The door gave way with a metallic scream.
It burst inward, chair skidding across the floor, and four figures in black tactical armor flooded the room with practiced precision. Their auras flared — disciplined, trained, lethal.
"Crowe, release the asset!" one of them barked.
Crowe didn't answer.
He shifted Jack's weight against his shoulder, one arm locked around Jack's back, the other braced as if he were carrying something far heavier than a wounded boy.
"Out of my way," Crowe said.
The soldiers hesitated — just a fraction of a second — and in that fraction Crowe moved.
He didn't strike.
He didn't explode with power.
He slid.
Like a shadow poured into motion, Crowe pivoted, stepping between the first two hunters and slipping past their guard. One of them swung, a burst of compressed mana flashing toward Crowe's ribs.
Crowe twisted, letting it glance off his shoulder, aura absorbing most of the impact. The hallway beyond the door filled with alarms as more boots pounded closer.
Jack felt every movement through Crowe's body — the controlled violence, the balance, the terrifying precision.
Crowe wasn't trying to kill them.
He was trying not to.
That made it harder.
"Crowe, you're making this worse!" someone shouted.
Crowe's jaw was tight. "No," he said, breath steady. "You already did."
He burst into the corridor.
The facility's white walls blurred as Crowe sprinted, alarms screaming now, red lights strobing across sterile floors. Doors slammed shut ahead of them, security systems trying to cut off their path.
Crowe swore and veered left.
Jack's head lolled against Crowe's shoulder, pain and dizziness mixing with adrenaline. His heart hammered, and deep inside something else stirred — curious, eager.
"Run," the voice whispered.
"Run and bleed and fear. This is when doors open."
Jack clenched his teeth. Not now.
They rounded a corner and nearly collided with a squad of armed hunters.
Crowe skidded to a stop.
Five of them. A-Ranks, at least.
Their auras flared, thick with killing intent.
"Put him down," their leader ordered. "Last warning."
Crowe looked at them, calculating. He could fight them.
He might even win.
But not without revealing too much.
"Move," Crowe said.
They didn't.
Crowe took one step forward.
The leader raised his weapon.
Jack felt the pressure spike — like a thousand eyes suddenly turning inward.
The voice inside him sighed.
"They will kill him."
Jack's breath hitched.
Crowe shifted his stance, preparing to shield Jack.
And something inside Jack snapped.
Not violently.
Not explosively.
Quietly.
Like a lock turning.
The air around Jack shuddered.
Crowe froze mid-step.
"Jack?" he murmured.
Jack didn't know what he was doing.
He just knew he couldn't let Crowe die.
A cold sensation spread through his chest, into his veins, into his bones. His vision darkened at the edges as a thin red glow bled into his eyes.
The A-Ranks felt it.
Their confident stances wavered.
"What the hell—" one of them started.
The space between Jack and the hunters… cracked.
Not visibly at first.
Just a pressure, a distortion, like glass under stress.
"Jack, stop!" Crowe hissed. "You don't know—"
Too late.
The crack widened.
A line of absolute black sliced through the air, carving a scar across the hallway.
It didn't hit the hunters.
It hit the floor between them.
The polished surface split apart, not breaking, but separating, a deep fissure of nothingness opening like the mouth of a wound.
The hunters stumbled back, fear flashing across their faces.
"Back!" the leader shouted.
Crowe stared at the裂 in the floor, eyes wide.
"Jack… what did you do?"
Jack gasped, pain ripping through him as the power receded. "I—I didn't mean—"
The voice inside him was delighted.
"You protected him."
The alarms faltered.
Security systems glitched.
The lights flickered wildly.
For a brief, terrible moment, the entire facility felt like the dungeon again — unstable, afraid.
Crowe didn't hesitate.
He sprinted.
They tore down the corridor as hunters scrambled behind them, shouting orders, firing spells that slammed into walls and ceilings but never quite found their mark.
Crowe burst through a reinforced door at the end of the hall and out into a loading bay, night air slamming into them like freedom.
A helicopter idled nearby, rotors already spinning.
Crowe swore. "They were ready."
He changed direction mid-run, heading for the far exit instead.
Jack's head spun. His vision tunneled. The world felt too bright, too sharp.
The voice whispered, silky and close.
"You could end them all."
Jack shook his head weakly. "No."
"You could keep him safe."
"No."
"You could live."
Jack's grip tightened on Crowe's coat.
"I already am," he whispered.
Crowe burst through the emergency doors and out into the city.
Cold night air rushed over them, filled with sirens, traffic, and the hum of a world that had no idea how close it had just come to breaking.
Crowe didn't slow.
They vanished into the dark.
Behind them, in a hidden facility, alarms screamed.
And far beyond the sky, something outside reality leaned forward, fascinated.
The game had begun.
They didn't stop running until the city swallowed them.
Crowe moved through alleyways and service roads like he'd lived in them his whole life, weaving between dumpsters and chain-link fences, slipping into narrow gaps where no patrol drone would bother to look. The night air was cold, sharp, and alive with sirens and distant traffic — a reminder that the world kept moving, even when it should have shattered.
Jack barely stayed conscious.
Every step Crowe took sent a fresh wave of pain through his ribs. His right arm burned like it had been dipped in fire. His vision swam, and sometimes the streetlights doubled, then tripled, like reflections in broken glass.
And beneath all of that…
Something inside him stirred.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Just… present.
Crowe finally stopped in the shadow of an abandoned warehouse, lowering Jack gently against a stack of old wooden pallets. His breathing was steady, but his eyes were sharp, scanning every corner, every rooftop.
"Stay," Crowe said. "If anything moves, tell me."
Jack nodded weakly.
Crowe turned his back just long enough to check the street.
That was when the voice spoke again.
"You did well."
Jack flinched.
The voice wasn't loud. It wasn't echoing. It was as close as a thought — closer than his own fear.
"Leave me alone," Jack whispered.
"You kept him alive."
Jack swallowed. "That doesn't make you my friend."
A pause.
"It makes us aligned."
Jack's chest tightened. "You tricked me."
"I offered you a choice."
Jack laughed weakly. "You didn't tell me what the choice was."
"If I had," the voice replied calmly, "you would have died."
Jack closed his eyes. The memory of the monster splitting apart replayed in his mind. The way space itself had torn.
"What are you?" he asked quietly.
The voice hesitated — just a fraction.
"I am what remains when gods are denied their world."
Jack's skin prickled. "That doesn't answer anything."
"It answers more than you are ready for."
Crowe returned, kneeling in front of Jack. "Who are you talking to?"
Jack's eyes snapped open.
"No one," he lied.
Crowe studied him. "Your lips were moving."
Jack looked away. "I was… thinking."
Crowe didn't push — but the suspicion didn't leave his eyes.
"Back there," Crowe said slowly, "you bent reality."
Jack swallowed. "I didn't mean to."
"That doesn't matter," Crowe replied. "The system will mark that as a Class-S anomaly."
Jack's heart sank. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," Crowe said, "every organization on this continent will want to either control you or erase you."
The voice inside Jack hummed with amusement.
"How flattering."
Jack pressed his palms against his eyes. "I just wanted to live."
"And you did," Crowe said. "Now comes the bill."
Jack lowered his hands. "Is there a way out of this?"
Crowe hesitated.
"Maybe," he said. "But it involves doing something the system hates."
Jack waited.
"You have to get stronger," Crowe said. "Fast."
Jack stared at him. "That sounds like exactly what the system doesn't want."
Crowe nodded. "Exactly."
The voice inside Jack whispered.
"He is useful."
Jack ignored it. "What happens if I don't?"
Crowe's jaw tightened. "Then you'll be hunted. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Tonight."
As if on cue, a distant helicopter thumped through the sky.
Jack flinched.
"They're already searching," Crowe said.
Jack felt panic surge again. "I can't control what I did."
Crowe leaned closer. "That's why we need to understand it."
Jack hesitated, then whispered, "There's a voice."
Crowe froze.
"A… what?"
"A voice," Jack said. "It talks to me. It helped me in the dungeon. It helped me just now."
Crowe didn't move for a long moment.
"When does it speak?" he asked quietly.
"When I'm scared," Jack said. "When I'm about to die."
Crowe's eyes darkened.
"And what does it ask for?"
Jack hesitated.
The voice inside him was very still.
"It asks me to say yes," Jack admitted.
Crowe exhaled slowly. "That's bad."
"I know."
The voice whispered.
"It is necessary."
Jack clenched his jaw. "What happens if I say no?"
Crowe met his gaze. "Then you die."
The truth of it landed like a weight.
Jack stared at the ground. "So I'm trapped."
Crowe shook his head. "No. You're at a crossroads."
Jack almost laughed. "That's what the SS-Rank said."
Crowe nodded. "Two futures."
"One where I save people," Jack said bitterly. "And one where I destroy everything."
"Yes," Crowe said. "And both start with you getting stronger."
Jack looked up. "How do I choose which one?"
Crowe's answer was quiet.
"You don't," he said. "Not yet."
The voice inside Jack smiled.
"He understands nothing."
Crowe stood. "We can't stay here."
Jack nodded, forcing himself to stand with Crowe's help. Pain shot through him, but he stayed upright.
"Where do we go?" Jack asked.
Crowe looked out into the city.
"Somewhere the system doesn't look," he said.
Jack took a shaky breath.
And deep inside him, something ancient and patient waited for the next time he would be asked to say yes.