The door slid open with a mechanical hiss, a sound that felt weary, perfectly suited to the half-dead skyscraper that served as their base.
Dan patted Kaisen twice on the back, a gesture that felt more practiced than friendly.
"This is you. The job's by sunset. I'll come get you when it's time."
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked down hallway, his footsteps echoing faintly.
The door hissed shut, sealing Kaisen inside.
The sudden quiet was profound, broken only by the vibrations of hidden power lines and the muffled, distant rumble of the Deadzone.
He took in the room.
It wasn't large, but it was clearly built for utility, a temporary berth for mercenaries passing through.
A small, angular metal table, shaped like a bird's wing, stood against one wall.
A few old posters, relics from the early Rift Wars, clung to the concrete, their edges peeling and their messages faded into gibberish.
The far wall was dominated by a large glass window, a transparent membrane forcing whoever stood there to confront the world outside—a ruined skyline half-swallowed by the Deadzone's haze.
The sky was streaked with the neon scars of a dying city, the buildings below glowing with a faint, off putting luminescence, like a massive organism on its last breath.
Kaisen sighed softly, the sound swallowed by the room's stillness. He moved to the closet and slid it open.
Inside, a few sets of dark, durable tactical wear were neatly folded. He paused, a flicker of unease passing through him.
They were all his size.
He looked down at himself. His current clothes were torn, stiff with dried blood and caked with the filth of the wastelands.
A look of pure relief crossed his face. "Finally," he muttered, the word a release of long-held tension.
He stripped off the grimy fabric and stepped into the small, adjacent shower. Hot water, a luxury he hadn't known in what felt like a lifetime, cascaded over him.
He watched as the water at his feet swirled with red, carrying the evidence of his past battles down the drain.
He held out his open palms, staring at them through the steam that fogged the cramped space, a moment of heavy stillness, where the silence felt more alive than any noise.
When he stepped out, clean and dry, he pulled on the new clothes. They were plain, dark, and utterly functional.
They fit him perfectly.
Dressed and feeling strangely new, he walked to the window, hands in his pockets, and stared out at the fractured skyline in silence.
"Hey."
The familiar soft feminine voice bloomed in his mind, bright and playful, a grounding presence in the quiet.
[G'day, boss. What you up to?]
"Nothing really," Kaisen replied internally, his eyes still fixed on the distant, flickering lights.
He paused for a moment. "Gonna go steal a Rift key from some guys in a bit, so there's that."
[Mmm, that sounds like fun.]
A faint, almost inaudible chuckle escaped him. "What about you? What are you up to?"
[A Blood General's going rancid in the Manira Quarter, and that's Zulgite territory.] Her tone was light, as if discussing a minor errand. [Last thing we need is diplomatic issues with a B-rank planet, so I gotta check that off the to-do list eventually. Normal Expanse stuff, you know.]
"The Expanse, huh…" Kaisen mused. "Sounds way more interesting than here."
[Tell me about there — about Earth.]
Kaisen exhaled, a long, slow breath. He turned from the window and sat on the edge of the firm bed, his voice calm and distant.
"Earth… it's stale. Sometimes it just feels like the same cycle—the same routine. Always a struggle somewhere. Either for something as basic as survival, or for so much wealth it's not even practical."
[Well, I'll be the first to tell you — that's a universal problem.]
"Is it?"
[Mmm hmm.]
"Tsk, that's a bummer." He leaned back slightly, his eyes drifting toward the ceiling. "The people… they're repetitive too. Predictable. They crave meaning but drown in distraction. They talk about truth but lie daily—sometimes to others, mostly to themselves."
His internal monologue continued, a quiet, clinical dissection. "Fear drives most of what they do. Fear of being forgotten. Fear of not being enough. Fear of being seen too clearly. It's why they build, destroy, create art, start wars—it's all just an attempt to prove they matter for more than a flicker in time. They're driven by nothing but their own greed."
[You seem to understand them well.]
"I do," Kaisen said, his tone lowering. "Because I'm not different. I know a man would betray me for the slightest upper hand—because I'd do the same."
There was a beat of silence before Iris asked, [Were things different… before the Call?]
"I don't know… it was 200 years ago. I didn't see it myself, but I know the story." He stared blankly ahead, as if replaying old, grainy footage in his mind. "The day Earth was called to the Expanse—they say it was normal. Then the beams of light fell. Hundreds of them, across the world. We didn't know they were gateways at first. Not until the Rifts appeared—space tore, blight seeped out. It turned humans and animals into grotesque, mindless beasts. The corrupted."
He continued quietly, "Then the Awakened appeared. The only ones who could fight the corrupted, close the Rifts, and pass through the gateways—into the Expanse."
[Most worlds called to the Expanse have a similar story.]
Kaisen shifted, a new thought forming.
"Should I enter the Expanse? It'll be easier to get stronger there, I assume."
[No.] Her answer was immediate and sharp. [You'll die. The Expanse is where a hundred thousand worlds meet. Most of those worlds hold beings far stronger than anything Earth can comprehend. It takes immense strength to survive—and something greater to do what you'll come here for.]
"And what will I come there for?" Kaisen asked, though he already knew.
[Slay gods.] Her tone darkened, becoming almost reverent. [Karihad left objectives, factions, worlds, cults—and their gods. When you enter the Expanse, your slaughter begins. And so does the rise of the new God Butcher. But first, you must be ready.]
Kaisen's eyes lowered, his gaze turning inward.
The raw, hungry thing that had taken root in his soul since inheriting the Will stirred.
"If I get stronger… if I kill these gods… will it stop?"
[The Hunger? The Hatred?]
"Yes."
[It will.]
The two words hung in the silence of the room, a distant, solid promise. For the first time in a while, Kaisen felt his breathing slow, a tense coil within him loosening just a fraction.
After a long, thoughtful quiet, Iris spoke again, her voice softer now.
[Well, I gotta go. This Blood General won't kill itself—no matter how much I wish it would.]
Kaisen exhaled, a sound tinged with the ghost of amusement.
He leaned back fully on the bed, lacing his hands behind his head, his eyes once more finding the fractured skyline through the glass.
The room hummed its low, constant note, filled with the faint vibration of distant machinery and the neon light that bled in through the window, painting everything in shades of blue and red.
Kai closed his eyes as the murmur of the broken world outside blended with the fading echo of Iris's voice in his mind.