Fifteen, Jade."
But Jade shook his head, tears slipping down his cheeks.
"It should have been me," he whispered.
Kael's chest tightened painfully. He'd seen this before—the guilt that came from surviving when others didn't. The weight of lives lost, even when you did everything right.
He knew that weight intimately.
"Come on," Kael said softly, gently prying Jade's hands from the girl's body. "Let the medics take her. We need to get you home."
Jade's resistance was weak, exhausted. He let Kael lift him to his feet, swaying slightly, the adrenaline finally crashing.
Behind them, Mira let out a keening wail as medics approached her sister's body.
Jade flinched at the sound but didn't turn around.
He couldn't.
Kael guided him toward the stairs, one arm supporting him.
As they climbed, Jade spoke—voice barely audible.
"She asked me to take care of her sister. To get justice."
Kael's expression hardened, something cold and lethal flickering in his eyes.
"You have my word," he said quietly. "Every single person involved in this will pay."
Jade nodded numbly.
But the promise felt hollow.
Justice wouldn't bring her back.
Wouldn't erase the memory of her smile as she died.
Wouldn't make the weight crushing his chest any lighter.
They emerged into the night air—cool, clean, a stark contrast to the blood-soaked hell below.
City guard filled the street, drones hovering overhead, medics rushing past with stretchers.
And standing beside Kael's hover-car, arms crossed, face pale with barely-contained fury...
Selene.
Her eyes found Jade immediately, and something in her expression broke.
She crossed the distance in seconds, dropping to her knees in front of him, hands cupping his face.
"Oh, my Jade..." she breathed, tears already streaming down her cheeks.
Jade stared at her, vision blurry, body trembling.
And then, finally, the dam broke.
He collapsed into her arms and sobbed.
.....