Fifty kilometers north of Quantico sat a forgotten rural town.
Lucas Kane had studied the terrain around Quantico on satellite maps the night before. He knew roughly which roads connected the airport to the base.
So when the taxi driver began drifting off that route earlier, Lucas noticed immediately.
His memory had always been good.
After beginning Cosmo Awakening, it had become exceptional.
Now, standing outside the car on a muddy back road, Lucas glanced around.
Remote.
Isolated.
Quiet.
The kind of place where someone could rob a victim… bury the body… and no one would notice for days.
No wonder the driver had brought him here.
Behind him, the driver groaned inside the taxi.
His face was bruised and swollen, but he was still alive.
For now.
Lucas opened the rear door and reached inside.
With one hand, he grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him out of the car.
The driver hit the muddy ground hard.
"Please!" the man gasped, scrambling to his knees. "Don't kill me. I'm begging you. I won't do it again."
Lucas looked down at him.
Only minutes earlier, the man had been confident and threatening.
Now he looked broken.
Lucas's voice was calm.
"You don't regret what you did," he said quietly. "You regret that you might die."
The man froze.
His voice shook even harder.
"Please… please don't kill me."
Lucas narrowed his eyes.
"Give me a reason not to."
The man blinked.
Then his words rushed out in panic.
"You can take my car! My money—yeah, I've got cash! It's yours!"
Lucas shook his head.
"If I kill you, the car and the money are still mine."
His expression remained unreadable.
"Try again."
The man swallowed.
"You… you can't kill me," he said quickly. "If I disappear, the police will look for you. But if you let me go, I swear I won't tell anyone. I won't say a word."
Lucas looked down at him in silence.
He appeared to consider it.
The man noticed Lucas's gaze shift away from him.
Hope flickered in his eyes.
Slowly, while continuing to beg, his right hand moved toward his lower back.
Toward the knife hidden there.
A second later—
He lunged.
"Die!"
The folding blade flashed as he sprang forward.
Lucas's eyes lifted.
Cold.
His hand moved almost casually.
One strike.
A dull impact echoed.
The man's body twisted violently.
His head spun unnaturally—
Faster.
Further.
Until—
Snap.
The neck tore apart.
The head rolled across the muddy ground.
Blood sprayed from the severed body before it collapsed.
Lucas lowered his gaze.
The driver's face lay at his feet, still frozen in a final expression of rage.
Lucas gave a faint, humorless smile.
"I really was going to let you go."
Silence settled over the empty road.
Lucas looked at the headless body for a moment.
He hadn't lied.
He had genuinely considered sparing the man.
Not only because he had important business to handle nearby.
But because of something else.
A line.
Once crossed, it could never truly be restored.
Killing someone was like opening a valve.
Once it opened, respect for life could change forever.
Especially for someone like Lucas—someone who had arrived in this world with the detached perspective of an outsider.
The Chitauri he had killed during the invasion didn't count.
He had seen them up close.
They resembled humanoids, but they were closer to insects than people.
Humans didn't feel guilty for killing insects.
Lucas had never applied his moral limits to creatures like that.
But this man had been human.
And now he was dead.
Lucas studied the blood spreading across the mud.
Strangely, he felt nothing.
No shock.
No nausea.
No guilt.
The only thought that crossed his mind was simple.
This wasn't much different from killing a Chitauri soldier.
Lucas closed his eyes briefly.
He wasn't trying to close the valve again.
Some doors only opened once.
From this moment forward, killing would no longer be something he instinctively rejected.
Lucas turned away from the corpse.
He climbed back into the taxi, glanced once at the blue sky overhead, and started the engine.
He had no intention of burying the body.
Someone would find it eventually.
It didn't matter.
One death.
Two deaths.
Ten.
At that point, it was just numbers.
Still—
Lucas's grip tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
"There's a difference," he murmured quietly.
"Killing when necessary… and killing without restraint."
True strength required discipline.
Even now.
The taxi rolled forward, leaving the muddy road and merging onto a larger highway.
Within seconds, Lucas had found the correct route toward Quantico.
He didn't have a driver's license in this life.
But that didn't mean he couldn't drive.
The road grew quieter again as the car disappeared into the distance.
Half an hour later—
Footsteps broke the silence of the abandoned path.
One set.
Then two.
Then three.
Three men wearing dark sunglasses stepped onto the muddy road.
They stopped.
Their attention settled on the severed head and the headless corpse lying nearby.
None of them spoke.