The ceiling ruptured.

Not with fire. Not with sound.

With gold.

Chloe's breath caught – and then vanished – as thousands of golden spears manifested midair. They didn't fall. They descended, in perfect silence, like judgment rendered from an invisible ledger. Each one was elegant. Impossibly sharp. Impossibly exact.

She moved.

Her body flickered as she phased right – narrowly avoiding the first impact. A spear drove through the floor where her heart had been a second earlier, splintering steel like parchment.

More came.

She didn't run. She wove.

Phasing between strikes. Rolling low beneath one. Vaulting over another.

Her mind screamed for calm, but her soul was silent – focused. This was her battlefield now. She had survived The Mirror. Killed it. Shattered it. She had stood in the eye of her worst fears and walked out with a weapon of her own making.

And now?

Now her best friend was asleep in a pod behind her, and Chloe was the last line between that and annihilation.

Liz.

The thought hit harder than the spears.

The paper crane Jack folded. The secrets they whispered behind hospital curtains. The way Liz smiled when Chloe made fun of her textbooks. The way she never once made Chloe feel less than.

Liz had always held her together.

Now it was her turn.

She ghosted again – sliding through a barrage that shredded a row of consoles to her left. The shockwave knocked her off balance, but she tucked and rolled, her body flickering between solid and not.

She landed hard, knees cracking against scorched tile. The scent of burning gold was in the air now. Bitter. Wrong.

Up ahead, she saw it—

The pod.

Still glowing. Still intact.

But the spears were closing in.

Orbiting it like scavengers.

"No," Chloe whispered.

She drew Tensō in sword form, its edge gleaming with residual grey light. It hummed in her grip like a live wire – matching her pulse.

Another spear dropped from above – so close it scorched the edge of her jacket.

They're learning.

They're learning how to hit me even when I phase.

But she didn't falter.

She blinked again – flickering forward in a flash of movement and soul.

She landed hard at the base of Liz's pod.

Turned.

Raised her blade.

And screamed.

"YOU DON'T GET TO TOUCH HER!"

A spear slammed down where her feet had been – and met nothing.

She was already gone.

Ghosting through gold and death.

A girl wrapped in phase-light, standing between a god and her best friend.

…………………

Alyssa saw the spears before she saw Chloe.

Gold. Endless. Raining from a broken sky like heaven had declared war on the guilty.

And Chloe – her Chloe – was in the middle of it.

Flickering between deathblows. Barely dodging. Her phase-light stuttered with every dodge. Even ghosts could get tired.

No.

Alyssa's gauntlets flared – blood-black steel laced with spiked runes. Ferron's work. Etched with warding glyphs, reinforced with soulsteel. They weren't pretty. They weren't ceremonial.

They were meant to kill gods.

Her fingers clenched.

I wasn't fast enough for The Mirror. Chloe had to save everyone. Again.

The thought tore through her like shrapnel.

No more hiding behind cleverness. No more second place.

She took a breath – and collapsed inward.

Her density surged. The air around her rippled. She dropped into a crouch as the weight in her bones multiplied, again and again, until her muscles strained against her skin just to stay standing.

The ground cracked beneath her.

Gravity curled around her like a second skin – compressing. Pressurizing. Becoming.

Her boots smashed the floor with her next step.

The spears bent away from her.

And Alyssa Blackthorn – 16, stubborn, furious – launched herself into the storm.

She didn't leap.

She fell sideways at supersonic speed – flung like a cannonball wrapped in thunder. Her shoulder hit Mammon mid-stride with the power of a mountain.

The impact was a singularity.

Stone ruptured. Air ignited. A crater bloomed beneath them as if the floor had been trying to escape her momentum. Mammon's body folded under the blow – his ribs cracked, his pristine robes torn. Gold blood sprayed, catching the light like shattered wealth.

Alyssa landed hard, the gauntlets singing with contact. One spike had pierced cloth. Maybe flesh.

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She didn't celebrate.

She backed away fast.

Because his touch—

Meant death.

Her aura vibrated like a struck bell as she disengaged, knees grinding with residual force. Her chest burned from the impact. But she was still moving.

Still here.

Her fists rose. No quips. No jokes.

Just war.

Across from her, Mammon unfolded from the wreckage. Slowly. His robe was torn. His chest seeping radiant gold.

But his face—

Unchanged.

Not pained. Not angry.

Just re-evaluating.

"Impressive," he said softly.

He raised one hand – and vanished into light.

Alyssa's eyes widened.

"No—!"

A flicker behind the pod.

Chloe turned too slow.

Mammon reappeared at Liz's back, already reaching forward.

The hunt wasn't over.

And the debt had not yet been collected.

…………………

The floor gave way with a sound like a snapping spine.

One moment Chloe stood braced near Liz's pod, blade humming, eyes locked on Mammon. The next – the entire level collapsed.

Alyssa's impact had cracked the vault open like an egg. Soulsteel buckled. Support beams groaned. Slabs of floor dropped into open air. Golden vines erupted from the exposed strata, curling up through the cracks like hungry veins, gilding everything they touched.

And Chloe ran straight into the fall.

No hesitation.

She phased – just as a jagged plate of flooring she'd been standing on tumbled into the golden dark.

Her body flickered through solid matter. For a breathless second, she was suspended inside a collapsed corridor, floating through rebar and fractured consoles. Her skin hummed with distortion. Her heart jackhammered.

She ghosted again.

Through a ceiling. Out a wall.

Where is the pod—?

A glint of red.

She saw it – below her. Falling.

The impact had dislodged it. Liz's containment pod was sliding down a slope of collapsing debris toward a nest of golden spears forming midair like a spiderweb of wealth and death.

No.

Chloe surged downward – phased once – landed hard.

Her feet touched ground just as three spears hurtled toward the pod like currency-coloured missiles.

She moved.

Tensō flared in her grip – blade elongating mid-swing into a sleek, barbed spear.

She spun.

One slash – shatter. A golden spear cracked in two.

Pivot – stab. Second spear deflected mid-flight.

Whip turn – slice. Third spear burst apart in a shimmer of molten currency.

The pieces evaporated before they hit the floor.

Her hands shook.

The spear retracted into its short form. Her boots slid on scorched metal. She threw herself in front of the pod, shoulder braced, breath heaving.

Then the world collapsed inward.

Not physically.

Metaphysically.

A pulse of pressure exploded from Mammon – silent, invisible, but catastrophic. Like a banker's sigh collapsing a market.

It hit her soul before her skin.

It didn't hurt.

It evaluated.

Chloe dropped to one knee, gasping. Her phase ability stuttered like a dying bulb. Her limbs wanted to move, but her self was being weighed, indexed, priced.

He's not trying to kill me, she realized.

He could have.

But he hadn't.

He was… measuring her.

Her past. Her potential. Her price.

The understanding made her stomach twist.

Mammon didn't fight like a demon.

He fought like a system.

A force that didn't care whether she lived or died – only what she was worth.

The pod skidded again, cracking against a steel pylon. The outer shell spiderwebbed.

Chloe reached out instinctively – pressing a palm to the cracked surface.

"Liz," she whispered.

A flicker of red answered from within.

And then – a brush.

A whisper of silk across her face.

She turned.

Too late.

A single golden thread had drifted in the air – just one.

It kissed her cheek.

The skin sizzled.

A white-hot streak of pain lanced through her head like a branding iron. Her body jerked. She tried to phase – skipped. Half in, half out. The floor tore at her boots. Her vision blurred. She fell to her knees.

Mammon didn't move.

He didn't need to.

He was already winning.

…………………

Chloe fell.

Alyssa saw it in the corner of her eye – her twin sister twisting in midair, phase-flickering with sparks at her feet, then dropping hard beside Liz's pod. A streak of gold burned across her cheek.

A golden thread. A single damn thread had done that.

Alyssa's knuckles cracked.

Something inside her snapped.

No more dodging.

No more backup.

She would be the wall.

She surged forward, gravity folding inward.

Her body condensed – tripled in density. The floor beneath her buckled beneath the sudden weight. With every step, the vault shuddered – like the world had just remembered what mass really meant.

She wasn't fast.

She didn't need to be.

She was unstoppable.

Mammon turned to face her.

Even that smug bastard seemed to pause for half a second – his gold-lined robes fluttering from the shockwaves her steps created. The air around her warped, light bending around the pressure.

She charged.

Three steps – the remains of soulsteel floor cracked underfoot.

Four steps—the tiles behind her split apart, dust lifting.

On the fifth, she launched herself forward with the full force of a planet's core behind her.

Her gauntlets – Ferron's forgework, blackened steel etched with spiked runes—glowed red. Not with fire.

With mass.

She raised one arm, twisted mid-air, and slammed her right fist down with everything she had.

The impact detonated like a localized earthquake.

Mammon didn't dodge.

He disappeared through the floor.

Soulsteel exploded downward in a thunderclap of pulverized metal and economic judgment.

He smashed through one floor.

Then another.

And another.

Alyssa landed in the crater – knees bent, steam rising from her gauntlets, hair whipping behind her like the tails of a comet.

The silence afterward was total.

Even the golden veins stilled. Even the spears above shimmered as if unsure.

Did I do it?

She panted, knuckles bleeding inside her gloves. Chloe was still breathing – she could see her rising slowly, eyes wide. Behind her, Dan was cradling Victor, who was slowly pulling himself upright.

Max – he was still down.

Alyssa gritted her teeth.

You're not allowed to die, dumbass.

She turned toward the hole she'd punched.

It began to glow.

Not with hellfire.

With refinement.

Mammon rose.

From the hole.

Pristine.

Untouched.

His robe no longer torn. His mask no longer cracked. His posture perfect. A ledger rebalanced.

Only his eyes betrayed him.

The faintest twitch.

Just under the left one.

As if he hadn't expected to be touched.

As if, for a moment, he'd lost value.

He straightened.

And spoke softly.

"A minor audit. Reconciled."

Above, the golden spears began to rotate.

Around Liz's pod.

Not striking. Not firing.

Orbiting.

A slow, deliberate spiral – each blade angling like the hand of a celestial clock.

Counting down.

Alyssa's stomach dropped.

He wasn't going to destroy Liz.

He was about to extract her.

And this time, no one would stop him in time.

…………………

The smoke hadn't cleared.

But Chloe phased through it anyway – her form flickering like a dying filament. She stumbled as she emerged, one knee hitting cracked tile, teeth clenched against the burn in her chest.

Her phasing was done. Her body wasn't light anymore.

She was weight. Exhausted. Flesh.

But she found Alyssa, still kneeling beside the crater she'd punched through the floor. The ground still shimmered beneath her boots – gravity rippling outward like echoes in warped glass.

Chloe dropped beside her. "We're not finished."

Alyssa spat blood into the dust. "We're not winning either."

They helped each other stand.

Across the broken battlefield, Dan limped toward them – his golden aura flickering, ragged. His left arm gleamed with hardened ore, fingers barely moving. Behind him, Victor hauled himself upright, one claw gouging a trail in the floor for balance. He wasn't healed. He was functioning.

And that was enough.

Together, the four of them moved toward the pod – toward Liz.

They didn't speak.

No one needed to.

They formed a circle around it – bodies shielded outward, souls raw. Chloe stood closest to the glass, blade low. Alyssa beside her, gauntlets still spiked and humming. Dan, cradled his fractured arm, aura coiled like a dying sun. Victor, crouched low, hole in his body still bleeding, but still lethal.

The pod was different now.

Golden spires circled it – nine of them, floating like teeth around a pearl. They didn't move. Didn't hum. They waited. Light pulsed between them in slow, rhythmic intervals—

tick, tick, tick.

A countdown.

A vault being opened.

A soul being priced.

They braced.

And then he came.

Mammon walked through the smoke, untouched by the destruction around him. His robe shimmered again – flawless. The floor beneath him bloomed into gold. His hands were clasped behind his back. His eyes – impossibly calm.

He didn't gloat.

He invoiced.

"You've delayed liquidation," Mammon said softly. "But the account is still overdue."

No one answered.

No one moved.

There was nothing left to throw. Nothing left to gamble.

Only time.

He stopped before them, feet inches from the edge of the containment circle. His eyes lifted, drinking in the image of Liz sleeping inside the pod, arms folded across her chest, faint flickers of red light pulsing beneath her skin.

Mammon reached out.

His fingers extended – slowly, perfectly, the way a banker might flip the final page of a ledger.

And the heroes—

Broken.

Bleeding.

Burned—

Still stood.

Even as the air turned gold.

Even as the pod began to hum.

Even as Mammon began to collect.

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