Chapter 55: Snow Without a Trace
Outside the blast door, hope had finally appeared.
The gate was opening.
Yet at that very moment, that thin strip of widening light only made the despair on everyone's faces deepen.
"Ryan!"
Irene's scream tore through the corridor, raw and broken.
Kyle, his eyes bloodshot, seized her by the arm and dragged her backward toward the evacuation tunnel. "Do not look! Move!"
But before anyone could be forced away completely, the world changed again.
Boom!
The reinforced dome above the core chamber, a structure that had seemed indestructible even under bombardment, gave a groan like something alive being crushed from within. Then it caved in.
Steel, stone, and dust exploded outward.
Through the collapsing roof, a silver white figure ripped into the chamber like a comet.
The violent energy storm that had been spiraling toward total detonation was forcibly split apart, pushed back by a will so overbearing it felt less like magic and more like tyranny.
Elanis.
The Empire's Silver Radiance Sword had arrived after all.
For the first time, she looked nothing like the calm, untouchable legend people spoke of in hushed voices. Her silver trimmed robes were torn open in several places by high speed flight. Her hair was disheveled. A twisted force field churned around her body, distorting dust, light, and gravity itself.
Suspended in midair above the collapsing core, she slammed both hands downward.
Buzz!
A terrifying pressure flooded the chamber.
The unstable energy reactor, which had already begun its final flare, actually stuttered under that force. For one impossible instant, Elanis suppressed the detonation with nothing but her own power.
Then she reached out toward the blood covered figure below.
"Grab on!"
Her voice cracked for the first time.
As long as he took her hand, she could force a displacement, wrench him out of the blast zone, and abandon everything else.
Hodell looked up.
He stood in the center of the dying chamber, drenched in blood, framed by the white light of a reactor on the verge of consuming the entire block. He looked thin enough to be erased by the next gust of dust.
He looked at Elanis.
Then he looked past her, toward the retreat corridor where his former teammates were being dragged away by the emergency evacuation protocol.
Finally, he smiled.
It was a small smile. Almost apologetic.
There was no panic in it. No struggle. No pleading. Only clarity.
His lips moved soundlessly.
Do not come closer.
Elanis froze.
For a heartbeat, she simply could not understand him.
Survival was right there. One reach. One second. One choice.
Why was there no hunger to live in his eyes?
Then Hodell made his move.
Instead of reaching up, he stepped back.
With one smooth, merciless motion, he reversed his grip and drove his weapon straight into the primary energy conduit anchored beneath his feet, the main line feeding into the leyline system below the chamber.
Stab.
Elanis' pupils shrank to pinpoints.
"You are insane!"
The words had barely left her mouth when the entire world turned white.
Boom!
The last restraint broke.
The reactor devoured itself.
The ruptured conduit turned the buildup into total collapse. Energy did not merely explode, it folded in on itself and burst outward in a tide of annihilation. The impact smashed through the chamber like divine punishment.
Even Elanis, already in motion, was hurled backward by the blast.
Her senses were cut apart.
Her vision blurred.
In the final fragment of awareness before the light swallowed everything, she saw only one thing.
A lone figure disappearing into radiance.
Then the chamber, the ruin, and the night all shattered.
A few minutes later, the dust settled.
Where the core facility had once stood, there was now only a vast crater.
Silence spread across the ruins.
Elanis descended slowly to the edge of the blackened pit.
Her robes were scorched. One of her sleeves had been half burned away. Fine burns marked her palm from forcing open the path through the blast.
She stood there without moving.
No rage showed on her face.
No collapse.
Only stillness.
Wind pulled at her silver hair.
The memory from the stargazing platform returned with cruel clarity.
Then you might be disappointed.
It is always easy to die gloriously. Living is what is difficult.
Elanis lowered her eyes to the faint burn marks on her hand.
Her hand was empty.
Completely empty.
After a long time, she spoke, so softly the wind nearly stole the word before it existed.
"Liar."
Then she turned away.
Behind her, heavy snow began to fall.
It came down thick and cold, trying to bury the city's wounds under a clean white sheet. But that crater remained, black and enormous, like a scar cut into the planet itself.
On the other side of the ruins, the final isolation line opened.
Irene collapsed first.
"Ryan"
She could not even finish his name. She dropped to her knees in the snow and covered her face with both hands as sobs tore through her body.
Loyi stared numbly at the scanner in his hand. The result was still there, mercilessly unchanged.
No life signal.
Baron lost control.
"You bastard! You liar!" He slammed his fist against a nearby alloy wall again and again, uncaring when skin split and blood ran down his hand. "You said you were coming back!"
Sasha said nothing.
That frightened Kyle more than Irene's crying or Baron's fury.
She stood stiffly, staring at the crater as if trying to carve the shape of it into her bones. Her lips were bitten bloody, but she did not seem to feel it. Whatever had never been spoken would now remain buried here forever.
Only Kyle moved in the end.
His voice sounded like charcoal being crushed.
"Enough."
He stepped forward, the data disk Hodell had died to secure clenched so tightly in his hand that the casing cut into his palm.
Then, standing before the empty crater, Kyle straightened his back and gave the most standard Imperial military salute of his life.
The wind carried dust and snow over the ruins like an elegy.
No one interrupted him.
Far away, in Cloud Dream River, at the heart of the Empire, a different storm broke.
The circular assembly hall of the Imperial capital was packed to capacity.
Every seat that mattered was occupied.
The representatives of the General Administration of Mysteries and the Ministry of Magic sat in their usual positions, but the atmosphere between them was not one of rivalry tonight. It was fury.
The topic projected above the chamber was simple and lethal.
Investigation into the death in the line of duty of Oluson's special investigator Ryan.
The General Administration's representative rose first.
"Two months ago," he said, voice carrying to every corner of the hall, "that young man detected the enemy's plan before even the committee realized its own necks were already in the noose. He exposed a parasitic conspiracy inside the Empire itself."
"He was our rising star."
"He was a future council seat in the making."
"And how did he die?"
The representative's gaze cut toward the Supervisory Committee.
"He died because the Imperial envoy, Fernando, chose procedures over battle readiness, vanity over action, and political theater over the life of a strategic asset."
Murmurs broke out.
Then the Ministry of Magic's senior red robed archmage opened his eyes.
"The Ministry of Magic seconds this position."
The hall went silent again.
"According to Lady Elanis's firsthand report, Ryan possessed a rare high level spatial talent. He was not merely promising. He was irreplaceable."
The old mage's expression turned glacial.
"Because of one fool's arrogance, the Empire lost a future blade. We demand severe punishment."
At that point, the result was already decided.
Fernando had been sent to Oluson as an envoy of authority. Now he was more useful as a sacrifice.
By dawn, the vote was done.
All duties stripped.
Parliamentary immunity revoked.
Transferred to Internal Affairs Tribunal for severe punishment.
Back in Oluson, at the same military spaceport where he had once arrived cloaked in superiority, Fernando was dragged in shackles through falling snow.
The Director General stood waiting beside the boarding ramp.
Fernando struggled wildly, half frozen and half mad. "I followed wartime law! Activating the Trace of Truth was the highest priority! I acted according to the Council's will!"
The Director General listened.
Then he stepped forward and straightened Fernando's torn collar with slow, almost gentle hands.
"Do you still not understand?" he asked quietly.
Fernando stared at him, confused and desperate.
The Director General sighed.
"Whether Ryan was a hero was never the important part."
"What mattered was that the General Administration needed him to be one. The Ministry of Magic needed him to be one. The citizens needed him to be one."
He patted Fernando's stiff cheek.
"When everyone needs a hero, they also need a sinner."
"The Empire does not care whether you were right."
"In front of the strategic value of two major factions, your precious procedures are worthless."
Fernando went white.
Then the gendarmes shoved him toward the ship.
The Director General stepped back, put on his spotless glove again, and bowed slightly.
"The snow is heavy in Oluson, Excellency. Travel safely."
The hatch closed.
The ship rose.
It vanished into the storm.
Soon afterward, Oluson National Cemetery hosted a funeral grand enough to make history books.
A cenotaph of black stone stood at the center of the grounds, layered in snow and medals, marked with the twin insignias of the General Administration and the Ministry of Magic.
Ryan, Imperial Calendar 1024 to 1048.
Recipient of the Imperial First Class Violet Medal.
With keenness, he pierced the darkness. With talent, he dazzled time. With his body, he blocked the calamity.
Under black umbrellas, the Director General read the eulogy aloud with flawless emotion. His voice shook. Tears ran down his face. Every camera captured his grief.
The General Administration regained honor.
The Ministry of Magic gained a martyr.
Oluson washed its shame clean.
The public gained a hero to mourn.
Everyone took something from the death of one young man.
When the ceremony finally ended, the crowd dispersed and twilight sank over the cemetery.
A lone figure approached much later.
A clerk from Logistics, shoulders slightly hunched, a stack of folders tucked to her chest.
Lamia.
She stopped before the tombstone and looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching.
Only then did she straighten a little.
"I told you to be careful," she murmured.
There was regret in her voice, so faint it almost did not exist.
Then she took a small black bottle from her coat and opened it.
A few dark blue pills rolled out into the snow.
"You do not need to stay awake anymore, Eli."
She tucked a stamped death cancellation receipt into a crack in the tombstone, held the folders tighter to her chest, and bowed her head once.
"Goodbye."
Then she vanished back into the snow, once again becoming only an unremarkable clerk.
The wind rose.
The thin cancellation slip was pulled free by a swirl of snow and carried off into the alleys beyond the cemetery walls.
No one saw where it landed.
Sixty meters underground, in the deep sewage corridors of the Old Urban Area, the water stirred.
A pale hand shot out of the filth and seized the moss slick stone steps.
Hodell dragged himself out of the sewage like a ghost crawling back from hell.
He lay sprawled on the freezing stone, every breath a ragged scrape. Blood foam bubbled from the corner of his mouth. His clothes were torn to ruins. One side of his body was burned black in patches.
His panel was a wall of warnings.
Multiple fracture.
Internal bleeding.
Severe mana corrosion.
Life value critical.
Even after dumping all thirty four of his remaining free attribute points into Endurance before the blast, his health had still plunged below two hundred.
He should not have survived.
And yet he laughed.
It hurt so badly that his whole body twitched with every breath, but he laughed anyway.
Beside him sat a silver metal case he had hidden in advance, his true luggage, containing everything that mattered now. Potions. Magic crystals. Seized resources. Freedom.
The plan had worked.
Ryan had died beneath flowers, medals, speeches, and tears.
Hodell lived.
He fumbled out a high concentration healing potion and jammed it into the side of his neck without hesitation.
The cold liquid hit his bloodstream like ice and fire together. His body convulsed. A violent flush spread across his pale face as the medicine forced his ruined flesh into temporary function.
He sat up.
Then slowly, painfully, stood.
Mud, sewage, blood.
That was what remained of him.
But when he looked into the darkness ahead, his eyes were sharper than ever.
He picked up the silver case.
Then he glanced once toward the layers of earth and stone above his head.
"The snow up there must be beautiful."
A blood stained smile touched the corner of his mouth.
Then he turned and walked deeper into the underground corridor.
His boots splashed through the black water.
The sound grew fainter and fainter until it vanished.
In the world above, a hero had died.
Down here, in darkness no one would ever celebrate, a ghost had finally come to life.
.....
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