Beneath flickering lights and falling sparks, shockwaves thudded against the parked cars until alarms wailed and metal rang beneath the piled-up dust suspended in the air.
"Hurry… open, dammit", he hissed, shaking the key fob like it owed him money. The car blinked twice, then stayed locked. "Oh, come on, not now. I take it back, you were not a pile of junk, you are a technological miracle. Just please work"
The car blinked once, then again, finally unlocking with a soft chirp.
"Thank you", he breathed, diving inside and slamming the door shut. The engine roared to life as he floored the accelerator, tyres squealing against the polished concrete. He followed the reflective exit signs, weaving through the tight turns of the parking structure, heart hammering against his ribs.
Then, rounding a corner, he saw it. A faint glow of purple cut through the darkness. The light struck his eyes, and in that instant, he saw her.
A woman stood ahead, framed by the flicker of dying lights, beauty sharp enough to belong on billboards. But admiration turned to dread in a heartbeat. She was not just anyone. From the glow in her eyes, she was probably the awakened terrorist.
Lea raised her gun with calm precision, her stance unshaken. The barrel aligned with his forehead.
He ducked on instinct. Too late.
The muzzle flashed, the shot cracking through the air like thunder.
For a split second, he saw his life flash before his eyes.
But when he opened his eyes, there were no clouds, no sky. Only the muffled hiss of an airbag pressed against his face, the smell of burnt propellant filling his lungs, and a warm trickle of blood running down his neck.
Other than that, he was fine. The adrenaline crash hit hard, leaving him dizzy but strangely calm. His voice came out weak, half-choked and fading.
"You are… the best car…"
The woman's gaze shifted towards a figure standing beside the banged-up vehicle, smoke curling from a gaping dent along its side as if another car had rammed straight into it.
"What was the point of revealing yourself?" Lea asked, her expression unreadable.
A futuristic visor covered Bael's eyes. Black essence, like illusory dust particles, gathered and coiled into a solid object in his palm. A black knight's piece shimmered into existence just as its form fully solidified.
He crushed it in his fist. The essence stretched and warped, shifting into a long, arced sabre.
"Cut the crap. You knew I'd come," Bael said, steadying his right leg against the ground as he settled into a charging stance. "But since you're asking… let's just say I happened to believe in something called Karma."
Lea did not raise her gun; instead, she spoke in an even tone. "That was contradictory to what you did, was it not?"
Caught off guard by her seriousness, Bael gave a dry laugh.
"I do what I do to live my life. Occasionally, I do something good to balance out the bad.
With a smirk, Bael continued, "Still... what's life without a bit of karma?"
Lea's eyes sharpened, breath steady.
Just as she raised her gun an inch, Bael's expression emptied instantly as three white pieces formed from thin air using his black essence.
A white pawn clenched between his teeth.
A white rook fell to the ground with a metal clink.
A white bishop in his grip, his fist tightening around it.
He crushed the rook under his boot.
A shockwave cracked outward, the ground fracturing like glass under ice. For an instant, the world folded inward, corners bleeding into each other — and Bael was gone.
He reappeared a breath later, right in front of Lea.
Her reflexes screamed. As her gun snapped up, the barrel almost touched his chest.
Bael bit down. The pawn shattered between his teeth like candy.
Space convulsed.
He vanished again, air imploding where he had stood. The next blink found him behind her — his sabre already cutting, a perfect one hundred eighty sweep trailing black light and fire through the night.
The blade cut through her white shirt, revealing unprotected skin. Expecting the sound of bones being shattered, instead, the sound of metal grinding against stone ripped through the air.
On her back, mysterious symbols like tattoo branches flared in a violent purple glow. Her skin hardened. The sabre met resistance, dug in just enough to draw blood, then scraped off the hardened layer in a flare of sparks. Soon disappearing into nothing.
She did not flinch. Her head snapped back, eyes wild, and her gun was already firing. Simultaneously, she took a step forward, twisting her body around towards Bael.
The first shot roared through Bael's shoulder. Bael did not flinch as his eyes remained focused. He expected to be injured when facing Lea. It was only a matter of whether he could make sure his head did not burst like a cracker.
The second shot grazed his arm, tearing through his coat. The third he barely dodged, twisting sideways with a spin born from the same momentum as his slash.
Quickly, while dodging Lea, he got a kick in her stomach as she twisted around, and a black pawn and a white bishop formed.
He reappeared, bridging the gap — sweeping a strike with a black spear which appeared from the black pawn he broke just before teleporting. The tip of the spear cut through the air as sparks from resistance from Lea's boots met the spear as she kicked it away, skidding across the broken asphalt.
Then he broke the bishop.
The piece shattered like glass in his hand, and Bael vanished in a ripple of warped air.
Lea's instincts screamed. She felt him. The sudden pressure shift. The faint distortion brushed the edge of her enhanced hearing. Her gaze snapped left, toward the shimmer where reality bent and warped.
"I can't drag this out any longer", she thought, pulse pounding in her ears. Those government dogs would be here any second.
She moved.
Lea kicked off the cracked ground in one explosive motion. Her boots glowed with a strange light as she accelerated, her speed well beyond what most awakened could achieve.
Speed was her ability, and the boots were her Conduit. Bael knew this. So instead of running and trying to maintain distance, he stayed close enough that her speed would not matter, using his gift of teleportation to escape whenever things turned dangerous. The visor was his Conduit.
Even so, it did not guarantee his safety. Lea could track him the moment he reappeared. Her Art sharpened every sound and every shift in the air. And her boots channelled force through her legs, shifting weight with unnatural precision, letting her command both speed and momentum with every step.
A predator locked onto prey.
Her breath steadied; every step was measured, precise — no hesitation, no waste. The world shrank to a single point ahead of her.
She reached it. The place where the air had rippled. Where Bael should have been.
Nothing.
For half a second, silence held. Heavy and expectant.
Rumble
Then it came. A low crack that swelled into a splintering roar.
The ground beneath Lea gave way. Cracks spread outward like spiderwebs, light flashing through them before the entire section collapsed. Her balance vanished as the floor crumbled beneath her.
For a moment, she allowed gravity to claim her. She could do nothing except prepare for the landing below. But from the corner of her eye, she caught a grin. Only the grin. Wide and irritating.
Through the haze of debris, she fell lower and saw Bael beneath her, a spear already aimed at her heart.
"Bael!"
Bael stood poised with his spear held tight. Three red illusory circles rotated before the tip, etched with shifting inscriptions like those found in ancient grimoires. It was a cursed Art that allowed him to convert the pain he received from the moment of activation into destructive force.
But the trade was cruel. Three circles meant thrice the damage returned to him later, meaning thrice the agony.
His muscles strained as he prepared to thrust upward. Veins bulged and pulsed beneath his skin, teeth clamped tight in silent suffering.
The spear punched through the falling rubble. Stone posed no resistance. Momentum grew sharper, faster. Nothing slowed its ascent.
It reached Lea.
A brutal impact.Soundless pain.A hot line of agony carved across her torso.
The spear tore straight through her reinforced skin. Momentum carried her with it, throwing her body backward into a pillar. Her spine hit the concrete with a jarring crack, and a sharp wet cough forced blood past her lips.
Bael landed lightly, boots tapping against the fractured asphalt as he approached. The spear dissolved into the air as he released the Conduit, leaving a hole in Lea's torso wide enough to fit a wrist. Blood poured in a steady stream.
But she refused to fall.
Her palm pressed over the wound as white essence poured from her hand, knitting flesh desperately. It did not matter if Bael saw. It did not matter if she had only seconds left. Breathing meant living. And living meant opportunity still existed.
She lifted her eyes. Bael no longer hid behind a visor. His gaze held pride, and that angered her more than the wound.
Her breathing remained steady. Even in defeat.
Bael tilted his head, the smallest smile tugging at his lips.
"Check"
The word hung in the air like the final move of a game already decided.
The black essence around him stirred, forming a cracked king chess piece that he casually crushed, and the essence stretched into a heavy claymore that materialised fully as he rested the flat of the blade on Lea's left shoulder, cold metal pressing into her skin while she stared forward and focused only on healing.
"Why did they ask you to kill me? They had no reason unless they had lost every brain cell they ever had," Bael said, annoyed at the absurdity of the situation while she continued pouring white essence into her wound, far too slowly to be useful.
Realising she would ignore him entirely, Bael lifted the claymore, raising it high for a clean beheading strike, but as he brought it down toward her neck, her left arm shot up, the violet glow bursting from bone and skin at once as she blocked the blade with her forearm, steel grinding to a halt against bone, flesh splitting from the force yet her arm held firm, refusing to let the strike finish what he had started.
Bael stared at her in silent irritation, hearing distant sirens finally echoing through the collapsing structure and feeling an old weight settle in his chest, memories of their upbringing.
Bael scratched the back of his hair, annoyance leaking into his posture as he clicked his tongue lightly and said, "You really are a pain, a big one, such a pain… you know what, I am leaving, so consider yourself lucky," and he muttered it like he was already exhausted of the fight, pulling the claymore free and letting it dissolve into mist as he turned away, choosing escape over a pointless execution.
Lea's eyes showed a flicker of surprise as she pressed her lips together tightly, frustration and something softer hidden beneath the pain, and she muttered under her breath, barely audible even to herself, "I am sorry."
In her left pocket, her mobile was being tracked, and all the data was being recorded and sent to someone. Soon, Bael walked away far enough not to see Leas' figure anymore. He contemplated what to do next. He was probably going to be put up on the underworld's bounty list soon, and he was also sure that Maren was already dead by now, since he knew Maren had no real skills in combat.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps closing in for a heartbeat, and Bael tensed up because he did not have many teleports left to defend himself, but then the tension eased from his shoulders as he recognised the person approaching, the nervous shuffling and quick shallow breaths belonging to Otto, the driver, who looked like a frightened pet lost in hostile territory.
"Otto" Bael called out, relieved for once to see a familiar face.
Otto stopped, exhaling in visible relief as tears almost formed at the corners of his eyes, his voice cracking under the weight of panic as he rushed toward Bael with trembling hands pressed against his own chest like he was holding his fear in place and he said, "Sir, thank God, we need to leave, this place is not safe, where is your master, we have to go right now, please, please tell me where he is"
Otto ran up to Bael, grabbing his shoulder tightly and shaking him a little as he pushed the question again, this time sharper and a bit louder, "Where is Maren, where is he?"
Bael's pupils suddenly dilated, the realisation hitting him all at once. He shoved himself away from Otto, slipping free of his grip with a sharp step back. Otto's expression shifted instantly from panic to amusement, the fearful act melting away into a stretched grin that felt wrong on his face, like a mask peeling off too easily.
Bael's thoughts spiralled. How does he know Maren's name?
"Come on," Otto said lightly, disturbingly playful, "you only just figured that out?"