William was the first to break the stalemate.
A few steps below the chaplain, Vladimir's head remained wedged between a twisted metal plate and the broken arch.
Rain washed over his pink hair, carrying the thin blood down the slope of the platform as the body slipped millimeter by millimeter toward the abyss.
None of his companions made any move to catch him.
Sahger kept his spear raised.
His right arm burned from his fingertips to the base of his shoulder, and his pierced hand was beginning to betray him, losing its strength around the metal shaft.
Whenever he distributed his weight incorrectly, his injured knee trembled, threatening to give out.
Without blinking, he watched William retrieve the daggers at his waist, Yasmin settle the axe into her good hand, and Lutor readjust his stance without bending his injured elbow.
They were still looking for an opening.
"Look what you did." William's voice was low, almost swallowed by the roar of the storm.
Sahger did not take his eyes off the band covering the monk's face.
"He tried to kill me."
"And that's enough?"
Lutor tightened his grip on his own spear.
The movement pulled at the flesh of his injured arm, opening a fresh trickle of blood that ran between his thick fingers, but the giant remained impenetrable.
Yasmin, on the other hand, turned her face toward the assassin's corpse before glaring at Sahger.
"We offered you a place."
"To become the fifth Beast." She spat out the title bitterly, as though the mere memory of his refusal still offended her.
"You could have been one of us."
"Instead, you brought this trash here."
"When did Red Crest become a good guy?"
"When did you stop being the most feared hunter in this galaxy, Sahger?"
A heavy artillery blast tore through the sky above the communications tower.
The explosion, coming from somewhere far beyond the platform, made the metal vibrate beneath Sahger's boots.
Anonymous screams pierced the curtain of rain, quickly drowned out by the thunderous collapse of another structure somewhere in the darkness.
Yasmin raised her axe toward the orange flashes.
"Look around you. Are you satisfied?"
The hunter ignored the question, focusing on her feet.
The feline woman's right boot shifted back a few centimeters, adjusting her stance for a longer lunge, while Lutor slowly moved to close the opposite flank.
William, however, opened his bloodied hand toward the burning hangar.
"Men are dying without even knowing why."
"People who could be home with their families. All of this could have been avoided, Sahger."
"If I had accepted the collar."
"Yes." The answer came softly, stripped of any hesitation.
Sahger ran his tongue over his bloodstained teeth.
Near the edge, the weight of a torn-out pipe made the floor plate groan dangerously.
He adjusted his stance before the instability could reach his bad knee.
"And what about the ones who were trapped down there?"
William tilted his head slightly to the side.
"You know this world."
"You know damn well you won't fix it by tearing down a prison."
"I didn't come here to fix the world. I came here to solve MY problem."
The chaplain waited for him to continue, but no continuation came.
Across the makeshift arena, Lutor dragged the butt of his spear across the metal, producing the sound of a blade scraping against steel. Sahger rotated his body slightly so he wouldn't turn his back.
The giant stopped moving.
William noticed the tension.
His expression did not change, but he lowered his dagger slightly.
"There is still a choice."
"William." Yasmin rebuked him, turning her head sharply.
The chaplain raised his empty hand, demanding silence.
The sudden gesture pulled at his broken collarbone, drawing a small twitch of pain from the corner of his mouth, but he soon extended that same hand toward Sahger.
"I forgive you."
"May the six pillars of creation forgive you, Sahger."
The hunter stared at the chaplain's open fingers, stained scarlet all the way to the roots of his nails.
"You... forgive me?"
"There are things we cannot undo, and dwelling on them only prolongs pointless suffering." William subtly pointed his chin toward Vladimir's corpse.
"Accept the place we can still give you."
"Become a Beast. Help us bury this rebellion."
Sahger did not answer.
Cold water ran down his exposed neck, seeping beneath the shattered plates of his armor and mixing with the burning blood pouring from his abdomen.
William's hand remained suspended in the air, unwavering.
"Yashin pays well."
"Enough for you to live in peace, without having to crawl from one filthy contract to another."
"Your story doesn't have to end here, bleeding for people who might not even remember your name tomorrow."
Years ago, Sahger would have listened to that offer until the end.
He knew intimately the temporary relief of receiving a large payment and shutting his mind off until the next mission.
The money ran out, another employer appeared, and he went back to asking only the questions strictly necessary to complete the job.
Morality could wait.
There was always a later.
The gold William offered smelled exactly like all the others.
The difference was that now, the echoes of the prisoners' screams filled the space between the chaplain's words.
Sahger looked down.
Vladimir was still there, and William was already negotiating the replacement of a piece on the board.
"He hasn't even gone cold."
"You don't have to die with him," the chaplain replied.
"You don't understand."
For the first time, William's patience faltered, his jaw muscles tightening.
"I'm trying to offer you peace."
"You're trying to buy your own."
Yasmin's axe rose a few centimeters.
"Watch what you say, rat."
Sahger held the woman's furious gaze before turning his attention back to their leader.
"You pointed at the dead. You said it was my fault. And now you want me to help you finish the job."
"You've accepted worse jobs before."
The sentence struck a place that was still raw.
The memory of the girls lifting his helmet, their eyes shining with admiration without the slightest idea of how much innocent blood had already splashed across that metal, passed through the warrior's mind.
"I have," Sahger admitted, his voice hoarse.
William seemed to find a spark of hope in the confession.
He took a step forward, bringing his outstretched hand closer, but Sahger locked his spear between them, the emerald tip steady as stone.
"That's exactly why I know what you're offering me."
The chaplain's restrained smile disappeared.
"You really think you can simply stop being what you are?"
Sahger's pierced hand tightened around the weapon's shaft.
The freshly clotted skin split across his knuckles, blood beginning to run over the metal again, but he did not loosen his grip.
"I'm tired of living like a rat, William."
Lutor released a low growl from deep in his chest.
Yasmin planted her boot firmly on the ground, and the chaplain's daggers rotated back into their attack positions.
Sahger measured the distance between all three of them at once.
"Keep your forgiveness to yourself. Maybe then the pillars will forgive you and carry your soul to paradise."
Slowly, William withdrew his hand.
"Don't invoke their names so carelessly."
And he advanced.
In Sector Two, the imposing symbol of the Messengers had been swallowed by a brutal crater gouged into the metal.
The protective wall had been crushed inward, surrounded by torn roots and rubble from the underground slope.
At the center of the structural deformation, a narrow crack allowed the cold light from Yashin's private room to spill through.
Tsukumo rested his sweat-soaked forehead against the cold plate.
The sound of his own bones cracking still reverberated through the inside of his arms.
The combat wraps had already given out; they now hung from his wrists as useless, soaked strips, exposing the ruin of his hands.
There was no skin left over his fingers.
Every time he tried to close his fist, the pale white of bone appeared through the crushed flesh.
The wall's armor had absorbed every gravitational pulse without giving so much as a scratch.
Then Tsukumo started punching.
The first impact left nothing but a smear of blood.
The next ones dented the steel.
Now, after forcing the plate beyond its physical limit, he could finally see the monitors through the dark tear.
But the opening was still too narrow.
Pulling his face away, he shoved his trembling fingers into the gap.
The wall's sharp edge sliced into his palm the instant he pulled.
The metal groaned but refused to give; pain shot up his forearm like an electric shock, locking the muscles in his neck and forcing him to let go.
Through the communicator pressed against his ear, Suki's ragged breathing came through for a fraction of a second, immediately interrupted by an impact so violent that it saturated the audio with static.
Tsukumo raised his head.
Another tremor shook the installation's foundations.
He placed his bloodied hands back into the gap.
This time, he braced his boot against the collapsed section of wall, wedged his arm against the fold in the steel, and threw his entire body backward.
His feet carved deep grooves into the wet earth.
His shoulder screamed under the strain, and the flesh of his palm tore even further as the plate finally began to bend beneath his brute strength.
With a dry snap, a thick section of the outer plating gave way.
Tsukumo lost his balance and dropped to one knee, clutching the blood-stained fragment.
He dropped the metal scrap onto the floor, forced himself upright, and delivered one final, desperate shoulder strike against the exposed edge.
The passage opened.
Breathing through clenched teeth, he squeezed sideways through the hole, scraping his back against the twisted edges of steel.
He stumbled into the room, leaving a trail of dark droplets across the immaculate floor.
It was empty.
The light came from the wall of monitors dominating the room.
Security cameras transmitted the chaos: flooded corridors, jammed elevators, and burning galleries flashing above an extensive command console.
On one of the screens, Tsukumo recognized the tables stacked inside the Sector Four cafeteria, where prisoners were using makeshift barricades to exchange gunfire with the guards.
Yashin was watching the massacre from the best seat in the house.
He dragged himself toward the console.
When he tried to press the communicator button, he realized the index finger of his right hand refused to bend.
He used his left.
"I made it." His voice came out rough, scraping against his throat. Tsukumo swallowed hard and opened the general frequency.
"I'm inside the room."
Candice's response tore through the static almost instantly.
"You're inside?!"
"I'm standing in front of the controls."
Over the audio, something heavy slammed into the floor.
The girl's voice moved away from the microphone as she shouted orders at Havelyn, until Gordon's impatient voice replaced hers.
"Then open the damn thing already, kid!"
"We're taking fire through every damn hole in these walls!"
Using the edge of the console to support his weight, Tsukumo scanned the interface.
The holographic schematic of Gron-Tarh occupied the center of the glass table, covered in red icons marking security locks and sealed bulkheads between the sectors.
He tapped the diagram of Sector Five.
This time, the system did not ask for credentials.
A cascade of codes and doors appeared on the screen.
Tsukumo scrolled through the options, smearing the illuminated glass with blood dripping from his hand.
There were isolation controls for each prison block and, at the top of the list, the general purge command.
"I can remove all the locks from here."
"All of them," Candice ordered, breathing heavily.
"Open everything."
Tsukumo struck the panel.
The terminal beeped, requesting confirmation.
He pressed his thumb against the glass harder than necessary, leaving a red fingerprint over the word
"EXECUTE."
On the screen, the icons began flashing green. Through the cameras, the prisoners in the cafeteria looked around in confusion.
A monumental mechanical boom made the floor of Sector Two vibrate.
Rusty gears and hydraulic pistons came to life, the sound cascading down through the fortress's lower levels.
On the holographic map, the barriers disappeared one by one, reconnecting the arteries of the prison.
Tsukumo remained hunched over the controls until the last red indicator vanished.
"It's open," he whispered to no one, staring at his ruined hands before returning to the communicator.
"Candice. You can go."
The first security lock gave way with such an absurd impact that Candice felt the shockwave hit her chest.
She was already running through the corridors when the second mechanism unlocked.
The gigantic containment gate of Sector Five shuddered with the groan of fatigued steel.
"Don't get trapped here! Take the wounded and move!"
A scarred female prisoner gave a short nod as she ejected the empty magazine from her rifle.
A few meters away, a four-armed prisoner grabbed a wounded man and hoisted him up as though he weighed nothing, running toward the exit.
A thin, lethal layer of ice spread across the floor ahead of Candice's boots.
Using the momentum, she lowered her center of gravity, laid the shaft of her scythe parallel to the floor, and slid beneath the steel gate when the opening barely allowed a crouching person through.
As she emerged into the next sector, she used her mechanical hand for support and sprang to her feet without breaking her running rhythm.
A sharp pain in her cracked ribs made her hold her breath, but she swallowed the pain.
The sound of air being cut announced Havelyn right behind her.
With her wings pressed completely against her back, she threw herself through the gap.
As soon as she cleared it, she opened her left wing and used short wind-assisted bursts to keep pace with Candice, dragging her claws along the floor whenever her injured plumage failed her.
Ahead, the security gates of the next block were already rising.
Emergency lights flickered across the curved ceiling of the corridor, revealing intersections and stairwells that had been isolated for decades.
In the distance, the unmistakable sound of a cargo elevator coming back to life mixed with voices shouting in excitement.
Hell had been unlocked.
Candice did not slow down.
The floor continued freezing beneath her feet, creating a perfectly smooth path that allowed her to advance at high speed without the painful impact of a normal run.
Another containment wall began moving at the end of the tunnel.
Candice lowered her shoulder, Havelyn tucked her wings in, and the two of them burst through the passage before the mechanism had even finished opening.
"I'm coming, Rubens."
The crushing pressure against the daggers changed, and my sword nearly flew from my hand.
I'd already lost count of how many times our blades had collided over the last few minutes.
At that exact moment, Yashin was forcing his blade against my guard, crushing my left arm toward the cut still open across my chest.
I was using everything I had just to keep my elbow locked away from the wound.
The energy from the last impact was fading, and the platform trembled beneath our feet.
Then Yashin turned his head.
Not to look at me.
Wet hair clung to his jaw as he shifted his attention toward the ruined landscape of Gron-Tarh.
A deep, prolonged metallic groan rose from the fortress's depths, drowning out the warning sirens for a moment.
Tsukumo's rasping voice crackled in my ear.
"It's open. Candice, you can go."
I felt the air grow colder.
The bizarre shadow stretching beneath Yashin's feet trembled and suddenly contracted.
For the first time since that monster had emerged from the forest, he lost focus on the fight.
And I wasn't going to waste it.
I drove my sword forward before he could realign himself.
The blade slid between his two daggers, spitting a shower of sparks into the rain.
Yashin pulled his neck backward on pure reflex; the edge of my weapon sliced through a lock of hair and continued toward his collarbone.
But the bastard wasn't human.
With an absurd twist of his wrist, he struck the side of my sword with his dagger, knocking its trajectory into empty space.
The force I'd put behind the attack sent me spinning, throwing off my footing.
When I finally regained my balance and searched for my target, Yashin had already left the platform.
I saw his black hair disappear over the edge of the crater, following a trail of shadow that flowed between the twisted plates.
He was going back through the same hole he'd thrown my body through to escape the prison.
"Hey!" The word tore through my throat.
I tightened my grip on the sword with my left hand and launched myself after him.
The ruined edge passed inches from my shoulder as I crossed the exposed layers of armor, plunging between ruptured pipes and beams that were still spitting sparks.
The sky disappeared behind me.
Beneath the surface of Gron-Tarh, the floodlights of Sector One hit me head-on.
Rain poured through the crater above us, mixing with water gushing from the broken pipes.
Yashin continued descending, both daggers held close to his body.
He didn't even bother looking back.
Below him, the breach cut through the central courtyard and continued through the destroyed structures toward Sector Two.
If I let him pass, he'd reach the forest.
A beam torn from the wall stretched across the opening.
I planted my boot on it, felt the metal bend beneath my weight, and pushed before it could give completely. The momentum launched me diagonally, cutting across Yashin's trajectory.
I attacked from above, aiming for his neck.
He raised a dagger without interrupting his fall.
The collision shook my entire arm, and the battered skin of my palm split against the hilt.
Blood made the grip slippery, but I kept my fingers closed and pressed my sword against his blade.
I threw my body weight into the clash, forcing him sideways, away from the opening leading to the lower levels.
We both struck the maintenance walkway that wrapped around one of Sector One's columns above the courtyard.
The grating sank beneath my boots, and the railing tore free from one of its supports with a snap.
Yashin landed a few meters ahead; his shadow spread across the metal before his feet touched it, cushioning the impact.
Behind him, the passage to the lower floors remained open.
Above us, the storm roared through the crater in the surface.
I dragged my foot across the warped steel and raised my sword again.
"Where do you think you're going?" I gasped, the air entering my lungs like a blade.
The luminous red and blue lines of my technique pulsed chaotically around the deep wound across my chest.
The pressure was trying to stop the bleeding, compressing the torn flesh so violently that it felt like a leather belt was being tightened from inside my bones.
Yashin looked toward the monstrous hole leading to the main courtyard.
"Down there. That man can't get out."
I rotated my wrist, sending the sword through a short arc to force his defense.
But he didn't defend.
Yashin simply took a half-step out of range, almost like a ghost.
Before I could pull the blade back, that unnaturally pale hand grabbed my right shoulder.
The pain shut down my legs for a second. With a squeeze of his fingers, he threw me like a rag doll against the side of the walkway.
My back slammed into the railing, crushing the protective pipes.
The impact against the metal rattled my brain inside my skull.
My fingers tingled, the sword slipping dangerously from my numb hand, held only by the wrapped cloth around the hilt.
In front of me, the pool of liquid shadow leaking from Yashin's boots began expanding again, crawling across the twisted metal toward me like a cautious predator.
"Now I understand," I muttered, my voice bubbling through the blood filling my mouth.
The shadows stopped instantly.
"You're afraid."
A hoarse, broken laugh escaped my throat as I forced my knees to lift me.
My entire body screamed, every muscle pulling tight and trying to shut me down by force, but I remained standing.
Yashin did not advance.
The provocation seemed to flip a switch in his mind, making him observe me with an unsettling, clinical focus.
Under the harsh, merciless floodlights of Sector One, he finally seemed to register what was standing in front of him.
Slowly, he raised one pale hand and pulled his wet hair back, revealing his own face for the first time.
His features were fine, sculpted with an almost cadaverous coldness.
"Now I see," he whispered.
The murmur transformed into laughter.
A sickening, high-pitched sound completely devoid of sanity that tore through the roar of the storm and echoed across the prison's metal walls.
"These stripes pulsing across your body... The raw power of a transformation."
His smile split across his face.
"So the rumors were true."
Yashin stared at me with that unnaturally wide smile.
"The twin really does exist."
My sword lowered a few centimeters.
"A twin who was forged by the light."
I stared at his uncovered face, waiting for him to continue, to say something capable of changing the meaning of those words.
Rain ran down my eyes, but I didn't blink.
"Which twin?" The question came out barely above a whisper.
I tightened my grip on the sword.
"How do you know that?"
Yashin kept smiling.
The memory came before I could stop it.
Three years had passed since Ruitan, and that voice returned as if I'd heard it only moments ago.
Little brother.
My stomach clenched.
I knew that tone.
I'd been trying to bury it ever since I left that place, and now all it took was a single word from that bastard's mouth to drag it back to the surface.
I clenched my jaw, but the voice continued inside my head, cutting through the sound of the rain and my own breathing.
My fingers closed around the sword so tightly that I felt the wound in my palm split open again.
Yashin knew something.
He was standing in front of me, staring at those stripes, smiling as though he'd found exactly what he had been searching for.
Hatred surged before I could organize another question. My chest was still torn open, my legs were trembling, but I could no longer think about how much longer my body could endure.
I channeled everything I had left into my legs and stomped.
The blow crashed down onto the already-compromised steel of the platform with the force of a meteor.
The entire plate gave way with a deafening roar. Rivets exploded, support beams snapped in half, and the floor simply vanished beneath us.
We remained standing on the twisted metal structure as it began plummeting freely toward the fortress's abyss.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU ASSHOLE?!" I screamed, my lungs tearing as the wind lashed my face.
I released the sword hilt for a second to clutch the side of my head with my free hand, screaming against my own mind in a futile attempt to crush the memory before it devoured me from the inside out.
Yashin wasn't shaken by the falling structure.
He absorbed the jolt of the descent while maintaining perfect balance, the insane smile still carved across his face, fascinated by my breakdown.
"I really want to see what happens if I kill you, boy."
I directed the Strength Transformation into my legs in a burst of adrenaline, far beyond what my torn muscles could withstand.
I kicked the base of the broken railing; the entire piece of metal flew spinning toward him.
One twist of his wrist, and the dagger split the metal plate in midair.
But I was already right behind the flying scrap.
I used the blind spot, driving straight in with my left shoulder like a battering ram, leaving no room to swing my sword.
The impact sent us both flying off the walkway, falling toward the level below.
When my chest slammed into his, I felt the density of those ribs, hard as concrete, and the unnatural cold of his body piercing through my soaked clothes.
The moment we touched the ground, Yashin planted his boot against the metal and stopped instantly, like a statue.
My momentum, however, continued.
His free dagger rose, pointing perfectly toward the empty space beneath my armpit.
Before the steel could enter and tear into my lungs, I struck the flat side of my sword against his forearm, pinning both weapons in the narrow space between us.
But he had another arm.
I jerked my head backward in desperation.
The hum of the second blade passed within millimeters of my right ear, tearing through the walkway floor behind me as though it were paper.
The structural cut made the floor give way beneath my boots.
I took advantage of gravity pulling the plate downward and threw myself against his body once more.
"YOU'RE NOT GOING DOWN!"
His knee struck the center of my abdomen.
I spat an absurd amount of blood onto the metal. The wound in my chest screamed with pain, and the lines of the Transformation flickered and died near my collarbone.
I collapsed forward, my legs giving out as a strange warmth began spreading into my pants.
Yashin freed himself effortlessly.
Above the torrential rain, the radio in my ear beeped with Havelyn's voice and the deafening sound of another armored door opening.
My friends were advancing.
He was going to kill them all.
I raised my trembling left hand and grabbed the fabric of his clothes tightly.
Yashin stopped.
I had no sensation left in my fingers. My hand slipped against the soaked fabric, the weight of my own hunched body pulling me toward the floor, but I dug my nails into the expensive wool and twisted my fist.
"I'm not finished yet."
"I'll play with you later, special boy."
He yanked his arm away with brutal force.
I was dragged like dead weight across the rough floor until I managed to wedge my heel into the groove of a broken plate.
I bit my tongue, pushed the muscles in my leg to their limit, and raised my sword in an upward strike from the ground, releasing his clothes at the last second.
Yashin had to take a step backward to keep the blade from opening his stomach.
It was only one step.
A miserable centimeter of tactical advantage.
But it cost me more blood than I had left in my body.
He raised his face, his gaze finally fixed on me. The sickly amusement that usually played across his lips had disappeared completely.
"Get out of the way."
I tried to force a cynical smile, but the pain in my jaw locked my face into a grotesque grimace.
"Make me."
The massive shadow began leaking from his shoes again, flowing toward the edge leading to the lower floors.
The echo of dozens of furious voices could be heard rising through the prison shaft.
Yashin took his first step toward the edge, the shadow crawling ahead of him, ready to guide him toward Sector Two.
He didn't even complete the second step.
A brutal, furious force exploded against the side of Yashin's face. He had no time to dodge or use his shadows.
The impact was wet, heavy, and absurdly satisfying, the perfect crack of bone and flesh absorbing a full-force blow.
The monster was ripped off the ground.
Yashin crossed the air like a rag doll, hurled across the entire length of the platform until he violently collided with the structures on the opposite side of Sector One.
The impact crushed the steel plates and sent a thick cloud of dust and rust into the air.
The smoke from the blow swirled, and the sound of heavy footsteps rang against the metal.
Tsukumo stepped onto the platform.
His hands were raw, white bone exposed between blood and torn flesh.
He walked forward until he stopped in front of me while I remained sprawled across the floor, practically dead, bleeding from more holes than I could count.
He didn't crouch.
He didn't extend a hand to pull me up, nor did he ask whether I would survive.
Tsukumo simply looked down at me, his face hardened, and spoke.
"Get up."
He flexed the fingers of his injured hand.
"Because now it's two against one."
A crooked, bloody smile pulled at my mouth.
I planted my hands against the floor and began to rise. My muscles trembled uncontrollably, weakness trying to shut my body down by force, but I planted my boots against the steel plate and refused to fall.
I dragged in a deep breath, ignoring the metallic taste in my throat, and changed the flow of energy within me.
The lines pulsing beneath my skin changed color, their previous glow swallowed by an incandescent, violent red.
The Fire Transformation.
Heat raced through my arm and down the sword's hilt, concentrating along the blade until the steel glowed like living embers.
I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw cracked, raised the weapon, and pressed the incandescent metal directly against the open wound in my chest.
The repulsive hiss of burning flesh filled the air, a muffled howl escaping my throat as the fire melted and fused the edges of the wound, cauterizing the flesh with brutal precision and forcing the bleeding to stop.
I ripped the blade away from my chest, gasping as smoke rose from my own body.
I took a step forward, stopping beside Tsukumo.
We were both a wreck.
Broken, bloodied, and beyond our limits.
But we were together again.