Sofia calmly raised her hands.
“Surrender.”
But her eyes — those two dark pits that had seen centuries, that had watched the birth and death of empires, that had always been calculating from behind the masks of Marie, the neighbor, the seer, the aunt —
A thin smile settled on her lips.
A smile that held neither warmth nor sincerity.
It said: “You see, I’m more dangerous even without a weapon.”
Her voice came.
Soft.
Melodious.
Like the whisper of wind through dried trees.
“Run?”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Dear John… I don’t run from something I asked for myself.”
She took one step forward.
Indifferent to John’s still-blazing sword.
Indifferent to the fire licking along the blade that had reduced the distance between them to a few centimeters.
“The organization thinks I’m its slave. They think they’ve chained me with that ridiculous contract of ours.”
Her eyes glinted.
A brief flash, like a mirror catching light from a distant angle.
But that light came from within.
“But you break chains, John… or you make a ladder out of them.”
Now she was so close she could feel the fire of the sword on her skin.
Her gaze went to the blade.
Lingered on it for a few seconds.
Then returned to John’s eyes.
“Lloyd… that boy… what is he to you? A customer?”
John didn’t answer.
But his hand on the sword’s hilt tightened a degree.
Sofia smiled.
This time a more genuine smile.
The smile of someone who is winning and knows she’s winning, but doesn’t need to prove it.
“I’m using him for my own purposes.”
A light mist coiled around her feet.
She still hadn’t drawn the whip.
Still hadn’t threatened anything.
She just stood there, talking.
“You’ve been cast out for ten years. I’ve been a prisoner for five thousand years.”
She took one step back.
The mist around her feet grew thicker.
“Let’s see which one of us has learned more about running away.”
And then — like smoke before the wind, like a memory that vanishes the moment you blink, she disappeared.
Her place was empty.
Only the light mist that had coiled around her feet lingered on the flagstones a few seconds longer, and then it too faded.
But her voice remained.
In the cold air of the temple, between the black, cracked pillars, beneath a ceiling upon which stone gods weighed heavy, her voice echoed and echoed and echoed to the far end of the hall and then returned, like an echo that refuses to die even after its source is gone:
“Tell Lloyd… Aunt Sofia will visit him.”
And then — silence.
John stood.
He hadn’t lowered his flaming sword, but the blade no longer blazed.
The fire had gone out, only the hot metal gleamed beneath the temple’s black light.
His gaze was on the spot where Sofia had stood.
Empty.
His gaze was on the spot where Ignaras stood.
No.
On the spot where Lloyd stood.
A body that no longer resembled Lloyd, but still bore his scars — the same scars he’d had on his knee since childhood, the same suture marks from a bicycle accident long ago.
John arranged the words in his mind.
Fast.
Cold.
Like a soldier surrounded, checking his ammunition:
“I still haven’t found a way to bring Lloyd back… those two specters weren’t enough.”
His gaze went to Ignaras’s hands.
To fingers that had once held a pencil for drawing comics.
That had once lifted graphic novels from the shop counter.
“I need to buy time.”
And suddenly — the fingers moved.
First once.
As if someone in sleep was touching something.
A second time.
As if someone was waking up and didn’t yet know where they were, moving their hand to see if they still existed.
The third time — a fist.
A clenched fist of fingers that had once belonged to Lloyd, now red and lava-like, with black, sharp-tipped nails.
John reacted.
He didn’t think, didn’t plan — just reacted.
Fire coiled around the blade again, this time wilder.
He aimed the blade directly at Ignaras’s chest, its tip just a few centimeters from the red skin.
Ignaras looked at the blade.
Then at the hand holding the blade.
Then into John’s eyes.
And he smiled.
Not a smile of joy.
Not a smile of pleasure.
A smile that showed only one thing: rage.
Pure rage.
A substance that had come from the depths of Hell and was now burning at the corners of his mouth.
It was visible in the creases of his skin, palpable in the heat that suddenly burst from his body.
And then — everything changed.
The threads caught fire.
Those same invisible threads Sofia had so carefully woven — around Ignaras’s joints, around his muscles, around his bones.
Threads made of fate, made of will, made of law.
They caught fire.
But it was no ordinary fire.
Flames of absolute black.
Not red, not orange, not blue — black.
So black it was as if darkness itself had decided to burn.
The threads melted one by one.
The sound of their melting — if it could be called a sound — was like a scream.
The scream of silk being torn.
The scream of something that was once alive and was now dying.
Their ash scattered through the cold air of the temple.
Settled on John’s shoulders.
On Valerius’s blond hair as he still watched from behind the pillar.
On the white faces of the agents collapsed on the ground.
John leaped back.
Not one step, not two steps — with a speed that ordinary eyes couldn’t follow, he put ten meters between himself and Ignaras.
He didn’t lower the sword, but he thrust his clenched fist forward.
He screamed in his mind — not with sound, with terror:
“He’s taking control of Lloyd’s body! There’s no more time to buy, no more time to play!”
And Ignaras — as if he had heard his words — spread his wings.
Wings that until now had been half-open, crumpled and bent.
Now they opened.
Fully.
From one eastern pillar to the other western pillar.
The black membrane between the long, slender bones was stretched so tight that the veins within were visible — veins that pulsed with every beat of his heart.
Veins through which not blood, but magma flowed.
With every small movement of the wings, space bent.
Pillars that had stood for a thousand years now bent — didn’t crack, bent.
Like reeds.
Like bone being crushed beneath the weight of a giant.
Stones from the ceiling began to fall.
One, two, ten.
Each with a sound that echoed through the temple, bringing with it dust and terror.
And the ground — the ground beneath Ignaras’s feet was no longer stone.
It was molten.
Red.
Hot.
Like the mouth of a volcano that had just awakened.
Ignaras fixed his gaze on John.
And calmly — with a deadly confidence, the confidence only possessed by beings who have watched worlds burn — he pointed his index finger at John.
There was no warning.
No light.
No preamble.
Just — an eruption.
From the tip of his finger, a pillar of black fire burst forth.
Wider than his own body, taller than the temple.
Fire that had no sound.
None at all.
No roar, no hiss, no scream.
And the fire reached the spot where John stood.
Explosion.
Not an ordinary explosion — an explosion in which things don’t shatter, they are erased.
Stone by stone, brick by brick, particle by particle — wiped from existence.
Where the wall had been, now there was nothing.
Where the ceiling had been, now there was sky.
A thick, boiling liquid that spread in all directions like a river of blood.
It bubbled.
It smoked.
It smelled of sulfur.
And it was so hot that the air above it rippled and the eye couldn’t see properly.
But the fire wasn’t only on the ground.
It went to the sky.
The pressure from the attack was so intense that the clouds — the thick, gray clouds of Chicago — split apart.
They were torn in two.
Not as if the wind had carried them away, but as if a colossal hand had drawn back a curtain.
And through the gap in the clouds, the uncovered sky appeared.
A dark sky in which the sun was lost.
A sky whose stars — in the middle of the day — were visible.
Cold.
Distant.
Indifferent.
The earth trembled.
Not a simple tremor — a tremor that started from the depths and rose upward, from the feet to the spine, from the spine to the skull.
A tremor that said: something that shouldn’t have awakened, has awakened.
John found himself about a hundred meters away.
On ground that was still stone — but not intact.
It had deep cracks, cracks that ran through its center with smoke seeping from between them.
He was on his knees.
His breaths fast and ragged.
Pain.
A sharp pain twisted from the ribs on his right side to his shoulder.
It wasn’t steady — it quickened and slowed with each breath, like a knife being slowly twisted in a wound.
Another pain from his left arm.
The forearm bone — it was cracked, if not broken.
He couldn’t quite tell.
He moved his fingers.
They moved, but with pain.
Too much pain.
In his mind, with breaths still ragged, he murmured:
“I was lucky… I dodged in time.”
He glanced at his body.
His simple clothes were burned.
The skin of his forearm — where the black fire had come within a single centimeter — was blackened.
Blistered.
It smelled of burned flesh.
“But my bones… at least two of them are broken.”
He clenched his teeth.
Placed his clenched fist on the ground.
He rose.
His knees were trembling, but he stood.
His face, from pain and rage, was twisted.
Not broken, not defeated — twisted.
Like a blade pulled from the fire, still hot and still cutting.
He picked up the sword.
The fire around the blade was out — it was gathering energy for a battle that had only just begun.
He lifted his gaze.
To the dark sky.
To the clouds that were still torn apart.
To the stars shining in the middle of the day.
And to Ignaras.
He floated in the sky.
His wings open, full, immense.
His twisted horns gleamed in the black light of the temple — which was no longer a temple, just a vast volcanic crater.
His red lava-like skin from a distance resembled a coal just pulled from the fire.
And his eyes — those two black voids — looked directly at John.
Without pupils.
Without irises.
Without anything.
But their pressure could be felt.
On the shoulders.
On the broken bones.
On the skull.
John placed his hand on his chest.
Right where his heart was beating fast.
Ignaras watched John.
Under his breath, in a voice only he could hear, he murmured:
“So… let’s see if you survive.”
To be continued…