Bael's figure dissolved into a black mist and disappeared into thin air like a magician's final act, vanishing behind smoke. Within seconds, there was no trace of Bael's existence.
"Conduit: Arbiters Fabrication"
The words spread across the lot like a command to her black essence. It pooled beneath her feet, surging upward and solidifying into silver boots shaped like those worn by medieval knights, reaching just below her knees.
Lea turned slightly and activated her Art linked with her white essence. Her eyes were now ringed with pale violet concentric symbols. Thin lines of white essence crawled across her skin and formed intricate patterns of violet light.
As the markings brightened over her skin, she felt the air pressure shift. The glow concentrated near the patterns around her ears, and sound sharpened to a razor point.
Uneven footsteps echoed about seventy meters away. Nervous. Rushed. Someone was trying and failing to stay quiet.
She had already pinned down Bael's location when a whisper cut through her focus.
"…Senior, is he gone?"
The mutter was faint as dust—yet unmistakably clear.
Lea exhaled once—calm, unbothered. Her gun slid into her back pocket. With effortless strength, she lifted the eighty-kilogram suitcase and tossed it toward Jacob like it weighed nothing more than a loaf of bread.
Jacob caught it—barely. His knees buckled, muscles trembling as he fought the momentum. He swallowed hard, hands shaking.
Lea didn't respond. She walked to the car and opened the back door in one fluid motion.
Inside, she drew her weapon, a proper one this time. An RA 47. Matte black, compact, and unnervingly silent. She thumbed the release and slid in a fresh magazine loaded with duralite rounds, a material of non-earth origin. Bullets capable of piercing even the toughest awakened skin up to the tethered stage, at least when it came to humans.
Her voice dropped to a low command.
"Kill the boy. Get the boy."
She paused only long enough to snap the slide into place—metal locking with a soft, decisive clack.
"Fail," she murmured, "and you'll end up like Bael."
A smile lifted her lips—small, effortless… wrong.
The violet engravings near her ears flared brighter—fueled by the white essence—as she added, almost warmly:
"No hard feelings."
She closed her eyes—no more words, no attention spared.
Jacob stood frozen, suitcase in hand, fear swelling behind his forced grin.
"...Sure," he croaked, voice trembling. "Y-umm… sure... sure?"
Then he hurried off, leaving Lea alone—listening to the world with senses honed sharper than blades.
Using only the hearing branch of the five-sensory Art, she projected a 150-meter radius of heightened perception around herself. Within that sphere, every sound became a thread she could pull: crisp near her, fading with distance, yet always present.
For all its magnificence, it was an Art few could endure; to perceive everything—every sound, sight, scent, taste, and touch—was to stand at the edge of madness. Most minds shattered beneath that overwhelming flood.
Lea had simply… adapted.
Tap—tap.
The sound threaded through the smoke—
A bird's warning cry pierced the haze—sharp and fleeting—followed by the frantic flutter of wings as it fled into a vent above.
The world folded inward, becoming a layered tapestry of noise. Every hum, pop, hiss, tremor, and heartbeat aligned—each thread stitching into meaning, the picture sharpening behind her eyes.
Then again—tap… tap-tap—paired with the faint rasp of strained breath.
Someone was panting.
Lea's lips curved into a quiet, satisfied smile.
Her eyelids lifted—slow, deliberate—revealing violet-rimmed pupils tracking the sound's trajectory to her left diagonal, as if her gaze was being pulled by a string.
"Found you,
...
The guards at the hospital entrance stood half-awake beneath the floodlights, mist curling around their boots. Above, the parking decks loomed into darkness—concrete, steel, and silence.
One guard sipped his coffee; the other leaned on his baton.
"Quiet night," the first muttered.
"That's what they always say before something breaks," the other replied, smirking.
A low boom rolled down from somewhere high above, rattling the glass doors behind them.
Both men snapped upright. "Did you hear that?"
Before either could react, the stairwell door slammed open.
A man stumbled out—coat torn, blood streaked across his face—dragging another man, unconscious and bleeding from the head.
"Help!" he shouted, voice ragged. "Please… he… help us!"
The guards rushed forward. One caught his arm. "What the hell happened?"
Gasping for breath, he stammered, "Two unlicensed Awakened… Level Three… they're tearing the place apart!"
The guards exchanged a sharp look. One muttered, "Damn it, you really had to jinx us."
"Call it in!" the other barked, fingers fumbling for his radio.
Red lights began flashing overhead as alarms blared through the parking structure.
"Sir, please go inside—it's safer," one guard said, guiding the man toward the glass doors leading into the hospital.
His gaze lingered for a moment. The man trembled, blood still streaking his collar—but his grip on the black suitcase never wavered.
The guard's eyes narrowed. He hadn't noticed it before.
Curiosity flared for just a second—then the alarms screamed louder, yanking his attention back.
"Move, sir," the other guard urged. "We'll handle it from here; take your colleague."
In the strobe of the emergency lights, the man's face lifted; it was Jacob.
And with a faint, heartfelt smile, he replied, "Thank you."
...
Through the blaring alarms, the hospital descended into chaos.
Red emergency lights strobed across the sterile white walls, turning every shadow into something alive.
Nurses shouted orders over the wail of sirens, voices shaking as they tried to control the panic. Stretchers rattled down the halls, wheels screeching against the tile as patients were rushed toward the exits. IV bags swung like pendulums from trembling hands.
Security officers barked into radios, their voices sharp, overlapping, half-drowned by the mechanical voice blaring overhead:
"Code Red. Unauthorised Awakened activity detected. Evacuate non-critical wards immediately."
The air was thick with disinfectant and fear.
Jacob moved through it like a ghost—head down, pace steady. The limp man he dragged left a faint smear of blood across the pristine white floor.
He suddenly felt tired.
"Geez…" he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "If Miss Lea was going to cause this much chaos, killing this Elan guy for an ID was just unnecessary."
A faint smirk tugged at his lips as he stepped over the trail of blood. "Well… I did enjoy watching him beg for his life. Stressful jobs need some kind of entertainment."
He turned down an empty corridor, the noise fading behind him, and let the body drop. The dull thud echoed against the sterile walls.
Jacob exhaled slowly. His boots left faint, wet prints as he started forward again, eyes scanning the wall-mounted signs:Rooms 1100–1115 →
Occasionally, he passed open doors—orderlies pulling IV lines, nurses ushering terrified patients toward emergency stairwells.
A loud crash erupted somewhere down the hall. The lights flickered. A heartbeat later, a muffled detonation rumbled through the floor. The ceiling lamps swayed, shaking loose a fine dust that drifted from the vents.
Jacob did not flinch. He moved quickly toward the corner. The nameplate on the door beside him read:
Room 1103 — Patient: Mael.
Jacob reached for the handle.
And in the silence between alarms, the sound of his glove brushing metal was deafening.
Swish—
Jacob stepped inside. The taps of his boots sounded damp against the sterile floor, muted beneath the distant wail of alarms.
As the patient's bed came into view, a voice cut through the stillness—sharp with frustration.
A nurse stood beside the bed, hurriedly checking the monitor and adjusting the drip. On the bed lay a young man, motionless, his chest rising faintly beneath the thin hospital sheet.
Noticing Jacob enter, the nurse froze. Her eyes widened in surprise—then softened with visible relief as she caught sight of the doctor's tag pinned to his coat.
"Doctor! Please, help me!" she said quickly, voice trembling. "We need to move this patient—he's suddenly gone into a comatose state. I swear I didn't do anything!"
Jacob's gaze shifted between the nurse and Maren, who lay motionless. Looks like lady luck's on my side today, he thought, a quiet grin forming as his eyes lingered on the unconscious boy.
He turned back to the nurse, who was frantically adjusting the bed, trying to unlock the wheels. A faint smile crept across his face.
"Sure," he said softly. "I'll help."
He set the suitcase down beside the wall and began walking toward Maren, each step unhurried, deliberate. The lights above flickered, and in their brief stutter, a glint of metal flashed in his hand.
When the nurse turned back, her breath caught in her throat. A bloodied knife dangled loosely from his fingers.
Her pulse spiked. "S-stay back!" she shouted, taking a step back, gripping a clipboard like a shield. "Don't come any closer!"
Jacob didn't stop. His grin widened, voice calm—almost playful.
"Relax. I said I'd help, didn't I? He needs immediate surgery!"
For a moment, the nurse's expression suggested she almost believed him. But she was not that gullible. Panic crept in with every step she took backward.
"Help? You are holding a knife with blood on it"
He kept walking. The distance between them shrank with every echoing step until she lashed out, swinging the clipboard at him with a desperate cry.
Jacob tilted his head aside, the board grazing his cheek, and laughed softly.
"Aww, so cute, nice try."
Before she could swing again, his hand shot forward—lightning-fast—catching her wrist midair. His grip was gloved, the fabric patterned with faint green scales that shimmered under the fluorescent light. With bone-crushing force, he twisted her arm and slammed her against the wall.
The clipboard clattered to the floor, papers fluttering across the sterile tiles like scattered feathers.
"Stay… back," she gasped, clawing at his arm, her shoes scraping helplessly against the linoleum as she kicked for balance.
Jacob leaned in close, breath hot against her ear, tone cold and almost amused. "You don't look so bad," he murmured, tracing a gloved finger down her cheek. "Smooth skin, pale—green eyes, trembling lips…" His smile was eerie. "You actually are pretty cute."
Her eyes widened in horror, tears cutting lines through the sweat on her cheeks.
Then, with one brutal motion, Jacob hurled her across the room. She hit the far counter with a heavy crack, sending trays and instruments flying in every direction. Metal clattered and rolled, echoing through the room like broken bells.
The nurse groaned, one arm wrapped around her ribs as she tried to push herself upright. Her hair hung loose, sticking to her face, trembling as she whispered through clenched teeth, voice quivering between pain and fury.
"All you awakened are just monsters. Why would you want to kill an innocent girl?"
Jacob wiped the blood from his blade with a cloth torn from his sleeve, gaze empty, detached.
"Monsters?" he echoed softly, letting out a quiet, humourless laugh. "Yes… They definitely are."
He glanced back at her, eyes narrowing with a glint of mockery. "But I'm not even one of them. I'm just a human."
He stepped toward the bed, boots echoing against the tile. "Humans were always the monsters," he murmured, voice almost wistful as he looked down at Maren's still form.
Jacob placed the edge of the knife over Maren's chest, tilting his head slightly.
"They said they needed the body… so a clean cut through the heart should be enough, right?" he whispered, a faint smirk forming.
Wait. Why did she think I was an awakened
The realisation came too late. The blade sliced only through Maren's shirt, not skin. Jacob froze, confusion twisting through him.
No. This is not Maren.
The thought surfaced just as his body began to lock up. It was not the sight of a bra over a chest that was unmistakably feminine. It was the sudden impact of five sharp fingernails that lunged deep into his back.
Jacob's eyes went wide. He staggered forward, knife clattering to the floor. Muscles locked, vision blurred, paralysis spreading fast, deliberate.
"What… the?!" he choked, voice strangled, colour draining from his face.
Behind him, the air shimmered—like heat distorting reality.
Jacob's breath caught. His body froze mid-turn.
A cold voice whispered behind him. "You really should've said you were human from the start."
His eyes widened. The nurse was no longer trembling. She stood behind him, her left arm buried deep into his back. The green snake scale glove had split open, revealing bone-like fingernails shaped into fangs that pulsed with a faint venomous glow.
The air grew heavy—the faint hum of the machines cutting out, as if the room itself held its breath.
She leaned in close, tone deepening, no longer feminine. "Can't believe I had to spend ten thousand units on a wig and the girl's clothes…"
Jacob's pupils dilated in shock. The voice was wrong. Masculine. Calm.
The figure tugged the wig free, revealing the black hair beneath. Short. Messy.
"How about it?" Maren's smirk spread, calm and mocking. "Still think I am pretty"
Jacob's jaw trembled. Lips parted, but no sound came. His vision swam as black fluid spread from his chest wounds, strength draining with each heartbeat.
Maren's eyes glinted, amusement flickering faintly, as she withdrew the clawed hand, letting Jacob crumple to his knees.
His expression emptied into cold indifference. Turning to the fallen nurse, a flicker of realisation crossed his face.
"Well… I did ask her to be a fake," he muttered, almost to himself. "Ten thousand well spent."