[T-minus 1 Hour Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The silence wasn't dead. It was reverent.

They stepped into the Circle of Union and found themselves surrounded by light.

The corridor ahead shimmered with impossible symmetry – ivory stone archways, gold-trimmed banners, and ponds lined with floating lotuses that never wilted. The air was warm, not with heat, but welcome. Like entering a home that remembered your name. Red threads hung from the branches of old trees, each one inscribed with prayers in dozens of languages – none of them angry. Only grateful.

Max moved slowly, chain dragging at his side, leaving dark scorch marks across the perfect white tiles. His breath steamed. Not from the air but from the fire inside him, still burning hotter than his pain dampeners could manage. The others followed behind. Cautious. Wary. Even Victor, still half-beast, lowered his stance.

At the far end of the corridor, the priests appeared.

Nine of them.

They walked in perfect step – barefoot, robed in red and ivory, their faces radiant with something that wasn't joy, but conviction. Circular glyphs spun slowly behind their heads like halos cast in light. Each bore a staff carved from ashwood, etched in scripture Max didn't recognise. They moved with no sound. No threat.

When they stopped, the centre priest raised her arms and spoke.

"We welcome you," she said, her voice both singular and multiplied – echoing with subtle dissonance, as if others were speaking beneath her tone. "You have suffered long. Your burdens are known."

She smiled – warm, maternal.

"Here, there is no more pain. No more war. The Lady offers peace. She offers unity. She offers completion."

Max said nothing. The blue fire in his veins crackled beneath his skin.

Another priest stepped forward – older, male, his eyes glowing faintly with vermilion light. "You do not need to fight anymore. Your flame is not wrong, only unshaped. The Lady will ease it. You may rest."

They extended their hands.

No weapons. Only welcome.

Max's boots ground against the tile as he stepped forward once. He stared at them. Stared through them.

Then, slowly, his lips moved.

"Unity, huh?"

The priests bowed.

"She is the Shepherd. We are the whole. She makes us more."

Max's grip tightened around the chain. Flames curled from his palm – blue, bitter, alive.

"Is that what you call it?" he murmured. "More?"

The lead priest nodded.

"She saves us. All of us."

Max's head tilted slightly. His voice stayed level.

"From what?"

The silence that followed was deep enough to swallow a gunshot. The priests didn't speak. Didn't breathe.

Max smiled. Just once.

"You'd better find a way to save her," he said, voice dropping into a growl.

"Because I'm coming for her."

The Hellfire ignited.

The Circle shuddered.

Behind him, the others flinched from the heat, but Max didn't stop. The light around him warped. The stone cracked. And the priests, for the first time, took a step back.

Not from hate.

From clarity.

This was not a soul to convert.

This was a fire that would not kneel.

…………………

Dan took a step forward and the light welcomed him.

He shouldn't have paused. But something in the Circle pressed gently against his chest. Familiar. Soft. Almost kind.

The priests were still speaking – chanting low in a dozen blended tongues, offering peace with every syllable. They didn't flinch from Max's fire. They didn't need to.

They weren't trying to stop them. They were trying to join them.

"Your wounds can be closed," said one, turning toward Dan now. Her eyes were soft. Her hands outstretched. "Your suffering is remembered. But you no longer need to carry it alone."

Dan's mouth was dry.

His aura dimmed low, fluttering faintly around his shoulders like dying gold mist.

He thought of April. Her voice. Her laughter. Her hand clutching his in the ambulance when they were kids.

He thought of Liz. A girl who never got to choose this life.

His sister burned. His niece caged. And here they were – offering to relieve him. To take it all away. To make it not his fault.

A tremble passed through his chest.

He almost believed them.

Dan looked down at his hands. He hadn't healed anyone in days. His soulfield had dimmed since the Circle of Peace, since they walked through that perfect lie. Maybe this really was the end. Maybe it wasn't meant to be a fight anymore.

Maybe—

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

No.

He clenched his jaw.

Healing wasn't soft. It wasn't painless. It wasn't peace.

It was sacrifice.

It was burning infection away with light.

Dan closed his eyes – and pushed.

The golden aura around him exploded outward like a miniature supernova. No scream. No roar. Just light – pure, clean, blinding.

The priests staggered back.

The glyphs behind their heads snapped and hissed, distorting under the radiance. Some recoiled. Others tried to chant louder. But their words melted in the light. Their bodies cracked with steam and shivered with refusal.

Dan stepped forward – haloed in light, hands aglow, eyes rimmed with fury.

"You want peace?" he said quietly.

The lead priest clutched her chest.

"You don't give it," Dan growled. "You steal it."

The gold flared again. Not soft. Not healing.

Purifying.

The Circle convulsed.

The floating lotuses withered to ash. The banners twisted. The light warped into smoke.

Max turned back – just once – and saw the light roaring from Dan's hands.

He nodded.

Dan took another step. Voice steady now.

"She can keep your unity."

He raised his hand.

"And you can choke on mine."

The blast that followed wasn't fire. It wasn't force.

It was refusal – burning in golden light.

And the Circle of Union screamed.

…………………

Alpha's HUD reactivated fully the moment the priests collapsed.

Flickering systems stabilized. Telemetry synced. The ambient psychic haze lifted. She didn't pause to observe the emotional aftermath – didn't need to. Her mission priorities realigned with mechanical certainty.

STATUS: JAEGER – ALIVE TEAM: PRESENT SOULFIELD: RESURGING CONDITIONS: NON-STANDARD VTOL EXTRACTION PROTOCOL: AVAILABLE

She blinked once. Activated her long-range transmitter.

Her left gauntlet unfolded. A small dish extended from the wrist slot – spinning, aligning, stabilizing.

"Alpha to Grimm Institute Command," she said flatly. "Extraction beacon re-established. Coordinates locked. Broadcasting pulse."

Omega stood behind her – silent, gaze distant. His bone plating retracted slightly, like shoulders lowering in unspoken grief.

Captain Hawthorne's voice came through the link, sharp with static.

"Alpha? Jesus. We thought you were dead."

"We were. Temporarily."

"Where the hell have you been? You dropped off grid three weeks ago. No signals. No telemetry. Your vitals flatlined."

"Circle of Peace," she said. "Time dilation event. Memory disruption. Status: resolved."

There was a long pause.

"Is Max Jaeger with you?"

"Yes. He is active."

Another pause. This time longer.

"And stable?"

Alpha looked toward Max.

He was crouched at the edge of the shattered lotus altar, flame still peeling off his shoulders in slow, exhausted pulses. He was bleeding again. Eyes blackened with fire. Breathing shallow but intentional.

"No," she said. "But functional."

Hawthorne exhaled. "Copy that. VTOL's already inbound. We'll be on top of your signal in forty-five minutes. You'll have ten seconds of coverage. After that, the ritual interference will kill the window. Be ready."

"Understood."

Before the link closed, Omega leaned in.

"What's the outside status?" he asked. Quiet. Uncertain.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Hawthorne's voice, flat: "We're losing."

TRANSMISSION TERMINATED.

Alpha closed the dish. The beacon continued to pulse quietly, counting down in her HUD.

She looked at Omega.

He didn't move.

His voice came again – low, almost human.

"We lost time."

Alpha nodded once.

"Then we win it back."

Together, they turned toward the final gate. Toward the alley waiting in firelight. Toward the end.

…………………

The wind shifted.

The moment Dan's golden flare evaporated the last priest, the Circle of Union began to peel away – not with fire, but with unravelling grace. The false stone floor cracked apart like brittle clay. Petals dissolved mid-air. The air lost its warmth. The silence that followed wasn't peace – it was the hush before something sacred breaks.

A low rumble crawled up from the earth.

They all turned toward it.

The centre of Chengdu lay ahead.

Not the map's centre. Not the city it used to be. Something deeper. Older.

Kuanzhai Alley stood in the distance, wreathed in crimson fog. The ancient rooftops curled inward like a mouth preparing to speak. The buildings pulsed faintly – breathing with the rhythm of the vertical firebeam at their heart. It wasn't light anymore. It was incision. A red-blue thread of energy drilling into the heavens and bleeding into nothingness.

Max took one step forward.

The others followed in silence.

Chloe's knuckles were white around her spear. Alyssa holstered her blade with robotic calm. Ferron looked drained but balanced – his chain gripped like a rosary.

Victor rolled his shoulders once. The bones in his back popped like gunfire. He didn't speak. Just followed.

Omega's pace slowed. His eye sockets dimmed slightly – like something ancient was watching him back.

Dan was last. He moved slower than before – burned out but still glowing faintly, the golden residue of his soul-surge flickering along his arms. He kept looking toward Liz's location. Toward the siphon.

They walked in formation without speaking.

Max's boots crunched through the last line of cracked marble and memory.

The threshold was marked by nothing.

No gates. No arch.

Just the end of one lie, and the beginning of something final.

As they stepped through, the last remnants of the Circle of Union collapsed behind them – dissolving into spores and threads, vanishing like a discarded dream.

Ahead, Kuanzhai Alley stretched like a corridor into the mouth of the divine.

Max stopped at the edge of it.

He tilted his head slightly.

Blue fire curled from his fingers.

"She's there," he said.

No one questioned who.

He took another step.

And the sky above the Ninth Circle pulsed once – like a pupil tightening in rage.

…………………

Kuanzhai Alley didn't welcome them. It accepted them.

The moment Max crossed the first threshold – stepping between two red lanterns still swaying from unseen wind – the city folded inward. Not physically. Not spatially. But spiritually. Like an eye narrowing. Like a throat preparing to close.

The old cobblestones beneath his boots were warm. Not from sunlight. From prayer. Layered thousands deep, etched in ash and spit, dried blood and ink. Their footsteps disturbed none of it. No echo followed them. The city had stopped making noise.

And yet they were heard.

All around them, people knelt.

Some wore red silk. Others wore nothing but bruises and symbols carved into flesh. Some wept openly. Others stared forward with eyes eaten away by reverence. A few reached out as they passed but none touched them.

Alyssa flinched.

Dan exhaled, steadying his hand. The aura around him pulsed gold. Still active. Still his.

Omega whispered something under his breath in a language no one recognized. Alpha's gaze flicked to every rooftop, every window. No threats. But endless watchers.

And ahead – always ahead – stood the crater.

Max could see the siphon now. No longer thin. No longer distant. It was a ribbon of fire and intent – rising from a singular point at the city's core and piercing the sky like a celestial sword.

The clouds above were gone. Sliced clean open.

Above the beam, something twitched.

A shadow, impossibly high, outlined against a sky that refused to stay blue.

Max didn't break stride.

Chloe walked at his side, eyes on the light.

Ferron gritted his teeth. His weapon clinked softly with each step. A hymn of iron.

Victor kept close to the rear, his breathing deepening. Preparing.

They were all quiet.

Until the crater came into view.

Until the Ninth Circle opened before them – an enormous gouge in the earth, framed by twisted architecture and blackened teeth of ruined buildings. A perfect descent. And at its centre: the containment pod. A red sphere, barely holding together. Fire rising from it like a soul being stolen thread by thread.

Max stopped.

His fire didn't.

It pulsed along his shoulders, danced across his wrists. Every breath flared his veins blue. His heartbeat sounded like drums inside his head.

He stepped to the edge of the crater and spoke, not to the others. Not to the city.

To her.

"Hold on, Liz."

The sky didn't answer.

The fire didn't pause.

But something inside him aligned.

He turned to the others.

Ferron moved beside Victor.

The ex-soldier's hands were bloodied, claws twitching faintly, breath still ragged from the last fight. His eyes, though – clear. No more hesitation. No more fog.

Ferron held something in his palm.

A sleek, matte-black pistol. Its barrel etched in spiritual script. The grip charred by past use. Chamber loaded.

Soulbound rounds.

The kind that didn't just kill. They ended.

"You've earned it," Ferron said, voice quiet. "Don't waste it."

Victor stared at the weapon. Then took it. Slowly. Reverently.

"Guess this means I'm officially on the team."

"You always were," Ferron muttered. "Now you just shoot straighter."

Victor cracked a smile. It didn't last. But it was real.

Alyssa reached back. Drew her knife. No hesitation.

Even Alpha looked up, scanning the heavens.

Omega just whispered: "All in."

Max clenched his fists.

"I don't care what's waiting down there," he growled. "We finish it."

And without another word, they stepped over the edge.

Into the last Circle. Into Kuanzhai's mouth.

Toward the end of the world.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.