[T-minus 60 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The morning haze hung low, cold dew clinging to the splintered grass and churned earth. The barn, half-collapsed, was still wreathed in the smell of ash and ozone. For once, there were no monsters in sight – just exhaustion, and the slow ache of wounds both old and new.

Alpha moved through the clearing with mechanical precision, boots barely sinking into the mud. The team stood in a loose, uneven line: Victor at one end, then Dan, Chloe, Alyssa, and finally Max, arms crossed. Ferron watched from the shadow of a tree, expression unreadable.

Alpha said nothing for a long moment, just staring them down, eyes glinting with reflected sunlight.

Finally, she began. Not with encouragement, but with cold dissection.

She stopped in front of Chloe.

"Emotionally reactive. Limited control over phase-walking. You shift when you're scared or angry – not when you choose. That means you'll vanish, or die, before you even see what killed you."

Chloe's knuckles whitened, her eyes flicking toward Alyssa for just a second – like she wanted to argue, but wasn't sure she could win.

Alpha turned to Alyssa.

"You punch with instinct. Not with rhythm or power. You overextend, then pull back, waiting for someone else to lead. That hesitation will get you both killed."

Alyssa scowled, fists clenching.

Next was Dan. Alpha regarded him for an extra second, her gaze almost pitying.

"No field applications. You have healing and defence, but zero combat experience. Calm is good, but you mistake it for capability. In real battle, you're a liability – unless you choose otherwise."

Dan's shoulders dropped. He nodded once, saying nothing.

Alpha moved on to Victor.

"Military conditioning. Still too reliant on fallback training. When chaos hits, you default to old patterns – and that's when you freeze. Your soul signature spikes hard, then crashes. Unstable. Until you root it, you're only as good as your weakest habit."

Victor didn't argue. He just stared straight ahead, jaw working.

Alpha took a step back, looking at the group as a whole.

"You spike high. You crash harder. Unawakened souls fluctuate, up and down. Right now, you're barely at Husk level – on your best day, you might hit Fiend. That's not enough for what's coming."

The team was silent, the air between them tightening with every word.

Alpha finished, voice as sharp as a scalpel:

"If you want to survive, you need to awaken. And you need to stabilize. Otherwise, all this—" she swept a hand across the battered clearing, the ruin, the scars— "ends the same way it started. With someone else cleaning up your remains."

She offered no room for argument. She simply turned, walking back toward Omega, who stood leaning against a shattered post, grinning at the discomfort left in her wake.

Max didn't say a word, but he felt it – the heat rising behind their silence. Not from shame. From friction. They were still fractured. And if Alpha was right, fracture meant death.

…………………

The morning drills were over, but no one had left the clearing.

The fire had died to glowing embers. Dan sat cross-legged again, murmuring to himself, trying to stabilize the golden aura still flickering at his fingertips. Chloe and Alyssa practiced strikes on opposite ends of a downed log. Max and Ferron stood off to the side, speaking in low tones.

And Victor was staring into nothing.

He stood shirtless now, sweat cooling on his scarred back, hands wrapped in worn fabric. His eyes were focused but distant. Alert, but somewhere else.

Omega approached like a cat testing prey. No footsteps, no warning. Just a presence – louder than sound.

"So," Omega said, dragging the word, "you were a soldier."

Victor didn't look at him.

"Was."

"Right. Syria, yeah? Terrorists. Sand. Bullets. You and your men, holding the line."

"Something like that."

Omega circled him, slowly.

"And they all died."

Victor's jaw tightened.

"Don't."

"No demons. No contracts. Just people with guns, and bad ideas. You were the last one breathing. Right?"

Victor didn't speak. His fists clenched.

"Funny thing," Omega said, voice casual as dust, "I looked through your file. You're not even a killer by training. You're a biologist."

He grinned, stopping in front of him.

"PhD in Zoology, right? Specialization in predator behaviour. Big cats. Wolves. Pack dynamics. You studied how the strong prey on the weak – until it happened to you."

Victor's stare could have melted metal.

"You done?"

"Not yet."

Omega tilted his head.

"You gave up on people because you couldn't hack it. Watched them die and decided animals were easier. Cleaner. At least they don't lie."

"Keep talking," Victor growled.

"You've got strength, soldier-boy. You move like a hammer. But that soul of yours?" Omega flicked him in the chest – light, but dismissive. "It's glass. You're not unstable because of what happened in Syria. You're unstable because you keep pretending it didn't change you."

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That was it.

Victor moved.

A hard right hook, fast and brutal. Omega ducked under it, laughing.

Victor followed with a spinning elbow – clean, sharp, practiced. It would've shattered bone if it landed.

But Omega caught it.

One hand, flat against Victor's forearm, stopping the blow like it was nothing. Then he stepped in, turned his hip, and slammed Victor to the ground.

Hard.

As Omega slammed him down, the world tilted – and for just a moment, Victor saw something else: dust, sunlight bouncing off rusted rebar, a throat torn open by shrapnel.

He blinked – back in the dirt. Still breathing. Still here.

The others turned at the impact, but no one moved.

Omega knelt beside Victor, voice calm now.

"You're not weak, doc. You're just out of sync. Your soul flickers when you doubt. And you doubt every damn second you breathe."

Victor groaned, but didn't speak.

"You want to fight me again, do it after you awaken properly. Then maybe – just maybe – you'll hit hard enough to matter."

Omega stood, brushing off imaginary dust, and wandered away toward the treeline – already bored.

Victor stayed on the ground a beat too long, fists clenched, jaw grinding like stone. Dirt smeared his shoulder. Blood from a reopened scar slid down his arm. His breath came fast – not from pain, but from fury held too tight.

Ferron stepped forward and offered a hand.

Victor slapped it away and got up on his own.

"I studied lions," he spat. "Tracked them. Lived with them."

He turned, eyes burning, voice low and shaking with restraint.

"That thing isn't a lion. It's a fucking storm with teeth."

Ferron watched him for a moment, then simply said:

"Then you'd better stop thinking like prey."

…………………

The fire had burned low again.

Ferron crouched beside it, rolling a dull blade across his palm like a coin. The steel caught what little morning light was left. He stared at it, sighed once, and stood.

Ferron stared at the team. Scorched boots. Unstrapped gear. Bandaged hands. They looked like survivors – not warriors. He wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a death sentence.

"Alright," he said, loud enough to cut through the camp's silence. "Let's see what you've still got. Weapons. Now."

Max raised an eyebrow. Alyssa looked confused.

Ferron didn't wait.

He turned first to Victor, who was still red-faced from earlier, sweat drying along his jaw.

"You had a soul-forged cleaver. I carefully forged it myself. Where is it?"

Victor didn't look at him.

"Lost it."

Ferron's voice dropped half a pitch.

"Lost it?"

"Kimaris threw me through a wall. It didn't make the landing."

"Right," Ferron muttered. "So, you're just a warhammer with no handle now."

He turned to Max, eyes narrowing.

"And your chain?"

"Mammon turned it into a sculpture," Max said. "Gold. Then dust."

Ferron rubbed his temples.

"So, both of you are fighting monsters from hell with... what, fists and spicy language?"

Victor shrugged. Max didn't.

Ferron turned sharply to Chloe.

"Please. Tell me you still have Tensō."

Chloe nodded and unsheathed the blade halfway. A thin crack ran across the base.

"Still works."

"Barely," Ferron said. "It's soul-bound, not soul-proof. Give it to me. I'm going to have to fix it."

To Alyssa next.

"Gauntlets?"

She raised her arms, flexing her fingers. The metal bracers clicked and hissed, the pressure-activated knuckles still sparking faintly.

"Intact," she said. "Reinforced last week."

Ferron gave her an approving nod.

Then he turned to Dan.

"And you. The staff?"

Dan froze. Looked down. Then looked back up sheepishly.

"Haven't... used it yet."

Omega groaned audibly from where he lounged in a pile of crates.

"Oh, come on. You've been gifted a god-tier spine breaker and you're just – what – carrying it like a hiking stick?"

Dan flushed.

Alpha, still standing nearby with arms crossed, tilted her head and added:

"Tell me, Daniel – how exactly have you been fighting without your weapon?"

Dan looked to Max, as if for backup. Max gave him a small, exhausted shrug.

"Mostly vibes," Dan admitted.

Ferron just stared.

"Tonight, we fix this. No more excuses. No more borrowed time."

He pulled a piece of chalk from his coat, crouched in the dirt, and started drawing a forging circle - rough but precise. As he worked, his voice carried:

"I'll reshape what I can. You'll clean what's left. We're walking into a meat grinder, and I am not dying next to someone who left their soul weapon under their damn bed."

…………………

They left the clearing in silence, boots crunching over frost-hardened dirt and ash. Past the edge of the barn's blast-scarred perimeter, the trees gave way to low grass and cracked stone – the kind of terrain that didn't belong to any season. Burned quiet.

Max walked a few steps ahead, his breath shallow, steady. His hands were tucked into his coat, but every so often, his right hand twitched – like something inside it wanted out.

Ferron kept pace beside him, arms crossed. Watching.

"You still feel her," Ferron said quietly.

Max didn't look at him.

"It's faint," he said. "Like a heartbeat through glass. But it's there."

"Psychic tether?"

Max nodded once.

"From when I awakened her. And… after Mammon. There's something left. Not clean, but enough to track."

Ferron was quiet a moment, then crouched beside a patch of blackened moss and scraped a rough line into the earth with the heel of his boot. He drew a wide arc, then two rough points.

"Signal's dirty, but the direction's west. Maybe Chongqing. Maybe Chengdu."

Max exhaled through his nose.

"Hopefully Chengdu."

"Why?"

"Because there's nothing west of that except desert, broken rail lines, and high-altitude graveyards."

Ferron nodded.

"If they've moved her past Chengdu, we'll be chasing shadows in the dust."

Max didn't answer. He stared westward, jaw tight.

"It's pulsing," he muttered. "Not just a trace. A rhythm. Like a ritual's started… but hasn't finished."

"Timed sequence," Ferron said. "Could be a progressive anchor. She's not the subject. She's the centre."

"Then we don't have long."

"No," Ferron said, standing again. "But we can't hit blind."

He glanced sideways at Max.

"There's someone east of Chongqing. Old bloodline. Exorcist clan. If anyone can help you read this – help you find her before they finish whatever they're building – it's her."

"You trust her?"

"I don't trust anyone. But I trust desperate people to do what needs doing."

Max nodded slowly.

He reached out with his mind, just for a second – and there it was again. A flicker. Not emotion. Not sound. Just presence.

Liz.

Suspended somewhere between sleep and fire. Still alive. Still dreaming.

"I'm coming," he whispered.

Ferron's voice was flat behind him.

"Then stop whispering, and start planning."

…………………

The wind cut harder this far east – dry, bitter, laced with ash and altitude.

Agent 49 lay prone on the ridge above an abandoned logging facility, half-buried beneath a synthetic tarp that blurred heat signatures and colour bleed. He'd been watching for sixteen hours. Now, finally, the puzzle was shifting.

Through the scope of his long-range optic, he tracked them: Chamber Theta, or what was left of it.

Five men.

No longer six.

The sixth – Rewind – was gone. A burn crater marked the spot where he'd stood the day before. He had pieced together that an orbital strike had erased him without fanfare. Agent 49 had marked the angle. Calculated trajectory. Overkill, by any metric.

The others weren't much better.

Splice was hobbling – her right leg dragging, blood stiff in the fabric of her tactical pants. Her left arm was bandaged in black mesh. Improvised. Sloppy.

Gallows hadn't spoken since arriving. Still shifted. Still silent. But slower. Off-balance. Like his inner machinery didn't fit anymore.

The leader, Reverb, paced furiously near the communications relay – a small, camouflaged antenna linked directly to a secure sat uplink.

Agent 49 activated the directional mic. Static buzzed. Then voices.

"We're down a man. Two more are compromised. You sent us in blind."

A pause. The Director's voice replied — tinny and over compressed.

"We underestimated Grimm's fallback. They weren't supposed to arrive for another week."

"They arrived with a sky-spear and a psychopath in a tin suit."

Another pause.

Then Reverb lowered his voice. But not low enough.

"You tell the master if he wants this done clean, we need extraction and reinforcements. We can't keep tailing Jaeger if his allies start punching holes in satellites."

Silence. Then:

"Lord Belial is watching. And if we fail – he brings the fury of heaven down with him."

Agent 49's brow furrowed. He adjusted the filter on his lens.

Belial. A codename?

Or something else?

The tone wasn't military. Wasn't political. It was religious. Ritualistic.

And it wasn't the first time Agent 49 had heard that name in whispered fragments – always where impossible things happened. Where bodies disappeared without dying. Where monsters walked like men.

He switched off the mic. Logged the coordinates. Transmitted a compressed burst to his private vault in the deepnet.

The official mission parameters were clear.

But the truth was fogging up the edges.

This wasn't containment anymore.

It was war. One no one had confessed to starting – but someone, somewhere, planned to win.

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