Chapter 17: Gods, face to face

  The vault was a tomb of rust and silence until the heavy thud of boots broke the spell. In the center, a blonde woman sat chained to a pillar, a tattered blindfold covering her eyes.

  "Xin really lacked a sense of decorum, didn't he? Leaving a lady in a place this... damp," a voice drawled, muffled and metallic behind a heavy gas mask.

  Shade stepped into the light, the glass lenses of his mask reflecting the woman's slumped form. He twirled his katana with effortless flair before snapping it through the air. The iron chains shattered, clattering to the floor like junk.

  The woman gasped, her body sagging without the weight of the metal. "Who...?" she rasped.

  "Your lucky charm," Shade teased, the filters of his mask hissing as he chuckled. He sheathed the blade with a sharp click. "The Queen, Wonjung, sent her best. She’s waiting in the wasteland shelters."

  He leaned down, the dark lenses of his mask inches from her blindfold. "I’d hurry if I were you. She’s got a world to burn, and it’s much more fun to watch it from the front row."

  With a mock salute, Shade stepped back into the shadows and vanished, leaving his muffled laughter echoing in the dark.

  "Don't keep her waiting, Blondie!"

  ***

  Flash. Bam. Boom.

  The wasteland was no longer a physical place; it was a canvas of destruction. Wonjung’s eyes burned with a relentless blue light as she tore into reality itself. She wasn't shifting space with Gaeul’s elegant, defensive precision—she was using it as a sledgehammer. Gravity inverted, sending sand and jagged stone falling upward, while she materialized massive boulders in mid-air, hurling them like meteors at the man below.

  The Silver Mask was a blur. He dashed across shifting platforms, hopping over gravity wells, his movements jagged and desperate. Finally, Wonjung snapped her fingers, and the floating terrain locked into a cage around him. A massive, jagged monolith fell from the sky, aimed directly at his head. No escape.

  His eyes flared a deep, unstable Violet.

  He unsheathed his katana, and the blade hummed with Chaos Energy—a force that vibrated at a frequency designed to atomize whatever it touched. With one singular, violent swing, the boulder didn't just break; it was bisected perfectly, the two halves crashing harmlessly into the sand.

  Wonjung didn't pause. She summoned a forest of black spikes to impale him as he charged, but he sliced through them like paper. Gritting her teeth, she channeled every ounce of her stolen power into a massive Void Orb, a swirling vortex of nothingness, and launched it at point-blank range.

  The Silver Mask leaped. Mid-air, he ripped the mask from his face, revealing the sharp, determined features of Sungmin. His left eye swirled into a dark purple vacuum, and he literally swallowed the Void Orb into a chaos-well conjured by his gaze.

  The energy vanished.

  Wonjung exhaled, the weight of the encounter sliding off her like rain. She was supposed to be shocked, perhaps even terrified, but she had reached her limit for surprises a long time ago. "Now what the hell was that?"

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  Sungmin dropped to the ground, maskless. He breathed heavily, staring at her from only a few inches away.

  "I know you..." Wonjung smirked. "Sungmin. You were a frontliner. Seonho's shadow. The Silver Mask? Now it all makes sense." She chuckled darkly. "You’ve been working with the Covenant this whole time."

  "You have no right to discuss the Covenant with me, witch," Sungmin spat. "You killed my master."

  "Ah, yes. The man who wore the Gold Mask." Wonjung leaned against a floating rock. "He was a fool. An idiot who watched too many anime. How smart was it to raise a literal demon child to a high grade enhancement military organization and turn him into a weapon?"

  "There was no way we could kill the Paragon,"

  "Say his name, you coward!" Wonjung yelled.

  "We can't kill Seonho." Sungmin countered with a sigh. "Re-writing his identity, it was the only way."

  "I can kill him," Wonjung said, her smile turning predatory.

  "You can't even kill me."

  "Maybe. But I can tear your mind apart." Wonjung’s eyes flared blue, casting a massive psychic wave of illusion.

  Sungmin didn't flinch. His eyes pulsed violet, the Chaos energy evaporating the blue wave and surging it back toward her. Wonjung’s pupils were suddenly invaded by purple glowing spirals.

  The world faded to black. She stood in a desert of human skulls. Hanging from the sky were her victims—Soyeon, Cheol, Mansu, the soldiers. A hooded figure approached, removing her hood to reveal Gaeul’s face.

  "A meaningless conquest," Gaeul’s ghost said, swinging a scythe.

  Wonjung snapped her eyes to Red. The Scarlet energy burned through the illusion, but she collapsed to her knees, panting.

  "That... is Chaos," Sungmin said, his katana at her neck. "The Covenant’s powers make Flux’s primitive enhancements look like toys. The Scarlet eyes you stole... you’re using them for treachery. To seek out Xin? Really?"

  "I didn't steal it, it chose me..." Wonjung gasped. "I was shown."

  "Shown what?"

  "I WAS SHOWN! OKAY?" she screamed. "Before the Ven War, I saw the secrets. The Council wants to tame the Paragon. Use it as a weapon. And I had a vision... a demon on a rampage, worlds on fire. And you? You were breathing your last breath with a hole in your chest."

  "So you kill your friends? Because of some vision?"

  "I'm a Flux. An Elite," she said, smirking mockingly as she stood up. "A mission is a mission, right?"

  "No, you're a purist, and whether you deny it or not, this is not a mission, this is a statement."

  "If that makes more sense to you, I don't care what I am to people. I have to raze."

  Sungmin let out a hysterical, bitter laugh. "Alright. That's enough. You became a god... but I was made to kill gods."

  ***

  "I found him," Leeseo said, sliding a tablet to Rin. "The President of Zeal. He’s the source of the tech Shade has been using."

  Rin scanned the data. "Pierce... an American."

  "He has powers, Rin. Like us," Leeseo added. "And he's moving to wipe out the resistance."

  Leeseo adjusted her gloves, watching Eunchae on the side spinning her sai like a professional. "Uh, huh. Uh, huh."

  "Good work, Leeseo," Rin said. "We’ll strike before they’re ready."

  San walked in, looking at Leeseo. "Ready to resume training?"

  "One second. Check this out." Leeseo tried to spin her tonfa with the same flair as Eunchae. The heavy weapon made an awkward turn and clattered loudly onto the floor.

  "Let’s go?" Leeseo said, acting nonchalant as she walked toward the door.

  "Pick it up," San called out.

  "Right." She scurried back and grabbed it.

  ***

  Back at the ruins, Wonjung flew into the air, her eyes glowing blue as she drew her broadsword, coating it in Scarlet energy.

  Below her, Sungmin didn't flinch. He lowered his center of gravity, his own katana humming with the volatile, jagged frequency of Chaos energy. A sickly purple light bled from his blade, distorting the air around it like heat off a summer road.

  With a primal cry, Wonjung dove. She swung her broadsword in a devastating arc, the Scarlet energy trailing behind her like a comet’s tail.

  Sungmin met her mid-air.

  The collision was deafening. Purple and red energies screamed as they tore at one another, releasing a shockwave that cracked the nearby stone pillars. For a heartbeat, they were locked—a stalemate of light and steel. Then, with a desperate, twisting maneuver, Sungmin forced his way past her guard.

  The sound of the bypass was a sickening crack.

  As Sungmin surged forward, his Chaos-laden katana sheared through Wonjung’s broadsword as if the steel were made of glass. The top half of her blade that killed Mansu, Cheol, Soyeon, and Gaeul, shattered into a dozen glowing shards that hissed in the dirt. Wonjung’s follow-through had been true; as they crossed paths, the jagged edge of her remaining steel bit deep into Sungmin’s left arm. Blood splattered mid-air.

  Wonjung turned, using her reality manipulation, she created a Disc of Void with an edge of Obsidian—two powers combined into one lethal, spinning blade.

  With a sudden shift in space, she teleported directly behind Sungmin and hurled the disc. It hit him with a sickening crunch. Sungmin spat blood, his right shoulder ripped open, nearly cut in half. He hit the ground hard.

  Wonjung dived to finish the job, but Sungmin’s eyes flared violet one last time. He spun mid-air, slicing the wind and sending a massive wave of purple Chaos toward her.

  Wonjung, inexperienced with her new powers, reacted a second too late. No shifts, no boulders came in time. The wave grazed the side of her face.

  "AAAAHHHH!!!!"

  Wonjung fell, rolling in the dirt as blood poured from her face. Sungmin groaned, clutching his gaping wound. He wanted to strike again, but a massive wall of stones erupted between them, shielding Wonjung.

  Dying and depleted, Sungmin decided to call it a day and vanished into the shadows.

  ***

  On the other side of the Outlands, a handsome man named Kanghyuk stood swinging two heavy hand-axes, the metal whistling through the air. Beside him, Haruka—a girl with a sharp, focused gaze—kicked the air, the hidden blades on her ankles glinting in the light.

  Zip.

  Seonho materialized beside them, adjusting his gear with a confident smirk. "Wassup, guys? Ready to smash some heads?"

  Clash.