The wind stirred up warm, gray ash.
The South Arena was nothing more than a graveyard of concrete and twisted metal.
The Suppurations had been eradicated.
The corrupted corpses were finishing dissipating into smoke, pulverized by the coordination of Director Nazari and the Captains.
In the safe zone, the extraction teams were evacuating the last of the students.
The air was finally returning, stinging lungs that had grown used to its scarcity.
In the center of the rubble, Captain Thiago Vane stepped forward.
His boots crushed the shattered glass.
Behind him, Jin Arashi walked with that unbearable lightness.
Between them, David Vang moved with difficulty, hampered by heavy amber chains radiating a golden glow, compressing his wrists and torso.
Mazen Nazari turned toward them, his hands crossed behind his back.
“Director Nazari,” Thiago began, his deep voice cutting through the wind’s breath.
“If you don’t mind, the Investigation Commission will take the initiative in interrogating him.
The complex must be evacuated.” “CRACK!” A sharp sound, akin to an underwater detonation, vibrated through the air.
Thiago’s chains had just shattered.
The links of pure Spirit burst into a rain of golden fragments.
Thiago didn’t flinch.
His gray gaze slid immediately to Jin.
The young noble kept his hands in his pockets, but the atmospheric pressure around Vang had just undergone a localized variation of extreme violence, shearing through Thiago’s constraint.
Kei Aris stepped forward, his shadow thickening on the tarmac, threatening to spread.
“Tell me what game you’re actually playing, Jin?” Jin ignored the darkness creeping toward his boots.
“My dear Captain, do not forget that the Patriarch of my clan sent me for this precise reason.
It is a matter of the Arashi authority to decide the fate of this traitor.” Vang let out a grunt.
He spat out a clot of dark blood, sagging slightly onto his bruised knees.
“Let him go, Jin,” Thiago ordered.
The temperature dropped a notch.
The amber fragments on the ground began to vibrate, ready to reform.
“You are not in a position to negotiate, Captain.” Jin tilted his head to the side, his eyes shining with icy determination.
“I warned you of my intentions.
The Patriarch’s orders take precedence.
I am carrying them out, it’s as simple as that.” Mazen Nazari intervened.
Space around the Director condensed slightly.
“Jin.
As the Director of this Academy, I cannot grant the Arashi clan’s request.
This man is part of my personnel.” “Director, you have no ownership rights over him.” Jin brushed away the argument with a wave of his hand.
Arrogance dripped from every word he spoke.
“Furthermore, you have never been disappointed by the quality of our clan’s intelligence.
Look at the situation.
Twice, the Academy has suffered attacks during its Seminars.
An artifact stolen by a renegade Captain.
A traitor in your own ranks.
That makes quite a nice array of news for the press.
But…
we can always discuss it.” A firearm click echoed.
Kei had just aimed his military handgun directly at the young noble’s forehead.
The matte barrel didn’t tremble by a millimeter.
“Hey, kid, you’re going a bit too far,” Kei warned.
“If the Arashi clan Patriarch has a problem with the Commission, let him come talk for himself.
In the meantime, you’re going to put him right back down, before I have my darkness devour you.” Kei’s shadow was already climbing Jin’s ankles, lowering the temperature of his skin to a critical level.
“Whoa…
easy there, Captain,” Jin muttered, maintaining his amused expression despite the cold biting at his nerves.
Ornella intervened.
Her brown hair floated, lifted by the radiant heat emanating from her body.
“Alright.
How about we resolve this situation peacefully?
We already have enough problems for today.” A coarse, mocking laugh interrupted the negotiation.
All gazes converged on David Vang.
The old professor raised his head.
His eyes were bloodshot, but filled with pure contempt.
“You guys are making me laugh.” Vang breathed in gasps.
“I will never give what I know to pathetic aristocrats like you.
Not a single one of you is any better than the rest.
That’s precisely why your organizations never align.
Look at yourselves.
The Arashi clan acting out of pure caprice…
A bunch of lowlifes.” Jin’s jaw clenched.
Amusement vanished from his clear eyes.
“You surely want me to liquidate you right here?” “If it pleases you, do it.” Vang closed his eyes.
“Listening to you debate your petty privileges is sheer torture for me.” Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted.
A dull, irregular pulsation vibrated in the ears of those present.
An electric, almost sickly violet glow ignited beneath the torn fabric of Vang’s shirt.
It beat to the rhythm of his heart.
Ornella narrowed her eyes, her thermal vision instantly detecting danger.
“Hey!
Fall back!” “What’s happening?” Kei grunted, holstering his weapon to take a step back.
Vang collapsed onto his back.
His hands clenched against his own chest.
His vocal cords tore in a scream of pure agony.
“ARGH!
MY BODY…
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME!
AAAAAHH, MY HEAD!
IT HURTS!” Jin took a step back.
“He’s agonizing, I don’t understand…” Thiago didn’t waste a millisecond.
“Domain Authority!” Captain Vane’s mind shifted.
Reality became a geometric mesh.
He scanned the veteran’s ribcage.
Data flooded into his cortex with chilling precision.
He perceived unstable flows of heavy metals circulating through Vang’s venous network.
At the center of his sternum, a foreign core emitted a mechanical clicking, a frictional counter ticking at every tempo.
The thermal mass was increasing exponentially.
Understanding hit Thiago.
They hadn’t left him alive by mistake.
Morgen had trapped him.
They were willing to go this far to silence him.
“GET OUT OF HERE!” Thiago roared, deploying a massive amber shield in front of Nazari.
“His body is going to explode!
It’s a bom…” The word didn’t have time to cross his lips.
Vang’s body collapsed.
The violet core melted down.
Time seemed to stop for the veteran.
A single thought, laden with despair, crossed his mind as his own cells disintegrated from within.
No?!
But why!
Morgen!
Why did you do this!
The blast swept across the area.
It was a release of pure energy, a dome of violet force that vaporized concrete within a thirty-meter radius.
The thermal blast slammed into Thiago’s shields and Jin’s barometric guard, hurling the Captains backward amidst a deafening roar.
Five hundred meters away, near the evacuation gates, the ground heaved.
The shockwave struck the students in the back.
Kais Trabelsi had to plant his feet into the tarmac to avoid being knocked over by the displacement of air.
He raised his arms, shielding his face from the rising dust.
“What the hell is this?!” Kais spat out, his ears ringing.
Leila Amrani pointed toward the ruins of Sector West.
A thick mushroom cloud of violet smoke was rising into the gray sky.
“The Captains and the Director!
They stayed over there!” A little further away, Goman Arashi wiped the soot from his cheek.
His eyes fixed on the column of smoke.
He already understood the political implications of such an explosion.
Damn it…
That bastard Jin is over there.
Issa Kaneshiro didn’t wait, his gaze sweeping the horizon.
“Come on!
We have to go check.” What the hell is this?!
An attack by Morgen?!
Far from the Academy, night enshrouded an abandoned warehouse in the peripheral industrial zone.
Rain fell heavily on the sheet-metal roof, drowning out the sound of conversation.
The room smelled of rust, mechanical grease, and cold tobacco.
Three silhouettes took shape around a worn metal table, barely illuminated by a flickering neon light.
One of them, a buzz-cut blond man, wore a simple grease-stained tank top.
The musculature of his arms was abnormally dense.
Nida.
He was slumped in a folding chair, his heavy boots crossed on the table.
“Tsk,” Nida grunted, spitting out a nail he had been chewing on.
“That bastard Morgen is taking his time.
His little secret meetings are getting boring.
If he thinks I’m going to hang around here all night…” To his right, a tall silhouette leaned against a support pillar.
Zekken.
His dark hair went every which way, half-masking a long vertical scar that split his face.
His eyes shone with a deeply unhealthy gleam.
He twirled a scalpel between his slender fingers.
“For once you’re not wrong, muscle-head,” Zekken muttered, his voice laden with grating irony.
“I would have much preferred to stay at the lab.
To dissect and closely observe the organs of the Suppurations we recovered.
Studying their corpses would have been far more useful than wasting my time here.” Zekken stopped playing with his blade.
His gaze drifted toward the third person present in the room, sitting in the shadows, completely motionless.
“And besides,” Zekken added, pointing his scalpel toward the mute silhouette, “the other one doesn’t utter a word.
The atmosphere is cruelly boring.” The rain continued to batter the sheet metal.