Jayden woke up in a white bed, his body wrapped in bandages.
He rose slowly, his gaze sweeping across the room.
A door stood ahead.
He opened it.
Two men were outside.
The one closest to him panicked—and struck him instantly.
Jayden collapsed, unconscious once more.
"What is wrong with you?! Why did you do that?" the other man snapped.
"I panicked… I didn't think he'd wake up that suddenly," the first replied.
A voice cut through the tension.
Isaeah.
"You idiots… we were lucky he survived the first time, and now you knock him out again? You're easily some of the most incompetent people I've ever seen."
Jayden woke again.
This time, awareness returned fully.
He sat up, rubbing his head.
"Where am I?" he asked.
Isaeah answered.
He was inside the house of a close acquaintance—brought there for emergency treatment. If they had arrived even a little later, Jayden would have died.
A flash of memory followed.
Isaeah running through devastation… discovering Jayden's lifeless body.
"Right… I remember now," Jayden muttered suddenly. "We need to move. Kyle, Kim, and Satsujin are in danger of death. They were right beside me—why didn't you bring them too?"
Isaeah's expression didn't change.
"There was no one else. You were the only one found."
Jayden froze.
That answer didn't sit right.
Something was missing.
As he tried to stand, Isaeah stopped him—and began to explain.
The world had changed during the months Jayden had been unconscious.
An organization had seized control.
Its declared objective: the complete extermination of all hybrids.
More than ten thousand hybrids were captured or killed every month.
Those who resisted were eliminated without hesitation.
Children were either subjected to experiments or imprisoned until adulthood—only to be executed legally afterward.
Jayden's expression darkened with rising fury.
It was the same organization that had captured him before.
The same force that had targeted Kim.
Isaeah continued.
They also hunted those with violet energy, believed to originate from the first corrupted human.
But even Blue Stylers were no longer safe. Their lineage was tied to that same origin.
Now, they were hunted even more aggressively than hybrids.
Jayden clenched his fists.
"So it's that corrupted Blue Styler's fault demons exist… but hybrids and Blue Stylers did nothing wrong."
A distorted image surfaced in his mind.
The first corrupted human.
Its face was inhuman—wrong in every possible way.
"This is a criminal organization…" Jayden began.
"Without proof, that claim holds no weight," a voice interrupted.
A man stood nearby, scratching his head lazily. He looked… out of place. Almost indifferent.
Isaeah exhaled.
"Right. This is his house. He's an old acquaintance. Same energy type as us."
The man raised a hand slightly.
"Hey."
Jayden blinked.
"Hey… but at least let me finish—"
"No."
The interruption was immediate.
"Say whatever you want. It won't change anything. They're powerful—possibly on the level of a head of state. It's like a hyena trying to prove a lion is evil. Pointless."
Jayden's frustration sharpened.
"Then what exactly are you going to do?"
The man finally met his gaze.
"Play it intelligently. Gather enough evidence, and victory becomes inevitable."
A pause.
Then, calmly:
"But understand this… one of us here is going to die."