[T-minus 33 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The city changed at the river.

One minute, they were running along Jinjiang's edge – buildings flanking both sides, skeletal trees bent under ash – and the next, the world breathed.

Dan stumbled to a halt at the mouth of the Anshun Bridge.

Beyond it, Chengdu bloomed.

Or what was left of it.

The skyscrapers hadn't collapsed – they'd grown. Twisting upward like stalks of glass-veined bamboo, their floors spiralled around green cores pulsing with light. Vines strangled the supports. Roots cracked through sidewalks. Lamp posts bent inward, like bowing priests.

Parks spilled out into the streets, devouring pavement. The Wuhou Shrine lay half-submerged beneath a lake of thick, luminescent algae. What used to be Renmin Park now surged with oversized lotus flowers the colour of old bruises. Beneath their petals, things moved.

Birdsong echoed overhead. But too slow. Too human.

Max said nothing. His eyes narrowed. Behind him, Victor tensed. Chloe's shadow flickered.

Dan stood at the edge of the bridge, heart pounding.

He could feel it. A border.

Not marked by sign or symbol, but by intent. Something ancient and living curled beneath this place. Watching.

Where concrete ended, the garden began.

The Second Circle.

He took a breath and stepped over.

The mist caught him like a net.

Warm. Wet. Sweet with rot.

For a moment, Dan couldn't breathe. Then the garden welcomed him.

Gone were the roads. In their place stretched a living city – pathways paved in petrified muscle, street signs shaped like orchid stems, gutters spilling with red water and green spores. Marble busts of doctors lined the intersections, each blindfolded. Their mouths were open in silent screams.

Above him, the trees swayed. The sky pulsed with an emerald sun.

He took another step.

The gold glow of his healing aura flickered to life around his shoulders.

The garden purred.

Dan tried not to shiver.

They had entered the Circle of Healing.

He heard the first scream near what used to be a memorial square.

A little girl lay beneath a collapsed sculpture – one of those bronze statues that used to honour Sichuan earthquake first responders. Now twisted into a spiral of hands reaching for nothing.

She was coughing blood.

Dan rushed over.

Her skin was torn in places – veins glowing faint green. She was still human. Still real.

He knelt beside her, already reaching out.

"It's okay," he said, voice hoarse. "I've got you."

The gold light spread from his palm.

She stopped convulsing. For a heartbeat, her chest rose smoothly.

Dan exhaled.

Victor shouted behind him, "Dan – wait! That's not—"

Dan's hands were already glowing.

Soft golden light bled into the girl's ribs, sealing the puncture, calming the tremors. The breath evened out.

Then the girl's veins darkened.

They bulged – green, like vines beneath the skin.

Dan recoiled. "No… no, no, I stabilized you—"

The girl's eyes snapped open. Pupil-less. Glowing.

Then came the bloom.

From the stitched flesh of his back, flowers erupted – sickly white lotus blossoms with dripping petals. The girl screamed as something inside him twisted.

Victor yanked Dan back. "You can't heal them!"

"I have to try!"

"You're feeding it!"

Dan stared, shaking. His golden aura flickered. He watched as the boy convulsed and the blossoms curled open, releasing green mist in slow pulses.

A woman nearby cried out.

Dan spun and rushed toward her. Another wound. Another chance. He pressed his hands to her shoulder, trying to focus the light – pure, targeted, clean.

The bleeding stopped.

The veins darkened again.

Her spine arched. Roots tore through the concrete beneath her, coiling up her legs.

Dan backed away, horror dawning.

It wasn't just a mistake. It was a law.

Here, every act of healing fertilized the corruption. Compassion accelerated the spiral.

The mist seemed to whisper now – not a voice, but a feeling pressed against his mind: "The more you help, the faster they fall."

He fell to his knees.

"God… what is this?"

Max wasn't here. Alyssa and Chloe were securing the perimeter. Victor hovered protectively, not sure whether to grab Dan or run.

Dan stared at his glowing hands.

This was his gift. His purpose.

He became a paramedic because his parents died screaming in a twisted car. Because April – his sister – died in a fire she shouldn't have. Because someone had to be there. Someone had to make it stop.

"I save people," Dan whispered.

But here – every soul he saved became a weapon.

And yet…

He stood.

"I'm not done."

Victor growled. "You saw what it does."

"I saw," Dan said. "But I can still adapt."

He took a deep breath.

Then stepped forward.

The golden light returned – no longer soft.

Sharper now. Focused. Like a scalpel.

The mist didn't like that.

The flowers in the girl's back withered.

Dan kept walking.

And the Second Circle shuddered.

…………………

They moved deeper into the city.

The skyline was a hallucination – Chengdu unmade and regrown in Verrine's image. Whole districts bowed under fungal canopies. Abandoned cars were half-swallowed by moss. Apartment blocks pulsed faintly, like breathing chests. Somewhere in the distance, a train screamed – then laughed.

Dan kept to the front now. The others following his lead.

His light had changed.

Not the warm balm it had been in the hospital or at the farmhouse. Here, it cut – narrow beams of gold slicing through the spores like cauterized will. Each pulse of his aura sizzled in the air, forcing the mist to draw back, as if the Circle recognized a threat and not a servant.

Victor trudged beside him, half-chimera, claws dragging rivulets in the mulch-strewn road. His breath was ragged. "You sure this won't kill you now?"

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Dan didn't look back. "Does it matter?"

Victor didn't answer.

They passed what was once a children's hospital. The playground outside had become a grove of writhing vines, each swing replaced with hanging tendrils shaped like infants, cooing without lungs. A nurse in half-rotted scrubs staggered toward them, arms out. No face – just a smooth green bloom where features should have been.

She whispered. "Let me help you."

Dan stepped between her and Victor. His hands flared.

"No," he said. "Let me help you."

The blast was quiet.

A single ray of light – too focused to be holy, too sharp to be mercy – pierced the figure. The bloom hissed and collapsed inward, folding like a dying leaf.

Victor grunted. "That's new."

Dan turned slightly, his voice low. "I'm not healing them anymore."

"Then what the hell are you doing?"

Dan looked ahead. "Surgery."

A shriek split the air – a higher pitch this time. Chloe emerged from the side street, stumbling backward. Her phase-shadow flickered wildly as she screamed something incomprehensible. Behind her, five villagers shambled forward. Or what had once been villagers. Their torsos bulged with fungal tumours that pulsed in rhythm. One of them had no legs – just a twisted stalk dragging behind him, sprouting white-veined lilies from the waist down.

Dan sprinted.

"Don't touch them!" Chloe called out. "They're—"

"I know," Dan said.

He reached the first one – an old man, mouth open in a silent plea. His eyes still held memory.

Dan whispered, "I'm sorry."

His hands didn't glow this time.

They shone – thin beams of gold that lanced through the swelling tumour just below the ribcage. One strike. One burst. The body slumped, peaceful.

He turned to the next.

Screams echoed. But none of them were Dan's.

By the time the fifth fell, the green mist around them had changed – it no longer caressed. It recoiled.

Victor stared at him. "You're killing them."

Dan's hands dropped. "I'm saving what's left."

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then Chloe stepped forward, quieter now. She glanced at the withered stalks behind them, then at Dan. "They were praying."

"What?"

She pointed to the marks on the floor – twisted kanji etched into rot. "They weren't just infected. They were trying to be healed. Asking for it."

Dan's heart sank.

They'd wanted help.

They'd wanted this.

"I need to keep moving," he said.

Victor narrowed his eyes. "And when this catches up to you?"

Dan didn't blink. "Then I'll cut myself out too."

They turned.

The Circle didn't resist.

It watched.

…………………

The Circle fought back.

Every step Dan took, the air thickened. Spores drifted like snow, clinging to his skin, whispering with each breath. The green mist coiled tighter. Not aggressive – seductive. Promising peace. Promising ease.

He kept walking.

His golden aura had narrowed again – just two blades now, one on each hand. He used them sparingly. Surgical strikes. Not healing. Not anymore. He'd stopped trying to close wounds. He just cut. Kill the infection. Leave the husk.

But it was getting harder.

Each strike felt heavier. Each kill felt colder. These weren't monsters anymore – they were mothers. Grandfathers. Shopkeepers.

They looked at him like he was the executioner.

Dan's breath rasped. His arms ached. The guilt curled in his stomach like a worm.

"I'm not a killer," he muttered.

But the Circle didn't care what he called himself.

Ahead, a cluster of infected began to stir – three of them tangled together, faces slack, murmuring as vines bloomed from their backs. One of them still had an ID lanyard around her neck. Another wore a child's pink backpack.

Dan clenched his jaw.

Victor's voice rang out from behind, gruff and distant: "Dan! Pull back. It's not your fight alone!"

He ignored him.

Dan stepped forward. His light flared – then faltered.

He dropped to one knee.

Too much. He'd used too much.

He gritted his teeth, forced the aura smaller, tighter, more precise.

But the despair crawled in anyway.

What am I doing?

He wasn't saving anyone. Just delaying the inevitable. Just carving corpses before they could fully bloom. And for what? The Circle was infinite. Every time he struck one down, three more grew.

He stared at his hands.

"I came here to save people," he whispered.

His sister's face flashed behind his eyes. April in the hospital. April in the fire. April never coming back.

Then what's left?

The mist pressed in, gleeful. The garden bloomed faster.

Dan squeezed his eyes shut.

I don't need peace.

His pulse spiked.

I need purpose.

Then the thought hit him – unbidden. Unwelcome.

What if his light didn't just cut? What if it could burn?

His eyes snapped open.

One of the infected lurched toward him – a hissing, bulbous abomination with lips like split bark and eyes sewn shut by vines. It moaned low, reaching.

Dan didn't strike.

He touched it.

Not with a blade. With the full, undiluted force of his healing light.

Only, this time – he inverted it.

He didn't soothe. He scorched.

The result was immediate.

The abomination howled – a wet, shrill screech that split the air like tearing silk. Its veins boiled. Blossoms shrivelled. And then, in a flash of golden fire, it disintegrated.

Not killed.

Purified.

Dan stared at his hand. Light danced there – no longer a tool, no longer a salve. A judgment. An act of divine precision.

He heard sobbing.

Around the corner, half-hidden beneath a fallen stone lion, he found them.

A mother and daughter. Young. Just ordinary people. The girl couldn't have been older than six. They were still mostly human – veins faintly green, but not yet bloomed. Eyes alert. Terrified.

The mother pulled her daughter close. She didn't scream. She just held on.

Dan knelt beside them.

"It's okay," he said in broken Mandarin. The pronunciation was rough, but heartfelt. "I'm here."

He touched the girl first – pressed his palm to her chest, not to heal her flesh, but to burn out the seed Verrine had planted.

She twitched. Moaned. But the vines inside her withered.

Dan didn't stop.

He moved to the mother. Light surged. The mist screamed. The Circle rippled as if slapped.

When he opened his eyes, the corruption was gone.

The mother gasped.

The girl sobbed.

Then both of them reached out, trembling hands cupping Dan's face. The mother said something rapid and tearful – he didn't catch it all, but he felt the meaning. Gratitude. Awe. Maybe something closer to worship.

They were calling him an angel.

Dan shook his head.

"No. I'm just… someone who wanted to help."

The mother bowed.

Then she lifted her daughter and fled – stumbling toward the bridge, away from the Circle, out into the thinning green mist.

Dan didn't move. Not for a long time.

His light still burned but inside, something had gone quiet.

Dan stood slowly.

His shoulders ached. His vision swam.

But behind him – golden light exploded.

Not a flicker.

A flare.

A beacon.

Victor swore and ducked instinctively as the entire street lit up – bright as dawn, hot as wildfire.

Dan didn't look back.

He just stood there, bathed in radiance, hands open, eyes hollow and burning.

He wasn't healing anymore.

He was purifying.

And the Circle knew it. Because for the first time since they entered…

It began to retreat.

…………………

They came like a tide.

Not a charge. Not a scream. Just movement – soft, staggering, endless.

Dozens of infected spilled from the twisted garden. Bodies covered in moss. Faces warped, not snarling but pleading. Men in torn uniforms. Nurses with snapped IV tubes trailing from their arms. Children dragging stuffed animals slick with sap.

All walking toward Dan.

Max reached for his chain – then faltered.

His fingers twitched but didn't close. His eyes stayed open, glassy. Unseeing.

Chloe's shadow flickered weakly beside him. Victor had one knee down, struggling to breathe. The green mist had thickened into something heavier – a mood, oppressive and intimate.

A voice whispered through the garden. Not a single voice, but thousands, overlapping.

"Help me…"

"Fix me…"

"It hurts…"

Dan's head spun.

The infected didn't lunge. They didn't attack. They begged.

One held out a child's drawing, crumpled and wet. Another kept repeating a name—Qing-Qing, Qing-Qing – as if clinging to a memory. A young man with no eyes knelt at Dan's feet, lips mouthing a silent prayer.

Dan clenched his fists.

The light on his hands flickered.

This wasn't war. It was grief weaponized.

"Please… I just want to be better…"

"Make it stop…"

"Be well…"

He staggered backward. "Stop."

But the garden pressed closer.

Vines twitched. Roots curled toward his feet. The flowers stared without eyes.

"Just one more," they breathed. "Just save one more…"

Dan fell to his knees.

His breath hitched. The guilt crawled back up his throat, heavy and wet. He had trained to stop the bleeding, to stabilize the wounded. Not to destroy the sick. Not to turn healing into execution.

The infected closed in.

He could feel their breath. Smell the rot and longing.

Max swayed behind him. The Hellfire wouldn't come.

Dan looked down at his hands. Still glowing. Still gold.

Still his.

He remembered April's voice. The way she used to say his name when she was proud of him. "You don't give up, Danny. Not ever."

He remembered the accident. The crash. The sirens. The way the paramedic had held his hand while his parents bled out. The first time he swore he'd never let someone die like that again.

He remembered choosing to help. Choosing to save. Not because he could. Because he had to.

Dan's voice shook.

"I'm not your goddamn gardener."

The infected paused.

He rose.

Golden light erupted around him – not soft, not surgical, but radiant. A pillar. His aura no longer wrapped gently. It blazed.

"You want salvation?" he said, voice thunderous. "Then burn."

He stepped forward.

The infected reached – then screamed as the light touched them. Their bodies blistered, cracked, purified. Not just their flesh – the corruption behind it. The twisted magic Verrine had sewn through their veins curled and died.

They fell like puppets cut from a single thread – arms slack, voices silenced mid-prayer. One clutched a rotting plush rabbit as she vanished in gold.

Dan walked through them like a blade of judgment.

Where he moved, the mist parted.

The roots shrivelled. The petals browned. Marble doctor busts crumbled to dust.

He passed by Max and the others. The moment his aura brushed them, they gasped – like surfacing from a dream. Their heads snapped up. Breath returned.

As Max's breath returned, their eyes met – just for a second. No words passed between them. But Max nodded. And for Dan, that was enough.

Chloe grabbed Victor's arm. Alyssa staggered to her feet. Alpha and Omega collected themselves. They watched Dan walk forward – alone, unstoppable.

The Circle tried again.

New voices cried out. New memories. Faces from the past. Children not yet born. Every plea a needle. Every whisper a weight.

Dan didn't falter.

He burned everything.

The garden writhed in silence now, its soil scorched, its sky dimmed.

And still he walked.

Purifying monsters. Silencing lies. Cleansing memory.

Until the green sun above burst, raining down sparks of rot that died before they touched the ground.

And then—

The Circle shattered.

Roots collapsed. The trees screamed. The pathways of petrified flesh cracked under their own weight.

The Second Circle broke like glass under gold.

And Dan Bailey, heart split between fury and compassion, stood alone in the silence, burning like a star.

…………………

The wind changed. Not a breeze. A draw. Like the breath of something immense, inhaling.

Dan staggered back toward the group, his golden aura flickering like the last flare of a dying star. Max caught him with one arm, steadying him. Neither spoke.

Behind them, the garden wilted.

All of it – gone. The Second Circle lay in ruin. The corrupted flora blackened to husks, mist recoiling in steaming wisps. Trees cracked and collapsed. The petrified doctor statues wept golden sap before crumbling into heaps of bone dust and resin. The ash fell slowly, like snow.

Victor let out a slow breath. "Holy shit."

Alyssa pointed.

Ahead of them, in the clearing mist, the city returned.

But not as it was.

A forest of rooftops and red lanterns rose in the distance, hazy through the veil of green. Tiled eaves curled like talons. Walls bent inward, hunched. Dozens of temples glowed with a faint, pulsating light – some half-drowned in vines, others seemingly untouched. But one outshone them all.

Zhaojue Temple.

Or what was left of it.

It loomed over the Chenghua skyline – massive, cracked, and reassembled into something wrong. A fusion of monastic peace and biological nightmare. Its gates had been widened into a yawning maw of red wood and ivory teeth. The inner walls pulsed faintly, as though breathing. At the heart of its courtyard, a pagoda of bone spiralled skyward, every step carved with kneeling figures.

Dan squinted. "Is that… all of them?"

Max stepped forward. "Every temple in the city."

And it was true.

Wenshu. Qingyang. Daci. Baoguang. All the great sanctuaries of Chengdu now spiralled toward this single epicentre – Zhaojue, the eldest.

"Converging," Chloe whispered. "It's a single locus."

Like ribs spiralling inward around a single lung. A city praying with one breath.

A low chant echoed across the broken streets. It came from no clear direction. Just voices. Hundreds. Thousands. Praying.

Foreign tongues. Repeating syllables. Words not born of Earth. Yet still… pleading.

Max's jaw clenched. "We're not walking into a temple."

Victor tilted his head. "Then what is it?"

Max stared into the glowing gate.

"A god's womb."

The third Circle waited.

And it was hungry.

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