The VTOL cruised above the earth's highest scars, a silver whisper in a sky stained rust.

Below them stretched the corpse of China.

Charred ridgelines. Cities reduced to negative space. A million miles of silence, where once there had been motion, breath, prayer. The blast had carved out more than buildings – it had erased something intangible. Presence. Possibility.

Inside the cabin, it was quieter still.

Max lay against the floor, his skin pale beneath the bruises, his one remaining arm limply wrapped around Liz's unmoving frame. His fingers still twitched with phantom fire. Somewhere between waking and collapse, he saw the flash again – the rift of golden light, and beyond it, the smile.

It liked the fire, he thought. It smiled when the world burned.

He didn't know if that terrified him more than the silence.

Dan sat with his back to the fuselage, knees pulled in, both hands resting on Liz's ankle. His power pulsed faintly – warm, steady. He wasn't praying. He didn't believe in prayer anymore. But he hoped. Just stay breathing, he begged silently. That's all I need.

He kept his eyes on Liz. Not the windows. If he looked outside, he might start to scream.

Across from them, Victor leaned forward, elbows on his knees. One hand pressed to the fresh bandage on his ribs. The pain grounded him, but not enough. He stared at the floor. Listened to the hum of engines. Counted each vibration like a heartbeat.

"Is God supposed to be on our side?" he murmured under his breath.

No one answered. Maybe they hadn't heard. Or maybe it was better that way.

Alyssa gripped the edge of her seat rail like it was the only solid thing left. Her teeth ground silently, jaw clenched so hard it ached. She didn't cry. Didn't even blink. Her mind kept replaying the flash of light, the sudden nothing, the number on the screen.

Twenty million.

And they said she had anger issues.

Chloe sat beside her, knees drawn to her chest. She didn't speak until her lips moved like paper tearing.

"Are they all dead?"

Her voice cracked the air like a splinter.

No one responded. Alyssa's grip tightened. Her nails bit through the leather of the seat.

Ferron crouched near Max, chalk moving in steady lines around Liz's body. His sketches weren't wards anymore. They were something older. Something that hummed under his breath, not in any tongue known to this world. He worked because if he stopped, he might have to ask the question gnawing at his mind.

What was that unearthly Choir? Why did the notes change? What was forcing the rift shut? And why could he still hear the singing?

Near the cockpit, Alpha stood with perfect posture, unmoving. The air around her felt sharp, like a blade left just out of sight. She didn't watch the others – only the data feeds. No vitals from Beijing. No comms from inland teams. No satellite pings. Nothing. Only the hum.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to feel. But she logged the silence. Archived it. And labelled it: catastrophic failure of order.

Omega slouched two seats away, one boot propped on the edge of a case. His arms were folded, expression unreadable beneath the scarring and steel implants.

"Whole country's gone dark," he muttered.

His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the cabin like a blade.

"Like Hell got too full… and spilled over here."

Hawthorne didn't turn. He was still in the cockpit, shoulders rigid, hands trembling on the throttle. He'd rerouted three times already, trying to raise anything – an airfield, a tower, a satellite relay. Each attempt came back the same.

Static. Static. Static.

He didn't bother speaking anymore.

Across the cabin, the empty chairs waited.

Hawthorne's rescue team.

Six seats. Unoccupied. One still had a cracked pair of goggles slumped in it. Another had blood dried into the armrest.

No one looked at them. But everyone felt them.

Something immense had died. And something worse was still alive.

…………………

An hour passed in sealed silence. But the tension hadn't faded.

It had simply congealed – thick, coiled, waiting.

And then the woman stood.

Not one of them had asked who she was. Not yet. They were wary. Too tired.

They'd seen her kill Verrine's right hand demon with a single shot through the eye – clean, emotionless, like she was turning off a light.

They'd seen her move through the firestorm like she belonged to it, covering their escape while the fungal spires collapsed around them.

Military, obviously. Special forces, probably. But not like anything the Institute had deployed. She hadn't spoken since boarding. Just loaded Liz onto the VTOL, sat down, and become still.

Alyssa had whispered to Chloe earlier, "Who the hell is that?"

Chloe didn't know either. But she'd seen the burn scars under the collar. The trembling jaw. The way she hadn't taken her eyes off Liz for more than a second.

Alpha tilted her head slightly, studying Ying like a lab puzzle.

"People's Liberation Army. Tier-One Division. Unmarked insignia. She outranked her entire battalion."

Victor gave a low whistle. "No wonder she moved like that. I thought I was watching a ghost with a gun."

Now, Ying stood. Straight-backed. Hollow-eyed.

No one said a word. But the air shifted. All eyes turned toward her like iron filings to a magnet.

She stared out the window first. Not at anyone.

She didn't speak right away. Just stood near the viewport, arms loose at her sides, staring out at the red glow still blooming far behind them. The ash clouds. The crater where Chengdu had once been.

Finally, she said, "I launched the nuclear warhead."

The words weren't loud. But they were undeniable.

The cabin froze.

No one knew her. Not really. Not yet. But now she had a name.

Ying kept her eyes on the sky. "No clearance. No order. No confirmation. I made the call. I authorized the codes. It wasn't sanctioned by the military. It wasn't part of a plan. It was just… me."

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She turned to face them, slow and deliberate. Her face was blank—but too still. As if carefully arranged not to show the cracks underneath.

"I gave the order that killed twenty million people."

She paused. A single breath. Then added "There was no containment left. The infection had spread too far. No city. Just demons wearing its skin. You don't treat a wound like that. You cut it out."

A soft sound broke the silence. Chloe. Her breath hitched, then shattered. Her hands flew to her mouth, eyes wide with something worse than grief – helplessness.

Alyssa's face twisted. Her mouth opened, fury curling behind her tongue.

But before the words came, Max beat her to it.

"You saved Liz," he said.

His voice was hoarse. Raw.

"You saved us. I won't forget that."

It wasn't forgiveness. But it was something.

Ferron didn't move. He watched Ying the way one might watch a blade balancing on its point. Unblinking. Studying the edges. Calculating intent.

Dan spoke without looking up. He was still holding Liz's hand.

"What if there was another way?"

His voice was quiet. But the words hit hard.

Victor sighed. "There wasn't time," he said. "She did what we couldn't."

He didn't say it like praise. Just fact.

Alpha stood at the rear of the cabin, arms folded. "Doesn't change the fact we're alive."

Ying nodded. Once.

Then: "Maybe I was always a weapon. This is just what I was made for."

Her fingers trembled. Barely.

Then she pulled her pistol from the side holster, checked the mag, re-holstered it with the soft click of finality, and sat down.

She didn't speak again.

But no one forgot what she'd said.

Twenty million.

And one girl still breathing.

…………………

The VTOL banked east, engine hum steady as it skimmed the upper atmosphere—pulling away from the cratered wasteland that had once been central China. Below them, the clouds looked bruised. Burned at the edges. Even the sky didn't feel clean anymore.

Inside the cabin, no one spoke for a long time.

They just sat with it. The numbers. The ash. The silence. The fact that they'd survived.

Alyssa sat beside Chloe, arms wrapped tight around her knees. She rocked slightly. Not much – just enough to keep herself anchored. Her lips moved with words no one could hear.

Chloe leaned forward, eyes locked on Liz's motionless form. Her voice was soft. Fractured.

"Is there still a place for us in a world where God is real? Is there a place for us at all?"

Alyssa stopped rocking. Her voice came back flat.

"Not that god."

On the floor, Ferron crouched with his notebook open, the pages already half-filled. But not with words. Symbols. Curls. Shapes that flickered oddly when viewed from the corner of your eye. His charcoal scraped in slow, deliberate motions.

"The Choir… it wasn't just music. It was something else. And the rift Verrine made – it wasn't clean. Something tore it open from the inside."

He paused. Scratched another curve. "Then someone else forced it shut."

Victor was seated along the side wall, shirt peeled back, wrapping his own ribs with a strip of gauze. He winced as he tightened it, exhaled slow.

"Anyone want to talk about... God?"

He let the question hang there. No one answered.

Max lay back, one hand resting lightly over Liz's. The warmth of Dan's healing still lingered in his chest, but the pain had gone deeper than muscle. He stared at the ceiling like it might crack open again.

"I saw it," he whispered. "It smiled at me. I think... it liked the fire."

Dan didn't move. His hand was still on Liz's ankle, steady, glowing faintly with that soft golden pulse.

"We need answers," he said. "And someone who can wake her up."

Ying sat apart from the others, her body still but her eyes locked on the emergency terminal mounted into the bulkhead. The launch screen still glowed faint red. She reached up and shut it off. The light vanished.

"I can never go home," she said. Quiet. Final.

Hawthorne's voice crackled from the cockpit, cutting through the tension like a scalpel.

"We're landing at a blacksite runway outside Dubai," he said. "Refuel and patch-up. Then we push west. Next stop: the Fortress. Scotland. Grimm's orders."

No one replied.

They all just stared forward, each in their own silence.

Outside, the sky was changing again – amber on the edges now, sickly and raw. Like a wound refusing to heal.

…………………

The VTOL touched down just past midnight.

The runway was a strip of obsidian-black tarmac carved into the edge of the Dubai desert – Institute territory, no insignia, no lights beyond the landing zone. Only the wind, the engines winding down, and the slow shuffle of masked figures emerging from the hangar.

Refuelling crews waited in full hazmat gear. Helmets sealed. Visors down.

No one greeted them.

No words. No questions. Just a quick nod toward the marked path and a set of wheeled fuel tanks rolling in like coffins.

The side hatch hissed open.

Heat slammed into them first – dry, searing, full of static electricity and scorched sand. The air felt wrong. Too still. Too thin. Like breathing inside a vacuum.

They stepped out one by one, boots crunching softly against the grit. The spotlight glare washed out their shadows, left them half-real under the flood of white light.

Alyssa blinked against it, then muttered, "We're ghosts now."

Victor stretched one arm behind his back, wincing at the tension in his spine.

"At least ghosts don't have to pay rent."

No one laughed. Not even him.

Ferron moved toward the edge of the tarmac, something pulling him. He didn't look at the workers. Didn't look at the fuel lines. His steps slowed.

He stopped.

Then clutched the pendant around his neck – fingers white-knuckled, whole body tensing.

"Her bindings are failing."

The words were low. Tight.

"The thing inside her... it's waking up."

Behind them, on the VTOL's open ramp, Liz stirred.

Just once. A flicker. Her chest hitched slightly. Not a breath – more like a shiver through a dream. Her fingers twitched against Max's side.

He didn't notice.

But Ferron did.

"We're running out of time," he said, voice hollow. "Scotland won't be enough. We'll need Japan."

Max turned, brow furrowed. But Ferron didn't elaborate.

He just stared east, across the dark horizon – toward a distant sea, and the land beyond it.

Toward whatever was still waiting in the ruins of Kyoto.

…………………

The VTOL lifted off in silence, rising above the glowing sprawl of Dubai's edge lights, then angling west into open sky. Beneath them, the desert vanished into night. Ahead – eight hours of dark air and waiting.

In the cockpit, Hawthorne's voice cut through the cabin speakers, flat and tired.

"Final approach locked. Eight hours until Scotland. Brace for long-range transition."

No one responded.

Max sat propped against the fuselage wall, his skin still mottled from the burns and blood loss. But the worst had passed. His breathing had steadied.

Dan knelt beside him, eyes shut, hands pressed lightly to Max's shoulder and chest. A golden aura shimmered faintly around them – subtle at first, then brighter. Max winced as the light poured into him, then froze – his body jerking once.

Muscle stitched. Tendon reformed. Bone regrew.

His right arm reappeared in slow, trembling layers – cells weaving together like a reverse decay.

Dan's skin had gone pale. Sweat beaded down his temple. He didn't stop.

When it was done, Max exhaled slowly. Flexed his fingers. Moved the wrist. Made a fist.

He stared at it for a moment, then whispered, "Next time... I'll be ready."

There was a pause.

Then: a sharp inhale.

Ying was staring. Not blinking. Not breathing. Just locked in place, her eyes wide with something rare – shock.

She stepped forward, slowly, like approaching a holy site. Her gaze moved from Max's newly reformed arm to Dan, who was now slumped against the seat, barely upright.

"That shouldn't be possible," she said, her voice low and steady, but not calm. "Bone regeneration takes months. Years, if it's even viable. That was... complete."

She looked at Max again. "You had no arm. I saw it."

Max didn't answer. Neither did Dan.

Ying's expression shifted – not disbelief, but re-evaluation. The battlefield commander in her was already running scenarios, recalculating everything she'd thought she knew about Contractors.

"He didn't just heal tissue," she murmured. "He remade a limb. From nothing. That's not medicine. That's something else."

From the rear of the cabin, Alpha chimed in without looking up from her data slate.

"Congratulations, Daniel Bailey. You are now officially a Category 3 Contractor. Soul-tier regenerative output confirmed. Estimated cooldown: 6 to 9 days under non-lethal exertion."

Victor blinked. "Wait— Category three? What does that mean?"

Alpha didn't look up. "It means he's now classified as a strategic recovery asset. Same level as battlefield reanimators or spatial anchors."

Ying turned her gaze back to Dan, who looked like he might pass out at any second.

She didn't say thank you. Or good job.

Just: "If I'd had someone like you in Chengdu... I wouldn't have needed the missile."

Dan didn't reply.

But the silence that followed felt different – heavier. As if the room had collectively realized just how much power now lived in the quietest hands among them.

Victor raised an eyebrow. "Hell, Dan. You're turning into a goddamn miracle."

Dan didn't smile. He looked ready to collapse. "Not strong enough. That took... too much."

He slumped back against the seat, eyes barely open.

"I'll need a week. Minimum. Maybe two."

Victor leaned his head back, eyes closed. "Sleep sounds good. Let me know if we make it that far."

Max didn't answer. He kept staring out the viewport, past the clouds, past the ice-drenched peaks.

He'd faced gods. He'd burned demons. But the Rift? That had been something else.

It hadn't judged him. It hadn't hated him. It had looked through him.

And for one unbearable moment, he wasn't Max Jaeger anymore – just a crack in the world's surface.

Max pressed a hand to the hull as the VTOL descended. The metal was cool, smooth – but his vision blurred anyway.

For just a second, he wasn't in the aircraft.

He was back in the rift.

The Choir's song worming through his skull. The taste of light in his mouth. The pressure of divinity that didn't love – just erased.

"Max?" Dan's voice. Quiet. Grounding.

He blinked. Exhaled.

"Yeah," Max muttered. "Just... turbulence."

Ferron knelt again near Liz, carving one last containment ring in burnt ochre across the VTOL floor – an intricate coil of symbols that glowed faintly as he finished.

"She'll need to be ready."

He didn't explain. No one asked.

The hum of the engines deepened. They cut through higher air now – colder, thinner.

Toward the front of the cabin, Chloe stared out the window.

The east was turning red.

Sunrise.

But the colour was wrong – sickly, blood-washed, bleeding through dirty cloudbanks still thick with ash. The sky churned slowly, as if trying to remember how light was supposed to behave.

And far in the west… where China used to be…

…the horizon flickered. A low, pulsing ripple in the sky, like a wound that refused to close.

Chloe's breath fogged the glass.

No one spoke.

The world hadn't ended.

But something had begun.

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