The wind blew heavily across the crimson plains.
The forest was coming alive again, though it was still wrong. The trees pulsed with that strange internal light, their bark glowing faintly, dimming and brightening like a slow heartbeat. The sky was a flame of auroras, purple and blue and red, churning like a dying heart.
Gina lay on the ground, her chest rising and falling. She could feel the soft hum of energy moving within the roots beneath her. It was warm and almost alive, seeping into her wounds, knitting flesh back together, mending broken bones. Her biogenes were working, and her body was healing.
But her mind was still trapped in that moment. The being. The blood moon. The nine tails stretching across the sky. She couldn't escape it.
A touch on her leg made her jerk. Her eyes flew open and she sat up fast, panting, her hand reaching for a weapon that wasn't there.
Connie staggered beside her, trying to stand. His armor was cracked, his face pale, and blood still seeped from a wound on his shoulder. He was the only survivor.
"Gina, are you okay?" His voice was hoarse and broken, barely above a whisper.
She looked around and her heart sank. Bodies everywhere. Her gangsmen. Her friends. All dead. Their faces frozen in terror, their limbs twisted at wrong angles, their blood soaking into the soil. She couldn't believe it. Couldn't process it. They were just alive, just fighting, just—
She rose slowly, her legs trembling beneath her. She walked to the nearest body—one of her gang members, his eyes still wide open, staring at nothing. His name was Rik. He had a wife. He had a daughter. He was supposed to go home after this.
Gina knelt down. Her hand trembled as she reached out and gently closed his eyes. She whispered something under her breath. Then she stood, her jaw tight, and turned away.
"There was nothing we could do," Connie said, his voice flat and empty. "We were outmatched from the start."
Gina didn't respond. Her eyes swept the battlefield and stopped on a huge skeleton lying in the distance. White and clean, picked clean of flesh.
"Wait," she said, her voice sharp. "That's the boss's skeleton."
Connie turned and his eyes widened. "Wh-what happened to it? Did you kill it?"
Gina shook her head slowly, her throat tightening. And then the memory came flooding back. The being. The blood moon. The faceless thing with nine tails. The way it had looked at her. The way the wind had stopped. The way fear itself had hesitated.
"That thing," she whispered.
She fell to her knees, her fingers digging into the soil, her whole body trembling.
Connie stared at her, confused and worried. "Gina, what are you talking about? What thing?"
She didn't answer. The wind blew, and she couldn't stop shaking.
Mid-Spires — Kael's Room
The room was dark. Kael sat on the edge of his bed, his head lowered, his hands clasped together. His brown skin was pale and his eyes were tired, with dark circles carved beneath them.
He hadn't slept. The memories wouldn't let him.
Mara's face. Her small body lying on the ground, surrounded by flames. The fire crackling around her. Her eyes staring at nothing. But he couldn't see her clearly. The memory was always blurry, always just out of reach.
He pulled his hair tight. "What is this?" he whispered, his voice raw and hoarse. "What is going on?"
He rose from the bed, his legs heavy and unsteady. He walked to the desk below the mirror and placed his hands on the cold metal surface. Then slowly, he raised his head.
His reflection stared back. Cracks of jagged black lines had appeared across his neck. They looked like veins made of shadow, spreading beneath his skin, branching out like roots. His eyes were black—not dark, but black like oil, like void. Smoke rose from them.
"What the hell—" he started, but he couldn't move. The black lines spread across his hands, gripping the desk tightly. His veins blackened and swelled. His neck surged upward, the lines climbing his jaw, reaching toward his eyes. He felt like he was being strangled, like something was squeezing his throat from the inside.
"Crucify," he moaned. "What are you up to?"
The room began to spin, slowly at first and then faster. The walls tilted, the ceiling twisted, and the mirror cracked, long fissures spiderwebbing across its surface. Then it shattered, and shards of glass rained down.
Blood spewed from Kael's mouth, and his body went limp.
Then there was silence.
The Void
He opened his eyes and found himself standing on an endless sea of black. No sky, no ground, just darkness stretching in every direction. Kael looked around. There was nothing—no horizon, no landmarks, just infinite void.
And then he noticed it. The void was moving. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the darkness was shifting. Rippling. Like the surface of a still pond disturbed by something deep beneath. It pulsed, trembled, breathed.
A low giggle echoed from behind him.
He spun around. A child stood there, wearing a black hoodie, its face a void where eyes should be. The same child from the vision. The same one from the cross.
"You," Kael said, his voice tight. "You. I've seen you before."
He stepped backward, but the child leapt forward with impossible speed, diving in front of him. "Woohoo! Yay, dude!" The voice was high and playful, but wrong. "I'm Crucify! But that's not why I called you."
The child jumped, wrapping its arms around Kael's neck. Its breath was cold as it whispered into his ear. "I'm kind of tired of just sitting around, chatting with you. Because you're getting boring nowadays."
Kael's body went rigid.
"I thought you were the type that goes out with the ladies, does all sorts of things," the child continued, pulling back and floating in the air. "And fights with the gangsters. But I guess you're too paranoid. The only thing you know how to do is manipulate."
"What do you want?" Kael cut in, his voice sharp and hard.
The child paused, its head tilting, its void-eyes staring at him. "Sure. You do have some guts."
It floated closer, its voice dropping to something almost serious. "Okay. Anytime you want to fight powerful people—really powerful people. Not just the ones who scream loud when they aren't. The ones who can actually kill you."
It paused, its void-eyes locking onto Kael's. "Call me. And I'll take over. Just say one word."
It smiled.
"Smile"
Snap.
Kael's eyes opened. He was back in his room, his body slumped on the floor, his chest heaving, his heart pounding. The mirror lay shattered around him, shards of glass scattered across the metal floor. His reflection stared back from the broken pieces, fractured and wrong.
He rose slowly, his legs shaking. "Smile," he muttered. The word hung in the air like smoke.
He stared at the broken glass, and for the first time in a long time, Kael felt something he couldn't name. Something between fear and hunger. Something that felt like the beginning of the end
End of Chapter Twenty-Six.