[T-minus 4 Minutes Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The scream of metal came first – Max's chain, torn from his grip.

Then the sound of something snapping.

Ying's eyes tracked left, instincts already screaming, just in time to see Max hurled across the sanctum like a broken weapon.

Verrine didn't move like a fighter. She moved like a verdict.

Her palm struck Max's chest once – flat, scripture-laced, and final. Not a punch. A command.

And the command was break.

Max's ribs detonated. The impact rippled across his body like a divine blast wave – shattering bone, collapsing muscle, flooding his system with agony so white it felt soundless. His Hellfire stuttered mid-breath, like a candle snuffed in a windless room.

Verrine stepped through him.

Then pivoted – graceful, almost indifferent – and with one precise motion, carved her palm through his left arm.

There was no flash. No cinematic spray of blood.

Just severance.

The limb vanished mid-shoulder, atomized in a spiral of perverted faith and judgment. For a moment, nothing. Then heat. Then smoke. Then Max's scream - muffled by fire, swallowed by prayer.

He fell.

Ying was already moving.

By the time he hit the floor – one leg folded beneath him, one arm gone, blood spraying in gouts that sizzled like oil fires – she was there.

The battlefield blurred. The horde. The screams. The thunder of failing rites. All silenced under the shriek of her focus.

She dropped beside him, boots skidding through ash and holy marrow. Her black armour flexed with each movement, battered and charred, long hair slick with sweat and blood. She slipped a hand beneath his back and another across his collarbone—checking breath, checking vitals. Still here. Barely.

His blood burned.

It wasn't figurative. Not anymore. Where it pooled on the floor, it ignited in thin, hungry curls – blue fire flickering across the bone like oil on water.

Hellfire. Leaking from the source.

His chest rose. Fell. Shuddered. One breath at a time.

Ying knelt closer. Fast. Silent. Methodical.

She'd seen battlefield trauma before. But this— this was something else.

The arm was gone. The stump was cauterized by fire he didn't control. His right knee bent sideways, the bone crushed and the joint swollen black. Blood spilled from his mouth in a thread-thin line that hissed where it met his skin. His mask was cracked. His eyes – one swollen shut, the other barely focused – twitched, but didn't blink.

She didn't know this man. Not really. But she knew he was needed.

Because if General Wang rose again – if that thing got back up – someone had to end him.

And she couldn't do it alone.

"Max Jaeger," she said. No response. Just a low rasp, half-groan, half-breath. "Shit."

She ripped open her medkit. Blue vial. Stimulant. Hypo-press to the neck.

She paused for just a breath.

Then slammed it home.

Max arched. A grunt punched out of him. His one remaining arm spasmed – fingers clawing at air. Fire flared behind his teeth.

"Breathe," she ordered. "Come on, I didn't ram a sanctum wall just to watch you bleed out."

He gasped. Then gagged.

She slapped him.

Max blinked. His one open eye burned dim. Still alive.

"…who…?"

Ying didn't answer.

"I need you alive," she said instead. "In case he gets back up."

He stared – barely tracking. But then something clicked.

"She's strong," he rasped. "Stronger than Kimaris. Stronger than Mammon."

Ying's jaw clenched.

"She made me forget Liz…"

His voice cracked like old wood.

"If I die before I kill her—"

"You won't," Ying said.

"Then you kill her."

She didn't promise. She just looked past him – to the flickering siphon, to Wang's pulped corpse, still twitching faintly.

"I need thirty seconds," Max growled.

"You'll have ten."

Ying stood. One last look.

He wasn't stable. He wasn't whole.

But he was still burning.

She turned toward the battlefield, drew her sidearm, and walked into the fire – shadows curling away from her like they recognized what she was.

Not a soldier. Not a daughter.

A weapon.

And she wasn't done yet.

…………………

[T-minus 3 Minutes Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The floor cracked beneath Alyssa's step but not from power. From the way her knee gave out.

She staggered forward, dragging her left leg behind her like dead weight. Blood ran down her forehead in a thick stripe, one eye half-blind from swelling. Her breathing came in short, clipped bursts – more fury than oxygen.

Another zealot came screaming out of the smoke – teeth like nails, fingers too long, voice shrieking prayer through a stitched mouth.

Alyssa raised her gauntlet.

Too late.

The demon lunged – and Alyssa met it with her body.

She didn't block. She slammed her forearm into its chest, grabbed the edge of its jaw, and drove both of them down into the floor with every ounce of her weight.

CRACK.

The zealot's spine gave before hers did.

She rolled off, wheezing. Didn't even stand. Just shoved herself back onto her feet like a drunk in a burning house. Her gauntlet sparked again – barely holding a charge.

Behind her, another shape approached. She turned, stumbling into a shoulder lean, and saw Dan.

He was kneeling.

His gold aura flickered like a candle running out of wick. His coat was torn down the side, blood leaking from his nose and ears. His staff-spear dragged uselessly across the floor, tip blackened with overuse.

But when the zealot knelt across from him – chanting, open-palmed, offering peace like a virus—

Dan didn't speak.

He reached forward, hand trembling, and touched its skull.

The light erupted like a crematorium blast.

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The zealot vanished. Not screamed. Not died. Vanished – body turned to particulate light and ash in a single flash.

Dan didn't rise. He didn't flinch.

"You're not peace," he whispered. "You're plague."

His head tilted back. He swayed slightly.

Alyssa caught his shoulder as she reached him.

"Still breathing?" she said.

"Mostly."

"Then get up."

He didn't argue.

They turned as one toward the rising line of demons. Dozens more. Some still robed, some fully transformed – crawling, skittering, hovering across the bones like hunger incarnate.

Ferron stood in front of them.

His chain was half gone. Snapped, frayed. The hook had dulled from too many kills. He didn't care. He wielded it like a rope and dagger now, every strike a close-quarters blur of knee, elbow, wrist. His coat was torn. Blood – demon and human – ran down his face, soaked into his sleeves.

He killed the next zealot with a knife to the neck and a muttered phrase in a language no living priest could recite.

The corpse shuddered and crumbled into smoke.

Another demon hesitated – staring at Ferron from across the crater. Its eyes were too human. Its stance unsure.

Ferron stared back.

Then, coldly, "Run."

The demon broke. Turned. Fled into the dark.

But there were too many behind it to care.

Ferron spat blood. Spun the ruined chain once.

Alyssa. Dan. Ferron.

The line wasn't holding anymore.

But it hadn't fallen yet.

And that would have to be enough.

…………………

[T-minus 2 Minutes Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The climb hurt.

Alpha's legs were shredded – joint servos grinding, ceramic plating cracked open from knee to shin. Sparks skittered down her calves like broken lightning. Her HUD blinked red. One eye glitched. The pain indicators were maxed, then ignored.

Still she climbed.

She scaled the last column on the sanctum's edge, fingers grinding into bone-marble pockmarked by shell impact and prayer-burn. Glyphs crawled across the surface, trying to rewrite her limbs. She didn't let them.

The summit was a ledge of fractured vertebrae and twisted rebar. She stood anyway—bleeding, sparking, balanced on ruin. Wind whipped her braid into her face. Firelight cast her shadow twice across the far wall – one human, one dying machine.

Below her, the battlefield roared. Zealots screamed benedictions. Max bled into ash. Dan's aura flickered. Ferron's chain had gone silent.

It didn't matter.

She had the device.

Alpha pulled the laser designator from her side rig. Heavy. Tactile. The casing bore her serial number etched in the side like a grave marker.

She knelt. One eye still glitched, but the targeting reticle flickered into view. The calibration system whined in protest.

Her lips didn't move. But she thought it.

Target: VERRINE.

The crosshair glowed, pulsing with beacon telemetry. A soft chime confirmed satellite sync.

Then the HUD stalled.

Frozen.

ERROR: PRIORITY RITUAL INTERFERENCE.

Alpha bared her teeth.

"Override."

The beacon resisted.

She slammed her palm against the casing. The screen cracked.

"Override," she said again. Louder.

Manual Sync Engaged. Coordinates Hard-Locked.

Target reticle snapped red.

High-Orbit Rail Platform Confirmed. Tungsten Payload 002 Primed.

High above Earth, past the soulfield perimeter, beyond the veil of hell-torn atmosphere – a weapon unshackled.

No thrusters. No explosion. No propulsion.

Just gravity.

A rod of forged tungsten the size of a telephone pole detached from its cradle. Thirty thousand feet of steel-silence followed it down.

Alpha exhaled.

Whispered, flat: "Verrine. Die."

The world answered.

The sanctum detonated beneath her.

The impact didn't land like a strike.

It landed like judgment.

A boom louder than thunder, deeper than war, shook the bones of the Earth. The entire sanctum lifted into the air. Every glyph detonated at once. Every wall cracked. Every prayer turned to static.

The tungsten rod hit the altar like a titan's fist – slamming through Verrine's spine, through her heart, through the floor – anchoring her corpse to the world like a divine pin in the scroll of existence.

For one breathless second…

There was only silence.

Smoke. Ash. Static. No sound.

Then…

Verrine exhaled.

Gently.

The smoke curled around her lips like incense.

She stood.

Impaled.

The rod still through her chest – her feet not touching the ground.

Her arms lifted in slow grace, like a saint on a stained-glass window. No pain. No rage. Just stillness.

She began to rise off the rod – bones shifting, skin folding around the rupture as if her body had changed the meaning of injury itself.

She disentangled herself from the weapon like slipping off a necklace.

Her eyes opened.

They were not human.

Then she spoke.

Not loud. But it hit every living soul in the chamber like a scream.

"ENOUGH."

And reality fractured.

The fire went out.

Max's Hellfire flickered – then died.

Dan's aura imploded into sparks.

Victor collapsed mid-lunge, claws retracting, skin turning pale. Human.

Ying staggered. Dropped to one knee.

Ferron gasped – his kusarigama going dark.

Even Alpha faltered. One knee slammed the floor. Her visor flickered once. Then failed.

The sanctum bowed.

Verrine floated forward, light trailing in her wake like gravity inverted.

She was not angry.

She was grieved.

"I AM YOUR SAVIOUR," she stated, as the world began to bow.

…………………

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

The pressure didn't come like fire. Or lightning. It came like gravity that knew your name.

Chloe felt it hit the moment she raised her blade.

She was crouched near the edge of the sanctum, blood in her hair, weapon pulsing between sword and spear. She'd just blinked forward – three meters ahead, intending to rejoin Alyssa's flank.

But mid-phase, her body stuttered.

Her limbs buckled mid-blink. Her weapon quivered in her grip, then fractured— splintering like crystal under frost. It wasn't a blade anymore. Just glass.

She screamed – high, sharp, raw – more from disbelief than pain. Her knees hit the ground as blood poured from her nose.

Behind her, Victor howled.

He was mid-sprint. Mid-transformation.

His spine had just begun to elongate again. The claws were half-formed. His jaw was open wide in a feral scream – then it wasn't.

The change reversed. Bones snapped back into place – too fast, too brutal. His skin reknit. Fur vanished. All of it gone in a heartbeat, like a dream evaporating before dawn.

He collapsed onto the bone floor, naked, scarred, panting.

"No," he croaked. "No— NO! Bring it back!"

His fists slammed the ground. Nothing happened. No claws. No fire. Just trembling fingers, bleeding and human.

Omega didn't scream.

He stood still for half a second – too still. His body twitched once.

Then his armour buckled.

One limb seized. Then another. His shoulder rig twisted like something was pulling it inward from the inside. Sparks flew from his neck brace. His left arm exploded in a burst of shattered ceramic and metal.

He dropped – face-first. Heavy. Final.

[SYSTEM ERROR: CORE NEUTRALIZED] [VITAL SIGNS: OFFLINE] [UNIT OMEGA: DISCONNECTED]

His HUD flatlined. His spine spasmed once. Then stopped.

Across the sanctum, Ferron's chant faltered mid-syllable.

His mouth simply… stopped.

No words came.

He stared at his hand. The kusarigama chain trembled – and then disintegrated. Not shattered. Not melted. Turned to ash.

The ash floated, hovered, then dropped to the ground with a sound like sand on stone.

Dan's aura, radiant and flickering, winked out like a candle caught in rain.

He collapsed without a sound. Flat on his back. Mouth slightly open. His consecrated spear rolled from his fingers and clattered away, cold.

Alpha screamed.

She dropped to her knees, hands pressed to her skull. Her visor sparked, flickered, then shattered outward like a spiderweb of cracked glass. Blood streamed from her ears. The laser designator shorted out beside her – its casing smouldering.

Ying was the last to fall.

She stood alone at the centre of the devastation, gun shaking in her hand.

She pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

Not a spark. Not a click. Her sidearm was a useless piece of metal.

Her fingers trembled.

And in that stillness – cut off from miracles, from fire, from strength – she did the only thing left to her.

She reached into her belt pouch.

Flicked open the manual nuke failsafe.

The screen blinked. Once.

[NUCLEAR STRIKE AUTHORIZED] [MANUAL LAUNCH CODE CONFIRMED] [DETONATION ORDERED – CHENGDU STRIKE PACKAGE 3]

The countdown began.

00:04:59

A remote Chinese military launch complex. Buried in mountain granite. Alarms flare to life. Sealed bunker doors shudder open.

Missiles rise on rails. Black casing, red insignia, silent as tombs.

Missile 1 – LAUNCHED. Missile 2 – LAUNCHED. Missile 3 – LAUNCHED.

Three warheads rise into the clouds – climbing toward the heavens.

Toward Chengdu.

Back in the sanctum, no one moves.

Only the sound of knees hitting the floor.

One after another.

A bowing of the world.

And at its centre, impaled no longer, floating above ash and ruin, Verrine raised her eyes to the sky.

Not in triumph. In mourning.

For what was about to come.

…………………

[Dimensional Event Ritual Complete]

The sanctum was in ruins.

Bones cracked underfoot. Prayer-etched pillars lay in pieces. Blood painted the seams of the floor in black ribbons. And from the centre of it all – unbowed, unbroken – Verrine stood.

The tungsten rod jutted from the altar behind her like a monument to defiance, still humming from the heat of re-entry. She had shed it like a robe. Her own robes fluttered without wind, glowing faintly – stitched with scripture no longer shining, but seared into the fabric like fresh scars.

Her arms were still outstretched, but not in blessing.

In mourning.

The siphon overhead pulsed now with accelerating rhythm – red-white, then white-red, then something deeper. A sound began to build: not thunder, not magic. A heartbeat. A countdown. A scream from above.

And from the pod—

Liz screamed.

The containment sphere writhed in place, molten light leaking from every seam. Cracks spiderwebbed through the shell. It didn't shatter. It shed, like a cocoon breaking from within.

Max lay nearby, gasping, half-conscious – barely able to lift his head. But when he heard Liz's voice – raw, cracking, defiant – he turned.

Verrine's voice cut through the carnage like a mother whispering in a nursery.

"This is not vengeance," she said. "This is protection."

She stepped forward slowly, as if unwilling to trample the dead she'd created.

"You think I betrayed her. That I stole her will. But I've done what you could not. I held the line. I kept the gate. I made the sacrifice."

She turned to Max – her eyes soft, pitying.

"You were never meant to carry this fire. She was. She is."

The siphon flared.

The chamber went still.

Above them, the rift finished opening.

It wasn't a hole in the sky. It wasn't a tear.

It was a mouth – a perfect spiral of light and pressure, lined with scripture like teeth. A lens of twisting geometry that funnelled something massive from beyond. The stars around it warped. The colour inside it made no sense – gold that bled, white that flickered like static, blue that moved when you blinked.

A choir screamed from inside the rift.

Not song. Not harmony.

It was belief, sung in a thousand voices at once, as if every prayer ever uttered had been stitched together into a hymn – and played backwards.

And in that one wrong note—

—a dissonant shriek, a jagged pause in the chorus—

—the light flickered wrong.

A shudder passed through the sanctum. Not tremor. Not magic.

Recognition.

The ritual reached its climax.

The pod exploded – not outward, but inward, folding into Liz's frame as the siphon detached.

She fell to the floor.

Eyes closed. But breathing. And twitching. Dreaming. Something behind the eyelids burned.

The room dared not move.

Verrine raised her gaze skyward.

And for the first time, her voice trembled.

"The void opens. The sky remembers."

Above them, the spiral twitched.

The rift grew teeth.

And silence became pressure.

Max stirred. Alyssa blinked. Chloe whimpered. Dan's fingers twitched in the dust. Ferron raised his head, just enough to see it. Even Victor, broken and exhausted, growled beneath his breath.

But no one spoke.

Verrine did.

She looked down at them – at the ashes, the defiance, the cost – and took a single breath.

Then, quietly—

"You want to know what I'm saving you from?"

She turned her face to the rift. Her voice was steady. But her hands had started to tremble.

"I am saving you from the coming of…"

She stopped.

Swallowed.

Whispered:

"God."

And in that moment—

—for the first time—

she looked afraid.

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