Chapter 59: Back from the Dead! The Imperial Rising Star Who Shouldn't Exist!
The shadow behind the cooling tank shifted.
It was a tiny movement, almost swallowed by the steady industrial hum of the workshop, but Hodell caught it immediately. He turned his head, gaze sharpening, and saw a thin figure slowly uncurl from the gap between the pipes.
A child.
Hodell paused for a fraction of a second.
The boy looked no older than twelve or thirteen. His body was so thin that he seemed ready to snap in a strong wind. He was covered in black grime from the workshop's cooling system, his face waxy yellow from long term malnutrition, his lips cracked, his hands full of dark red scabs from frostbite and old wounds.
He slid down from the pipe with trembling limbs and dropped to his knees on the alloy floor.
"Don't kill me!" he blurted out, voice hoarse from fear and dust. "I'm useful, I really am!"
Hodell said nothing.
The boy raised his head in panic, then froze the moment he got a clear look at the man on the hydraulic throne.
He had seen plenty of killers in Shadow Valley. Drunk mercenaries. Wasteland scavengers. Black market butchers. Bagel's enforcers.
But the man before him felt different.
Clean.
Cold.
The sort of person who looked like he should be sitting above a city, not in the middle of a blood soaked machine workshop.
"I I'm just a pipe rat," the boy stammered. "Bagel thought machines were too clumsy for the narrow channels, so he had us crawl inside to clean the blockages by hand. Please don't throw me into the furnace. I don't eat much. I can work. I can clean the gear gaps. I can crawl into places adults can't"
Hodell looked him over once and confirmed it.
No energy fluctuations.
No hidden tricks.
Just an ordinary child clinging to life.
Without a word, he reached beside him, picked up two things, and tossed them across the workshop.
"Catch."
The boy nearly fumbled them in shock.
A bottle of synthetic water.
A compressed high energy biscuit.
He stared at the food in disbelief.
His fingers shook, but he did not immediately devour it. Instead, he first darted a careful glance at Hodell's hand resting at his side. It was a slender hand, steady and pale, without the thick calluses of someone who hacked people apart for a living. Yet for some reason, that hand terrified him more than Bagel's furnace ever had.
"Eat," Hodell said.
Only then did the boy lunge at the biscuit. He did not tear into it like a starving animal. His movements were oddly light, quick and controlled, like a squirrel terrified that someone would snatch the food away if he made too much noise.
"My name is Sparrow," he said between hurried bites, his eyes glinting with desperate survival instinct. "Sir, I can help. I know the pipes. I know the hidden cooling channels. I know where Bagel stored the backup valves. His men never cleaned them because they were too fat."
Hodell raised a brow.
The kid had brains.
The first thing he did after surviving was prove his value.
Not bad.
"In Shadow Valley," Hodell said lazily, settling deeper into the throne, "people without value die quietly. Since you understand that much, listen carefully. From now on, this workshop belongs to me."
Sparrow's body went stiff.
Hodell continued, tone casual.
"You know these pipes, so go below and clean out the blocked sections. Clear the scrap and broken debris. I don't need an assistant who starves to death after three steps. Understand?"
Sparrow's eyes reddened almost instantly.
"Yes, sir!"
He nodded so hard it looked as if his neck might snap.
Hodell waved him off.
The boy vanished into the lower workshop almost at once, clutching the half finished biscuit like treasure.
Hodell watched him go, then looked away.
Kindness was not what had saved the child.
Value had.
That was all.
Outside, the Magic Tide rolled across Shadow Valley in full force.
Purple red lightning split the sky again and again, each strike lighting up the wasteland in brief, violent flashes. The world beyond the workshop had become a sea of distorted energy. Wind screamed through broken structures. Metal groaned. The whole valley sounded like it was being slowly peeled open by invisible claws.
And beneath that storm, greedy men were gathering.
North District. A partially collapsed underground bar.
Its upper structure had already been sealed with alloy shutters to keep out the tide. Inside, the air was thick with smoke, cheap alcohol, and tension. One dim oil lamp hung over a round table, casting long, ugly shadows over the faces seated around it.
Eight people.
Each one was a known killer from the lower half of the Death List. Each one had survived Shadow Valley long enough to build a name.
Now they looked uneasy.
"Bagel died too fast."
The speaker was Iron Vulture, a gaunt man whose transplanted eagle eyes had turned his pupils into narrow, predatory slits. He tapped the table with one clawed finger, voice low and grim.
"My sensors around the workshop recorded less than a minute of real combat fluctuation. That means the bastard has a high burst kill method."
Across from him, Phantom Blade let out a sneer and used the thin edge of his willow leaf knife to trim a fingernail.
"You're scaring yourself. Bagel was a lump of steel. That guy probably blew all his energy in one trick. After that, he's got nothing left."
Iron Vulture looked at him like he was staring at livestock.
"Keep that stupidity to yourself. People who bet their lives on maybe in Shadow Valley don't live long."
Phantom Blade clicked his tongue but said nothing.
Iron Vulture spread a schematic of the workshop onto the table.
"Zola. You bring your insects and block the exhaust routes. Boros, you go in first and pressure him. Mole, watch the side exits. If the bastard is really crippled, we crush him. If not, we bleed him until the tide kills him."
The others exchanged glances.
The unknown frightened them more than any reputation.
A man who appeared from nowhere, wiped out the Crow Cult, then killed Bagel on his own turf, all without anyone understanding how?
That sort of existence put a shadow in every predator's heart.
One of the lower ranked hunters suddenly stood up.
"I'm out."
He pressed his hat lower over his eyes.
"Anyone who can kill Bagel in that workshop can kill me too. Not worth it."
Two others looked at one another and quietly rose as well.
Nobody mocked them.
In Shadow Valley, the people who lived longest were rarely the boldest. They were the ones best at smelling death early.
In the end, five remained.
Iron Vulture.
Phantom Blade.
Zola.
Boros.
Mole.
"Three cowards gone," Mole muttered, licking dry lips. "More to split for us."
"The real prize is the workshop," Boros said, draining a bottle in one pull. His heavy jaw clenched. "Bagel had tide resistant alloy frames down there. If we take those, the Magic Tide stops being a problem."
Iron Vulture crushed his glass in one hand.
"Move."
Back in the workshop, Hodell stood before a heavy forging press, fingers moving through the air with surgical precision.
Tiny strands of blue white current crackled at his fingertips, etching complex physical circuits across an alloy plate. He was already planning modifications. Bagel's workshop had materials worth keeping, but raw equipment was still raw equipment. If he wanted gear that suited his methods, he would have to rebuild it himself.
He needed mobility.
Concealment.
Burst lethality.
And armor that would not betray his fighting logic.
"Sir," Sparrow said from below, voice small but eager. "I found a sealed box of pure lubricant. I moved it to the bench."
Hodell answered with a soft hum.
The boy had washed himself. He still looked skinny enough to be folded in half, but now that the grime was gone, he moved with the quick, precise reflexes of someone long used to surviving in tight spaces.
"Go rest," Hodell said. "When the tide weakens, I'll have work for you."
Sparrow nodded hard.
"Yes, sir!"
Then Hodell's expression changed.
Something was wrong.
Outside.
A faint metallic scraping sound had begun running across the workshop's outer wall. Slow. Controlled. Multiple sources.
Sparrow noticed the shift in his face and immediately shrank back, hand closing around an old wrench.
"Sir?"
"A few rats crawled in."
Hodell's voice was flat.
He did not even turn his head as his perception spread across the structure. Five life signatures. Different heights. Different heartbeats. One pressing low to the ground. One on the upper angle. One holding back.
He pointed toward the inner machine cluster.
"Hide in the cavity behind centrifugal pump number two. Don't come out unless I tell you."
Sparrow did not ask twice.
He vanished into the pipes.
Hodell casually picked up a short blade from the workbench. It was still warm from recent forging.
Then the pressure hatch at the front of the workshop blew inward.
Boom!
The sealed door twisted like torn paper as a wave of violent outside energy flooded the room. Five figures entered through the opening and instantly spread out, each taking a pre chosen angle.
They had done this before.
The leader was a huge man with shoulders like a wall.
Boros.
"Hah. Looks like our mysterious expert is busy playing mechanic," he said with a nasty grin.
Above him, Iron Vulture stood on a high beam, six portable magic guided missiles already fanned open from the rig on his back. Each launcher locked onto a different section of the workshop, covering Hodell's movement space.
Phantom Blade drifted sideways like a thin ghost, knife resting lightly between his fingers.
"Well? No running?" he said with a cruel laugh. "Did Bagel take that much out of you?"
In their eyes, Hodell was exactly what they had hoped for.
Unarmed.
Stationary.
Energy fluctuations low.
Perfect.
Boros slammed both hands downward.
The alloy floor beneath Hodell warped instantly, turning into a distorted, sinking quagmire of compressed force.
At the same time, Zola flicked both sleeves. Hundreds of green lit venom insects poured out in a wave, streaking toward Hodell's back like toxic needles.
Hodell responded exactly the way they expected.
His fingers trembled.
A ring of pale frost burst outward in haste. It hit Boros's gravity field and cracked with a strained sound. The defense was sloppy. Underpowered.
That single moment made all five of them relax.
"So that's all?" Phantom Blade laughed and exploded forward in a blur, willow leaf blade screaming toward Hodell's throat.
He was already imagining the spray of blood.
A wounded expert. Drained after killing Bagel. Forced to rely on bluffing.
Too easy.
Then, one second before the blade touched skin, Hodell looked up.
And smiled.
No warning.
No buildup.
He vanished.
Phantom Blade's strike cut empty air.
His pupils shrank.
Before he could correct himself, his forward rush carried him straight through Zola's expanding insect cloud. Poison bugs burst against his neck and face. He let out an enraged, startled howl.
"He's above!" Iron Vulture roared.
But too late.
Hodell had already appeared behind Zola.
[Painful Shriek]
The invisible mental blast hit at point blank range.
Zola's body convulsed as if struck by a high voltage spear. Blood sprayed from her ears. The poison master's eyes rolled white.
Hodell's short blade swept once.
A red line flashed across her throat.
She dropped before her knees had fully buckled.
In the same breath, Hodell caught the corrosive vial hanging from her waist, disappeared again, and reappeared beside Mole.
The man had just started moving when Hodell slammed the vial directly into the filter intake of his breathing mask.
"No!"
Mole ripped at the mask, but the corrosive mist had already gone in. His scream tore through the workshop as he collapsed to the floor clawing at his own face.
Iron Vulture's voice cracked.
"He's using our positions!"
For the first time, real fear entered the room.
In less than half a minute, two Death List hunters were down.
And the man they had surrounded was not fighting like some half spent desperado.
He was dissecting them.
"Who the hell are you?!" Iron Vulture shouted, backing higher into the steel frame.
He opened fire.
Energy beams lanced through the workshop from six angles at once.
Hodell vanished each time just before the shots landed, his body reappearing elsewhere with eerie precision. He moved through the room like a ghost who had memorized every corner of the afterlife.
"This is impossible!" Phantom Blade spat, eyes shaking. "That isn't speed that's-"
Then his face changed.
The rumors. The reports. The death. The impossible survival rate. The space type monster from the Empire.
A name burst into his mind like lightning.
His voice turned thin.
"You- you're Ryan?"
Everything froze for a moment.
"The Imperial rising star who died in Oluson" Iron Vulture blurted, face draining white. "That's impossible!"
Boros's heavy shield arm trembled.
Hodell did not deny it.
He looked at them with a faint curve at the corner of his mouth, cold and utterly unreadable.
That was enough.
The greed in Phantom Blade's heart shattered completely and became pure survival instinct.
"Run!" Iron Vulture screamed. "Move!"
Painful Shriek erupted again.
The mental wave rolled across the workshop like an invisible tidal wall.
Iron Vulture lost control mid flight and slammed hard into a support frame. Boros staggered and dropped to one knee, eyes unfocused. Phantom Blade clutched his head with both hands, shrieking.
Hodell extended one hand.
A blue white energy sphere flew into the middle of the room and burst.
Not into flame.
Into mist.
A dense layer of ultra fine water vapor spread across the entire workshop in an instant.
Then the electricity came.
The lightning that had previously been little more than a disguise now turned viciously real.
Within the water saturated air, current spread through every direction at once, turning the entire enclosed workshop into a sealed superconductive kill zone.
Zzzzt!
The power grid lit the room from floor to ceiling.
Bodies spasmed.
Armor shorted.
Weapons blew apart.
Phantom Blade tried to flee in a wind burst, but the moment he moved the current bit into him from every angle. He screamed once and dropped like cut meat.
Boros's proud shield collapsed under the electric load, its structure unraveling as his huge body convulsed in place.
Iron Vulture's missile pack detonated internally in a burst of sparks. Hodell stepped through the storm, flashed behind him, and with one smooth sweep of the blade cut through the scorched wing assembly on his back. Current flooded through the wound and into the man's nervous system. Iron Vulture stiffened in midair, then crashed down smoking.
Five Death List hunters.
Erased.
The smell in the workshop changed.
Fresh metal.
Ozone.
The strange, clean scent that came after air had been brutally torn apart by electricity.
Hodell let out a breath and looked around.
Then his expression changed slightly.
"Oh no."
He turned toward the machine cluster.
"Sparrow!"
.....
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