The young man emerged from his shadow portal in front of the mansion, One still unconscious in his arms. He walked toward the entrance without urgency, his steps measured and even. He pushed the door open with his shoulder, entered, and navigated corridors that were empty despite the size of the building.

He walked through what appeared to be living spaces—sitting rooms with furniture that looked comfortable but unused, a kitchen that showed no signs of recent meals being prepared, bedrooms with beds that were made but never slept in.

Finally, he reached a door at the end of a long corridor. This one was different from the others. Reinforced, metal banded. The kind of door meant to keep something contained.

He opened it.

The smell hit immediately—a putrid mixture of human waste, unwashed bodies, and death. The room beyond was large, maybe forty feet on each side, and filled with cages. Dozens of them, arranged in rows, each one just big enough for a person to stand or lie down but nothing more.

And each cage held a prisoner.

Humans, all of them. Men and women both, though mostly men. They wore rags or nothing at all. Some slept. Some sat staring at nothing. Some looked up as the door opened, hope and fear warring on their faces.

The young man walked through the room, One still in his arms, until he reached a specific cage. Inside, a frail figure barely recognizable as human sat slumped against the bars. The person—male, probably, though it was hard to tell given the emaciation—lifted a shaky hand toward the bars.

"It's time," the young man said simply.

He reached through the bars, gripping the outstretched hand. Then something began flowing—a light, golden and warm, streaming from the prisoner's body through the point of contact. The frail figure shuddered, gasped, tried to pull away but couldn't. The light continued flowing until there was nothing left.

The body slumped unconscious.

The young man released the hand and turned to One, pressing his palm against the boy's chest. The golden light he'd just absorbed flowed into One's body. Color returned to the child's face. His breathing steadied. His eyes moved beneath closed lids as consciousness began returning.

Around the room, other prisoners were stirring now, having been woken by the sound of the door or the smell of death that always accompanied these visits. Some began sobbing. Others shouted curses in languages the young man didn't bother acknowledging.

Then one voice cut through the noise, louder than the rest. Very defiant.

"HEY!"

The young man turned his head slightly, acknowledging the speaker without particular interest.

A man with red hair, matted and filthy but still distinctly red, gripped the bars of his cage with white-knuckled hands. Despite obvious malnourishment, despite the conditions, his bearing suggested he'd once held power and authority.

"This is not a flamboyant way to treat a king such as myself!" the red-haired man shouted. "You hear me, Arthur?!"

Arthur. The name hung in the air like a curse or a prayer, depending on who spoke it.

The young man—Arthur—looked at the red-haired prisoner with the same mild disinterest he might show a barking dog.

"Be quiet, Aurelius," Arthur said calmly. "There are plenty of Ares men that would be suitable in your place."

Aurelius's face purpled with rage, but he fell silent, apparently knowing from experience that pushing further would accomplish nothing.

Another voice spoke up—an older man, he sounded broken. "Please. I've been here for... I don't even know how long anymore. Please, let me go home. Let me return to my people."

Arthur turned to face the old man fully, and for the first time, something resembling emotion crossed his features. Not sympathy. Curiosity, perhaps. Or amusement.

"There would be no home to return to," Arthur said. "No people waiting for you. Just as I speak now, your son is still seeking to return from a place that's impossible unless I will it. But the stubbornness exhibited by him is nothing short of the true doggedness of the Greys."

The old man's face crumpled. He sank to the floor of his cage, whatever hope had been sustaining him apparently shattered by that casual revelation.

Arthur turned back toward the door, One beginning to stir in his arms.

Behind him, the caged prisoners resumed their noise—crying, begging, cursing, praying. The sounds of people who'd been broken but hadn't quite died yet, trapped in a hell that existed on a planet so distant from everything they'd known that rescue was literally impossible.

Arthur walked out, closing the reinforced door behind him. The sounds muffled but didn't disappear completely, following him down the corridor like ghosts he couldn't quite leave behind.

One's eyes fluttered open. "Father?" he whispered.

"Rest," Arthur said. "You pushed too far today. We'll need to adjust your training regimen."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to show all my pillars. I wanted to prove I was worthy."

"You are not worthy. But you are almost perfect," Arthur replied, his tone neither warm nor cold. Simply stating fact. "But even perfect people have limits that must be respected until those limits can be surpassed."

He carried the boy toward a room where One would rest and recover and eventually return to training, never knowing that the golden light that had just healed him had come from a dying prisoner who'd once ruled a family on a world Arthur had ripped them of their king ages ago.

Just another day on Hollowstar.

Just another piece of Arthur's grand design, playing out exactly as he'd intended.

***

They landed.

The transition was instantaneous and disorienting. One moment, frozen battlefield and arctic wind. The next, grass beneath their feet—real grass, impossibly green, stretching in every direction under a sky that held perfect light without any visible sun.

The Widow stumbled slightly, her balance off for the first time since Noah had met her. She recovered immediately, spinning to face him, but her expression had shifted. The maternal warmth was gone, replaced by something more cautious.

"Where is this?" She looked around, taking in the endless grassland, the distant cabin, the three massive dens on the horizon. "It feels... different."

"My domain," Noah said simply. Excaliburn hung loose in his grip, point toward the ground. His breathing was steady despite the beating he'd taken. The wounds were healing faster here—he could feel Ivy's regeneration buff working overtime, accelerated by the domain's properties.

The Widow's eyes narrowed. She took a step toward him, testing. "No matter. A change of scenery doesn't change the outcome, precious. Now the real games can begin."

"Yes," Noah agreed. "When I allow them."

He didn't move. Didn't raise his weapon. Just stood there, and something about his stillness made the Widow pause.

Then Noah opened his system interface.

[VOID STORE ACCESSED]

[BALANCE: 89,740 VOID COINS]

[SCANNING AVAILABLE PURCHASES...]

The options flooded his vision—weapons, equipment, enhancements from dimensions he'd never heard of. But he knew exactly what he needed. His mind moved through the holographic display.

[PURCHASE: VOID HAND CANNON - 2,000 COINS]

[PURCHASE: VOID AMMUNITION (1000 ROUNDS) - 1,500 COINS]

[PURCHASE: AUTO-TURRET SYSTEM (×10) - 5,000 COINS]

[CONFIRM PURCHASES?]

"Yes."

[PURCHASES CONFIRMED]

[REMAINING BALANCE: 81,240 COINS]

Reality rippled. In Noah's left hand, weight materialized—a weapon that looked like someone had taken a desert eagle and rebuilt it from concentrated void energy. Matte black metal that seemed to absorb light. A barrel wide enough to fit a thumb inside. The grip settled into his palm like it had been custom-made.

The Widow's eyes widened. "What—"

Noah raised the hand cannon and fired.

*BOOM—*

The report was like thunder compressed into a single syllable. The void bullet—not a projectile but a concentrated sphere of erasure energy—tore through the space between them faster than sound.

The Widow moved. Her speed was still intact, still that horrifying velocity that had dominated their surface fight. She displaced herself three feet left, the bullet passing through where her head had been and continuing until it dissolved into nothing.

Noah fired again. And again. And again.

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—*

Each shot created its own sonic signature. Each bullet carried enough void energy to erase whatever it touched. The Widow danced between them, her movements becoming a blur as she wove through the barrage. Left, right, duck, leap, spin—never in the same place twice.

But Noah wasn't trying to hit her yet.

[ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL ACCESSED]

[TERRAIN MANIPULATION: ACTIVE]

The ground beneath the Widow's feet exploded upward. Stone and earth erupted in pillars six feet thick, forcing her trajectory to shift. She shattered through the first pillar with her shoulder, natural armor cracking rock like it was drywall. The second pillar she dodged. The third caught her mid-leap, and she had to twist impossibly to avoid slamming into it.

Noah kept firing. Kept the pressure constant. The hand cannon's recoil was substantial, but his enhanced strength absorbed it. His arm barely moved with each shot. Just steady, mechanical targeting—not where she was, but where she would be.

A bullet grazed her left arm. The Widow hissed as void energy began eating at flesh. She didn't hesitate—her right hand came across in a blur, claws severing her own limb at the elbow before the erasure could spread. The severed portion hit the grass and dissolved. New flesh was already growing.

More pillars erupted. The Widow shattered through them, but each one slowed her fractionally. Each one forced her to commit to a direction. And with each commitment, Noah's firing solution improved.

*BOOM—*

This shot caught her thigh. She severed the leg at the knee without breaking stride, landing on the stump and immediately regenerating while still moving.

"You can't sustain this, precious!" the Widow called out, her voice carrying strain for the first time. "Even here, you have limits!"

Noah's response was to activate the next phase.

[AUTO-TURRET DEPLOYMENT: INITIATED]

Reality warped. Ten points around the Widow shimmered, and from those distortions emerged weapons that looked like they'd been forged from solidified darkness. Each turret was roughly three feet tall, mounted on a tripod base that anchored itself to the ground. The barrels were smooth and featureless except for the opening that glowed with purple light.

They all fired simultaneously.

*BRZZT-BRZZT-BRZZT-BRZZT—*

Not the boom of Noah's hand cannon but a rapid-fire BRZZT as void bullets poured from all ten turrets in sustained streams. The Widow was suddenly in a killbox, ten different firing solutions converging on her position from every angle.

She moved faster. Pushed her speed to levels that made her previous velocity look casual. But ten turrets meant ten angles, and sustained fire meant no gaps in coverage.

A bullet caught her left shoulder. She severed the arm, kept moving. Another caught her right calf. She severed the leg below the knee. Her regeneration was working overtime now, new limbs growing even as old ones were cut away, but the holes kept appearing faster than she could remove the damaged tissue.

Her right arm—punctured through the bicep. Her left side—three holes through the obliques. Her right thigh—a void bullet that went completely through, requiring her to sever the entire leg at the hip to prevent the erasure from spreading to her torso.

She was maintaining only the critical areas. Her head. Her chest. Her core. Everything else was expendable, sacrificed to keep those vital regions intact. But the pressure was building. She couldn't keep this up forever.

Noah was walking toward her now. Not running. Just walking, hand cannon still firing methodically, adding his shots to the turrets' sustained barrage. His expression was cold, empty of everything except focus.

The Widow's movements were getting sloppy. Desperation was creeping in. A bullet grazed her neck—too close to her head to risk severing. She had to contort, had to sacrifice her left shoulder entirely to protect her throat.

Noah was ten feet away now.

[VOID DOME CONSTRUCTION]

[COST: 1,000 COINS]

[CONSTRUCT]

A dome erupted around them, a perfect hemisphere of solid void energy that enclosed a thirty-foot radius. The turrets were outside the barrier, their firing solutions blocked. The Widow stumbled as the sudden absence of bullets gave her a moment to breathe.

Then Noah disappeared.

Not blinked. Not moved fast. Simply ceased to exist in his current position and materialized from the dome wall behind her, already mid-kick.

His boot caught the Widow across the back of her skull with enough force to crater the ground where her face impacted. She tried to roll with it, but Noah was already gone—phasing back into the void, repositioning.

He emerged from her left, fist driving into her floating ribs with enhanced strength that cracked natural armor. Gone before she could counter. Reappeared from above, double-fisted strike to her spine that folded her in half.

The dome wasn't just a cage. It was his weapon. He could enter and exit its walls at will, appear from any angle, strike and retreat faster than she could track. The Widow was being battered from every direction, unable to establish defense, unable to predict where the next hit would come from.

Noah's knuckles were bleeding. He didn't care. He drove his knee into her jaw, felt teeth shatter. Disappeared. Reappeared. Elbow to her temple. Gone. Back. Overhead kick that sent her face-first into grass already soaked with her black blood.

"Fight back!" Noah snarled, materializing directly in front of her prone form. "Come on!"

The Widow pushed herself up slowly. Her face was a ruin—jaw hanging wrong, one eye swollen shut, blood pouring from her nose and mouth. But she was regenerating. Tissue knitting back together, bones realigning.

And her expression had changed completely. The maternal warmth, the psychotic affection, the careful cultivation—all of it was gone. What remained was pure, undiluted hatred mixed with desperation.

Noah saw the white lines appear. Those death-warning streaks that told him exactly where the fatal blows would land. They surrounded the Widow now—dozens of them, every strike carrying genuine lethal threat.

She attacked with everything she had. No more measuring strikes. No more pulling back. Her fist came at Noah's head with killing intent, her tail whipping around to impale him from behind, her remaining leg driving forward to crush his chest.

He'd broken her. Pushed her past restraint, past orders, past whatever mission she'd been operating under. She genuinely wanted to kill him now.

Except it was too late.

Noah phased through her fist, materialized inside her guard. Her tail came around—he caught it, his grip like iron despite the appendage trying to crush his hand. Her knee drove toward his midsection—he blocked with his forearm, bones grinding together.

They were locked together, faces inches apart. The Widow's remaining eye was wide, bloodshot, filled with the realization of what was about to happen.

Noah saw his opening. The white lines converged towards him but that meant they were also showing him exactly where to strike, exactly how to position himself.

He drove his fist forward with everything he had. Not at her chest. Through her back.

His arm punched through her torso from behind, emerging from her sternum, spraying black blood. His fingers closed around something that might have been her heart—if Harbingers even had hearts in the traditional sense.

The Widow gasped. Her entire body went rigid. She couldn't move, couldn't pull away, his arm literally holding her in place through the massive wound he'd created.

Noah felt it then—her flesh trying to close around his arm. The pressure was immense, tissue attempting to regenerate, to push him out, to seal the wound that was preventing her from healing properly. It was like having his arm caught in a hydraulic press that was slowly, inexorably tightening.

But he held firm. Kept his arm buried in her torso, feeling her desperate attempts at survival through the raw biological pressure trying to force him out.

"Why are the Harbingers working for Arthur?" Noah's voice was quiet, cold. "Last chance."

The Widow groaned. Blood bubbled from her lips. Her head turned and her remaining eye focused on him with effort. And her tail, weakly, began to move behind Noah's back. Positioning for one final strike.

Noah felt it. Saw the white line appear. Knew exactly what she was about to do.

"Wrong answer."

[NULL STRIKE ACTIVATED]

[VOID ENERGY: 23,450/24,000]

Purple-black energy exploded outward from Noah's embedded arm. Not just erasing the immediate tissue, but spreading through the Widow's entire torso. Her chest cavity simply ceased to exist, void energy unmaking matter at the molecular level.

The hole expanded. Six inches across. Then a foot. Then two feet. Noah pulled his arm free as the Widow's upper body became a gaping void, her spine visible through the erasure, her lungs and heart and whatever other organs she possessed just... gone.

She swayed. Tried to speak. Couldn't, because she no longer had the organs required for speech.

Then she collapsed forward, and Noah stepped aside, letting her fall face-first into the grass.

The Widow twitched once. Her remaining limbs tried to move, biological imperative demanding she fight, survive, regenerate.

But there was nothing left to regenerate from. The void had taken too much. Her body began dissolving, flesh turning to nothing, bones crumbling, until nothing remained except a dark stain on perfect grass.

Noah stood there, breathing hard, his arm dripping with black blood. The void dome dissolved around him. The turrets powered down. Silence settled over his domain except for his own ragged breathing.

Then his system erupted with notifications.

[CONGRATULATIONS!]

[SECRET QUEST COMPLETED: WIDOW SLAYER]

[REWARDS CALCULATING...]

[REWARDS CALCULATING...]

[REWARDS CALCULATING...]

The notifications kept scrolling, but Noah wasn't reading them. He was staring at the spot where the Widow had died, at the grass slowly returning to its normal color, at his own shaking hands.

He'd killed a four-horn Harbinger. In his domain. Where he controlled everything.

And he hadn't gotten a single answer about why they were working with Arthur.

[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: WIDOW SLAYER]

[MULTIPLE REWARDS PENDING...]

[NOTIFICE: EXIT DOMAIN TO RECEIVE FULL REWARD DISTRIBUTION]

Noah dismissed the notifications with a thought. He'd check them later. Right now, he needed to get back to the real battlefield.

His team was still fighting. And somewhere in that facility, Arthur perhaps was waiting.

He was next.

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