TThe Limbo Streets were an architectural paradox: the oldest and newest district of the Shattered City, where the neon crosses of the highest corporate spires spilt their synthetic light onto alleyways paved with the debris of forgotten temples. It was here, in the dense, energy-saturated air, that the Saint felt the pull of his sealed power most acutely.
He was hunting. The smell of the Aegis Hand's passage, a sterile, metallic scent overlaid with the faintest trace of Seraphiel's sanctified oils, was a scar on the chaotic perfume of the city. Lyra Cross was the target. The light he had followed, now the darkness of his past was racing to extinguish her.
I swore an oath to Heaven. The thought was bitter ash. I swore a greater oath to her.
The pain in his chest, the slow fracture of his divine core, was a physical manifestation of his self-betrayal. Every time he felt the need to unleash the killer, the Saint in him retreated, leaving him vulnerable. But the pain of seeing Lyra's face, her reborn eyes meeting his, overshadowed any physical agony. The price was irrelevant. She would not burn again.
He tracked the Aegis Hand's movements to a decommissioned elevated rail line that ran through the heart of Limbo Streets. This was the hunter's advantage: elevation, clear sightlines, and a terrain suited for ambush.
The Saint, moving with the preternatural silence of a being older than creation, took the low road. He moved through the shadows of abandoned stalls, his mind cataloguing every vibration, every flicker of energy. The Aegis Hand was fast, but he was human-trained. The Saint was eternal.
He felt the hunter stop twenty meters ahead, concealed behind a column of corroded steel. Waiting.
The Saint didn't need to see him to know his intention: lure Lyra into the open, or use the high ground to track her subsequent movements. The hunter was a satellite of Seraphiel's will, and he would not stop until he had secured the anomaly.
Too fast, the Saint thought, pulling himself up onto a scaffold beam without a sound. He runs on zealotry, not strategy.
He saw the Aegis Hand now, a silhouette of armoured power, his headpiece actively scanning the lower city grid. The hunter was breathing deeply, the controlled rhythm of a soldier preparing for a strike.
The Saint moved. It was less a run and more a blurring of time. He didn't use force; he used the geometry of the hunter's weight and momentum.
He struck the column first, a quick, forceful impact of his shoulder against the corroded steel. The loud clang was a sudden burst of sound in the dark. The Aegis Hand spun, blade already half-drawn, but the shock was enough.
The Saint was already behind him.
He slammed his elbow into the hunter's back plate, aiming for the vulnerable nexus of the spine armour. The Aegis Hand grunted, the heavy armour saving him from immediate paralysis, but the impact sent him stumbling over the low railing.
The hunter reacted with trained instinct, firing a low-yield energy pulse from his palm. The bolt grazed the Saint's shoulder, dissolving his tunic but leaving the skin untouched, a function of the ingrained, passive Celestial Regenesis that kept his form semi-solid.
They were now locked in a brutal dance on the narrow scaffolding. The Aegis Hand swung his serrated hunting blade, a relic of the Crusades, electrified and sanctified, but the Saint evaded the strike with minimal effort. He was faster, relying not on speed, but on prophecy: the angelic ability to perfectly predict a movement.
"Where is she?" the Saint demanded, his voice a low growl, devoid of his divine resonance.
"Fallen filth," the hunter snarled, swinging the blade again. "You dare stand against the renewal of Heaven's grace?"
The Saint caught the hunter's armoured wrist, the celestial marks on his own forearm flaring with a painful, suppressed heat. He squeezed. He could crush the man's bones, shatter his hand, and walk away clean.
But he needed information.
He shifted his grip, locking the hunter in a steel vice, and forced the Voice of Command. It was not the sonic weapon it once was, the tone that could liquefy bone and shatter souls. Now, it was a whisper, a low, demanding frequency that vibrated directly on the human nervous system, circumventing the Aegis Hand's conditioning.
"Tell me your orders regarding Lyra Cross," the Saint commanded, the single word Lyra causing a fresh wave of agony to ripple through his scarred core.
The Aegis Hand convulsed, his eyes rolling back in his visor. The divine energy required to utter the command drained the air around them, and for a fleeting moment, the Limbo Streets felt utterly silent, the spiritual noise of the city wiped clean.
The Aegis Hand spoke, his voice not his own, but a distorted echo forced out by the command. "Target designated... High-Value Anomaly... Do not kill. Capture, containment, transport to the Cathedra for analysis. She... she carries The Fragment."
The Fragment. Lyra's soul carried the last piece of Eden's Flame. The truth was worse than he feared. They didn't want to kill her; they wanted to use her.
He released the Aegis Hand, who slumped against the rail, shaking as the forced obedience receded. The Saint had to move. The Voice of Command had expended too much of his limited, ambient celestial energy; his body felt hollowed out, the silver in his eyes dimming.
The cost was worth it.
He looked at the hunter, now trying weakly to reach for his blade. To leave him alive was a risk, but to kill him would be an unjust kill. The Aegis Hand was just a tool, not the architect of the sin. The Saint needed every scrap of his divine grace for the fight ahead a fight against Seraphiel himself.
He delivered a precise, non-lethal strike to the hunter's temple, shutting down his systems. The Aegis Hand collapsed, unconscious, the Aegis sigil on his armour fading as the Saint's action momentarily suppressed the local divine energy.
The Saint vaulted the gap in the rail line, landing on the roof of a low utility shack. He could feel his core throbbing, the new crack widening under the strain. The pain was a reminder: he was no longer an endless source of divine power. He was running on borrowed time and sacrifice.
He had to get to Lyra before the Cathedra mobilised the main sweep.
He was the killer, but he was also the man who had loved her fiercely enough to face eternal damnation. The sight of her, the forbidden memory made him want to reveal everything, to pull her into the shadows and keep her safe forever.
But she was the key. She carried the Fragment. If she stayed with him, Heaven would not just hunt her; they would obliterate her.
I have to find her. I have to secure her. And I must keep my distance until she is safe.
The promise to himself was a lie. The moment their eyes met, the Resistance he swore to maintain had crumbled. But he would wear the lie like armour, the last vestige of the Saint fighting to restrain the Executioner.
He vanished into the perpetual, chemical rain, moving toward the Spireshadow Dwellings, determined to intercept his past before his brother could claim her future. The Saint is closing in on Lyra, but Seraphiel has just received the alert on the Aegis Hand's disappearance. The clock is ticking.