As the walls around him began to fall apart, Reis didn't look back. The explosion that had torn the ceiling above had already swallowed the light, reducing every corner of the room into broken fragments of mana and smoke. The ground beneath his feet groaned as steel split and concrete buckled, but his mind was elsewhere—focused, unwavering. He no longer thought of pain, or fear, or loss. Only one word pulsed through him: escape.
He raised his hand, and the mana answered.
The field expanded with a sudden force, sweeping outward like a wave breaking through its dam. The crumbling room could not contain it. The mana surged beyond the walls, pushing through layers of reinforced metal, through wires and stone. A thunderous roar echoed through the building, not from his voice, but from the air collapsing under the force of raw, unchecked energy.
Then came the light.
It burst out from every surface—no warning, no sound. The walls shattered. The floor disintegrated. Sound and form unraveled. Faces became indistinct. Everything melted into glowing fragments of mana. Reis stood in the center of it all, untouched, eyes wide open—unmoving as the world flipped itself inside out.
When he blinked again, he was no longer there.
A long corridor stretched ahead of him, lined with sealed doors and broken lights, the floor littered with twisted wires and chunks of fallen metal. Smoke curled along the ceiling. It looked like the same facility—but broken open, peeled back. A mirror of the destruction he'd left behind.
Doctors ran through the hallway ahead, scrambling between rooms, but to Reis, they weren't people anymore. Through his mana field, they appeared as crimson silhouettes—figures without identity, like echoes of heat bleeding across glass. He didn't see faces, only outlines. Not humans, only moving energy.
He felt nothing. Not fear. Not hate. Not confusion.
Only motion.
He moved forward, expanding the field as he went. The space responded—air bent around him, surfaces trembled. He was beginning to understand: the lab was much larger than he had imagined. What he thought was a single prison cell had merely been a fragment of a vast underground system. Each hallway, each level, was a piece of a larger structure designed to break and reshape lives like his.
He'd been on the fourth floor before. Now, it was clear—it had been just the beginning.
A flicker of red light appeared at the edge of his perception.
Elin.
He didn't need to see her to know. Her presence radiated through the mana like a sharp signal. She wasn't human in his vision now—she was a beacon of burning energy, moving with precision toward him. She wasn't running. She was tracking. Hunting.
He didn't wait.
Reis flung his arm forward, shaping the mana in the air around him. It responded instantly, as if waiting for the command. The hallway shook. Walls convulsed. Particles of light and metal tore apart, bursting outward as the air detonated under the force of his field. It wasn't a spell. It wasn't even an attack. It was a natural extension of him now—reflexive, absolute.
The figures in the hall—doctors, staff, guards—were swept away like ash in a storm. Fragile, unprotected, they didn't stand a chance. He didn't look at their faces. He didn't even think of them as people anymore. They were bystanders in a system he had already sentenced.
He kept moving.
The ground trembled harder. Another wave of collapse was beginning. Lights flickered violently as if rejecting the mana surging through the air. The walls on either side cracked open. But Reis's focus didn't waver. His eyes scanned the space ahead, and he saw only motionless forms of mana—shapes with no substance.
He closed his eyes.
And when he opened them, he saw the third floor.
Not with his body—but through the field. It was there, above, pulsing like a memory of a room still breathing. He didn't hesitate. The mana contracted. The space around him pulled inward. And in a flash—no noise, no trail—he was there.
The third floor was narrower. The air was dense, thick with the scent of chemicals and burnt metal. Machines lined the walls, some broken, some still humming. The hum of failed experiments filled the space like an invisible scream. Children floated in tubes. Their limbs unmoving. Their faces blurred by liquid and light.
But Reis didn't see children. Not anymore.
All he saw were red shapes. Distorted energy, clustered around metal and glass. Forms drenched in mana, twisted by years of exposure. They didn't look human. They didn't move like humans. They barely registered as alive. The distinction between flesh and spirit had vanished.
Reis raised his hand again.
The air trembled.
The field responded, curling around him like a pressure wave. Then, without pause, everything around him shattered. The equipment. The containers. The wires. The glass. All of it erupted at once, blown apart by a force that didn't seek permission, didn't follow pattern. It simply consumed.
The tubes exploded, releasing the children inside. But they didn't scream. Or if they did, Reis couldn't hear them. To him, they were red lights flickering out, extinguished by the mana surge he had unleashed. He didn't stop to grieve. He didn't pause to wonder what he had done. The destruction was a necessity—an extension of his refusal.
The walls of the third floor caved in.
The lab hadn't anticipated this. The structure wasn't designed for such internal collapse. Machines shorted out. Lights died. The facility's spine began to crack. Yet Reis moved forward. Always forward. Unbothered by falling debris, untouched by fire or smoke.
But something was changing.
He felt it in the air—a new weight, pressing inward. It wasn't Elin. It was heavier. Older. A force sliding along the walls, rising from below.
He couldn't see it yet, but he felt its pull.
Reis didn't stop. He raised his hand again and surged the mana upward. Another explosion shattered what remained of the third floor. Beams split. Panels fell. A storm of debris raced past him. But it wasn't enough. Something was coming. Something massive. His instincts screamed it.
He saw it moments later.
A shadow, too large to be human, slipping through walls, consuming the space ahead. It didn't walk. It moved like liquid darkness. Eyes like blood-red embers burned through the veil, locking onto him. It wasn't an experiment. It was the architect. The owner. The root of the lab.
He didn't know what it wanted. He didn't care.
He just knew he couldn't face it—not now.
He forced mana to gather around him, faster than before. The field surged wildly, pulling energy from every corner of the floor. The air cracked. Then fire erupted. Mana flared like solar bursts, ripping through every direction. The explosion split the world into pieces.
And Reis vanished again.
He tore himself from the wreckage, his body now closer to flame than flesh, and emerged on the second floor. The scent of rot hit him first. No sterilized rooms or medical instruments. Just decay. Just filth. This place wasn't for research. It was for containment. Abandonment.
He ran through cells lined with steel bars, past cages that had once held something—but now only held silence. And then he saw them.
Creatures.
Not human. Not beast. Mutated things caught in loops of pain and mana. Some had lost limbs. Others had too many. They weren't alive in any real way. Just moving matter. Failed projects kept breathing for reasons no one could explain.
He saw them. Registered them. But didn't stop.
To Reis, they were noise. Background. Forgotten echoes of a lab that no longer deserved to exist. His steps quickened. The field pushed out once more. The ground beneath cracked as mana surged again.
But then, ahead—movement.
A shadow again.
It wasn't the creatures.
It was him.
The owner.
Darkness walked toward him.
Reis didn't wait.
He summoned everything left inside his core. The mana around him thickened. It pressed against his skin like molten iron. He was burning. But he didn't stop. He unleashed one final blast. The fire roared around him, cutting the space in half.
And just as the entity reached for him—
He vanished.
Through light, through fire.
He arrived at the first floor.
And what awaited him there… was war.