Red and the Apocalypse Chapter 73 — The Awakening
Tuesday. 10:17 a.m.
The first thing Daichi noticed when he woke up was the splitting, blinding pain.
It throbbed viciously behind his eyes, heavy and persistent, as though someone had spent the entire night hammering away at the inside of his skull. His mouth tasted like ash and copper; his stomach churned with sour nausea; and the harsh daylight filtering through the penthouse curtains felt entirely too bright to bear.
For several long seconds, he remained completely motionless on the leather sofa, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
Then, the memories of the previous night began to drift back into focus.
The mounting civilian complaints about the military patrols. The tense, bitter confrontation with Captain Jin over the assault in the corridor. The shattered soju bottle on the mahogany table. Raizo standing guard outside in the dark hallway, ready to step in if diplomacy completely failed.
And the drinking.
Daichi closed his eyes tightly, pressing two fingers hard against his throbbing temples.
Damn it all.
He had only intended to share a single drink with Jin. One civilized glass to clear the air, address the military's escalating abuses, and prevent an open conflict from tearing the community apart from the inside.
Somewhere along the way, one drink had quietly turned into an entire bottle.
He had clearly underestimated his own limits—or how deeply the day's stress had poisoned him.
Daichi groaned, rolling slowly onto his side as he reached across the table for his wristwatch to check the hour.
His eyes snapped wide open.
10:17 a.m.
He stared hard at the digital display, blinking away the blurriness, half-expecting the numbers to shift if he looked at them long enough.
They didn't.
He had fallen asleep shortly after midnight—or at least, that was the final fragmented memory he retained before the alcohol knocked him completely cold. Yet here it was, the middle of the morning.
How the hell had he slept straight through the night and half the morning?
His pounding headache made deep rational thought nearly impossible, but a cold, uneasy knot began to tighten in his chest. He rarely slept this heavily. Something felt profoundly, unnaturally wrong.
Still, the most logical explanation remained the simplest one: he had simply overdone it with the alcohol, crashing hard into a chemically induced stupor.
Daichi swung his legs over the edge of the sofa and forced himself upright.
The entire room violently tilted sideways.
He caught himself heavily against the edge of the mahogany table, breathing through his teeth until the dizzy wave finally receded.
"Never doing that again," he muttered aloud to the empty room.
He grabbed his discarded shirt from the floor, pulled it over his shoulders, and fumbled with the buttons. Then, feeling a sudden spike of unease, he called out toward the adjoining master bedroom.
"Hiori?"
No answer.
Daichi frowned, his stomach tightening.
She was always awake before him, usually already organizing supply ledgers, reviewing rations, or coordinating with the medical volunteers down on the lower tiers. If she wasn't in the bedroom, she should have been managing the administrative floor.
He stepped out into the quiet hallway.
"Hiori?"
Still absolute silence.
The penthouse felt strangely, unnaturally hushed.
Not peaceful.
Dead quiet.
There was a stark, suffocating difference between the two, and Daichi felt it in his bones long before his mind could process why.
Normally, the high-rise complex possessed a vibrant, living rhythm of its own. Even from the top floor, he could always hear the distant hum of human voices, the faint laughter of children playing in the reinforced halls, the rhythmic clanking of maintenance crews, and the low, steady vibration of the generators powering the building.
This morning, all of those familiar sounds had vanished.
No children running.
No conversations drifting up the stairwells.
No morning announcements echoing over the public-address system.
Only the cold, mechanical hum of the air circulation vents.
Daichi walked quickly toward the main exit and pushed the heavy door open.
Two armed soldiers stood guard outside.
They were positioned on opposite sides of the corridor, assault rifles slung low across their chests. Both of their heads snapped toward him the instant the door clicked open.
Daichi recognized them instantly as members of Jin's elite tactical unit.
"Morning," Daichi said, forcing a calm tone.
Neither soldier answered. They didn't even blink.
He waited a beat, his jaw tightening. "Have either of you seen my wife?"
One of the soldiers glanced sideways at his companion. Then they both looked away, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.
Daichi's eyebrows drew together sharply. "Excuse me?"
The soldier nearest him shifted his weight, his hand tightening on his rifle strap. "Move along, sir."
Daichi stared at him in disbelief. "Move along?"
"Nothing to see in this sector. Turn around."
The soldier began walking past him down the hall, his boots clicking in unison. His companion fell in right behind him.
Daichi watched them round the corner, a cold wave of adrenaline washing away the last remnants of his hangover.
For a terrifying second, he wondered if he was losing his mind.
Then, he looked down at the hallway floor.
There were dark, irregular smudges smeared across the polished tiles.
Thick, reddish-brown streaks, partially dried into the concrete.
Blood.
Daichi dropped to one knee and reached out, pressing his fingertips gingerly against one of the dark stains.
He pulled his hand back instantly.
His breath caught.
The alcohol fog in his brain vanished entirely, replaced by the razor-sharp clarity of sheer panic.
He spun around and looked toward the elevator bank.
The heavy steel doors were firmly shut. A small, ominous red indicator glowed silently above them.
A discarded cleaning rag lay crumpled near the baseboard, and trailing away from it was a thin, gruesome smear of fresh blood leading straight around the corner.
Daichi rose slowly to his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Hiori?! Raizo?!"
This time, his voice roared down the empty corridor.
Nothing answered him except the hum of the vents.
A profound, freezing dread settled deep in the pit of his stomach.
He broke into a fast walk toward the elevators.
Before he could reach them, a heavy steel door farther down the hall clicked open.
Two soldiers emerged, dragging a dead weight between them.
One held the corpse by its ankles, the boots dragging scraping noises across the floor. The other gripped the dead man tightly under the arms.
The corpse's head lolled backward, striking the hard tile floor with a dull thump with every step they took.
Daichi stopped dead in his tracks.
The dead man... he recognized him instantly.
It was one of the civilian residents. A kind, middle-aged man who had attended the very first community meeting after the outbreak began—the night Daichi had promised that no human being would ever be turned away from the sanctuary as long as they respected the rules.
The man had spent the past week hauling heavy crates of canned goods up from the vaults to keep everyone fed.
Now, his eyes were blown wide open, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
A jagged, dark bullet wound blackened the center of his chest.
"Hey!" Daichi shouted, his voice cracking with fury.
The two soldiers froze instantly.
Daichi took three rapid strides forward. "What the hell happened to him?!"
Neither soldier uttered a word.
"I asked you a question! Who did this?!" Daichi demanded, his fists balling tight at his sides.
The man holding the corpse's ankles cast a nervous glance at his partner. Then, without a word, they hoisted the dead resident higher and resumed dragging him down the hall.
"Stop right there!" Daichi barked, stepping directly into their path.
The soldiers finally halted, looking up at him with cold, dead eyes.
For a fleeting second, the one on the left looked genuinely hesitant.
Then the other soldier spoke, his voice completely devoid of human emotion.
"Captain Jin's orders."
They stepped around him, continuing down the corridor toward the service stairwell.
Daichi stood frozen in the center of the hall.
Jin's orders?
He watched the corpse disappear around the corner, swallowed by the shadows.
Something was fundamentally wrong.
Something catastrophic had happened while he was chemically knocked out in the penthouse.
He pivoted sharply toward the elevators, then froze again.
Heavy military boots were stomping up the service stairs from below, accompanied by harsh, muffled voices.
"...How many are left in the west wing?"
"Don't know. The sweep teams are still clearing out the lower levels."
"What about the general population?"
"The Captain wants every single civilian rounded up in the main hall right now."
Daichi didn't hesitate. He dove sideways, pressing his back flat into the shallow recess of an empty doorway just as two soldiers rounded the corner, talking in low, urgent tones.
They jogged right past his hiding spot without glancing his way.
Their conversation drifted back to him.
"They're saying the old man is still knocked out upstairs from the booze."
"Good. Keep it that way until the Captain finishes the assembly."
"You think Daichi's going to try and cause trouble when he wakes up?"
A short, cruel laugh echoed off the walls.
"With what army?"
Their footsteps faded away down the corridor toward the administrative wing.
Daichi remained pinned in the doorway for several agonizing seconds, his chest heaving.
The old man. They were talking about him.
And they were preparing a mass assembly to cement their control.
He looked toward the main stairwell. The elevators were undoubtedly monitored or locked down, and the primary corridors crawled with armed patrols. If he simply walked out into the open and demanded answers, they would put a bullet in his chest without a second thought.
For the very first time since he had poured his fortune into building the sanctuary, Daichi felt completely powerless inside his own home.
He slipped down the stairwell in absolute silence.
At the next landing, he heard the muffled sound of weeping, followed immediately by a sharp, violent physical impact and a sickening crunch.
Then, dead silence.
Daichi froze on the concrete steps, his fingers digging so hard into the iron handrail that his knuckles turned stark white.
He forced his feet to move downward.
Step by step. Carefully. Silently.
The deeper he descended into the complex, the more horrific the evidence of the military takeover became.
A broken pair of wire-rimmed glasses lay crushed near a doorway. A dark, sweeping smear of blood stained the wallpaper. A heavy wooden bench had been violently splintered into kindling, tossed aside like trash.
Someone had desperately tried to barricade a residential corridor to protect their family.
The barricade had been smashed to pieces by rifle butts.
Daichi spotted a loose sheet of paper lying beneath the debris. He knelt down, picking it up with trembling fingers. It was the residents' volunteer duty roster—a schedule he had personally drafted during the first week to keep the community running.
A heavy, muddy military boot print had been deliberately stamped right across the names of the families living on that floor.
He folded the paper slowly and slipped it deep into his pocket.
Whatever was happening down there, he needed absolute answers before he made a fatal move.
A sharp, metallic clatter echoed up from the lower levels, followed by the heavy, scraping drag of a massive object across the concrete floor.
Daichi descended another half-flight of stairs, keeping deep in the shadows.
Then, a familiar, furious voice cut through the air below.
"Get your filthy hands off him!"
Daichi froze.
He knew that voice instantly. Chisato Akane.
He hurried down the remaining concrete steps, reaching the edge of the lower corridor just in time to see two armed soldiers roughly hauling a bleeding, semiconscious man through an open apartment doorway. A third soldier stood guard behind them, leveling an assault rifle.
Chisato stood backed flat against the corridor wall, her fists clenched so tight her nails drew blood. A fourth soldier stood directly in her path, his rifle barrel inches from her chest.
"Stay back where you are, civilian," the guard snarled.
"He's severely injured! He needs a doctor!" Chisato fired back, her voice shaking with rage.
"Then he should have stayed in his room and followed orders."
Inside the room, the wounded man groaned, trying weakly to lift his head from the floor. Dark blood poured in a steady stream down the side of his face.
Daichi couldn't even tell if the man was still lucid.
Chisato lunged forward past the guard's outstretched arm.
The soldier instantly leveled the butt of his rifle, cocking back to strike her across the face.
She stopped dead, staring down the barrel of the gun.
"That's right," the soldier sneered. "Now you finally understand how this place works."
Daichi backed away into the shadows of the stairwell before anyone could spot him.
His blood roared in his ears.
He had to find Hiori.
He had to find Raizo.
And he had to find out what kind of hell Jin had unleashed.
Because this wasn't a localized disciplinary dispute. This wasn't an argument that had spiraled out of control.
It was a complete military coup.
And Captain Jin had made absolute, calculated certain that Daichi Kazuma would be the last man in the building to wake up and realize it.
The Assembly Hall
Daichi reached the upper mezzanine gallery overlooking the main ground-floor assembly hall shortly before the mass briefing began.
He gripped the cold steel railing, leaned over the edge, and looked down.
For a terrifying second, he forgot how to breathe.
The cavernous hall was packed to absolute capacity.
Hundreds of civilian residents—men, women, and terrified children—had been herded into a dense, miserable crowd beneath the balcony. Some sat huddled together directly on the cold concrete floor. Others knelt with their hands locked tightly behind their heads. A chorus of quiet, broken weeping echoed off the high stone walls.
Some Children buried their faces in their parents' jackets, trembling violently.
Everywhere Daichi looked, the glint of tactical weaponry flashed under the emergency lights.
Assault rifles. Submachine guns. Pistols.
Armed soldiers were stationed shoulder-to-shoulder along the walls, guarding every exit, lining the perimeter, and occupying the stairwells. They weren't maintaining a defensive perimeter against the infected outside.
They were running a prison camp.
What the hell happened here while I was asleep? Daichi thought, his fingernails biting painfully into the metal railing.
He swept his gaze frantically across the sea of frightened faces, searching desperately for his wife.
Hiori. Where is Hiori?
Then, near the front of the stage, he spotted her.
Hiori stood rigidly upright, her hands tightly bound behind her back with industrial zip-ties. A grim, heavily armed soldier stood so close to her that his shoulder brushed hers, ready to slam her down at the slightest twitch.
Her dark hair was wild and disheveled, and a jagged tear ran down the sleeve of her shirt. She looked exhausted, terrified, and burning with white-hot fury.
But more importantly... she was breathing. She was alive.
For a fleeting microsecond, a wave of intense relief crashed over Daichi.
Then, his eyes shifted two feet to her left—and his blood ran completely ice-cold.
Raizo Kurogane.
The massive, terrifying former Yakuza stood with his thick wrists bound tightly in front of him. His ash-gray hair hung down to obscure his face, and his tactical clothing was soaked dark with wet, glistening blood.
Multiple deep, jagged knife wounds tore through his jacket across his ribs and side. One of his massive legs shook uncontrollably beneath him, unable to bear his full weight.
Just remaining upright appeared to require a superhuman exertion of sheer willpower.
Daichi stared in sheer horror.
Raizo had always been an immovable mountain of a man. Even in quiet moments, he carried himself with the absolute, unshakable gravity of someone who commanded total obedience.
Now, his broad shoulders were utterly slumped. His breathing came in shallow, ragged hitches.
And yet... even broken, bleeding, and barely conscious, Raizo had deliberately positioned his massive, battered body directly between Hiori and the nearest squad of armed soldiers.
Even at death's door, he was still trying to shield her.
Daichi's fingers locked around the railing so hard his bones ached.
Raizo...
One of the nearby soldiers sneered, shoving the giant roughly in the shoulder with the barrel of his rifle.
Raizo staggered violently to the side.
Hiori immediately twisted around, straining against her bonds. "Don't touch him!"
The soldier shoved her hard in the chest, sending her stumbling back against the crowd.
Raizo tried to lunge forward, but the moment he shifted his weight onto his injured leg, a spasm of absolute agony crossed his pale face.
Another soldier stepped up behind him and swung the heavy steel stock of his rifle squarely across Raizo's bloody spine.
Raizo crashed heavily down onto one knee, gasping for air.
"Stay down, you big piece of trash!" the guard barked.
Raizo lowered his head, his teeth bared in a snarl, his massive hands tightening into shaking fists that dripped with blood.
For a terrifying second, Daichi thought the giant was going to ignore his injuries, stand back up, and tear them all apart barehanded.
Then, Raizo lifted his head and caught Hiori's terrified eyes in the crowd.
Slowly, painfully, Raizo forced his body to remain still, swallowing his lethal rage.
And in that instant, Daichi understood everything.
Raizo wasn't broken by the pain. He wasn't afraid of dying.
He was terrified of what these animals would do to Hiori if he fought back and gave them an excuse to execute her.
The realization twisted a knife deep inside Daichi's chest.
He forced his burning eyes away from them and scanned the rest of the captive hall.
Chisato stood near the middle of the crowd, her face pale as marble, her eyes burning with defiance as a soldier kept a firm, bruising grip on her upper arm.
But as Daichi counted the faces, a cold dread crept over him.
Too many people were missing.
Familiar faces of key civilians who had built the sanctuary from day one—the engineers who kept the generators humming, the cooks who distributed rations, the logistics workers who kept the inventory—were entirely absent.
And then he saw the blood pooled on the concrete floor near the podium.
Too much blood.
And at the very edge of the staging platform, shrouded beneath two stiff, gray military tarps, lay two long, human-shaped outlines.
Daichi stared at the tarps, his breath catching in his throat.
A terrified female resident standing near the front of the crowd buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with agonizing, silent sobs.
"They were just doctors..." she whispered to the floor, her voice cracking.
Daichi leaned over the rail, straining to hear every syllable. "What...?"
The woman didn't dare look up. "They tried to stop the executions..."
Her voice trembled so violently she could barely form the words. "Dr. Sato and Dr. Mori. They begged them to stop shooting people in the halls. They just wanted to treat the wounded..."
She swallowed a harsh sob. "So the soldiers shot them dead on the spot."
Daichi felt something inside his chest fracture completely.
The doctors. They were among the very first volunteers who had risked their lives to tend to the sick when the outbreak first swallowed the city. They had worked through endless, sleepless nights sewing up lacerations, treating infections, and saving countless lives without asking for a single reward.
They had kept the human heart of the sanctuary beating.
And now, they were murdered corpses rotting under plastic sheets on the floor.
Because they had dared to show basic human compassion in a world of wolves.
Daichi looked down at the covered bodies, his mind violently rejecting the grotesque reality unfolding before him.
This was the sanctuary.
This was the safe haven he had spent ten years of his life and a fortune designing. The impregnable fortress he had thrown open to hundreds of helpless strangers simply because he believed human beings deserved a safe place to sleep when the world ended.
Now, those exact same residents were forced to kneel in the dirt at gunpoint.
Its healers were executed in cold blood.
Its military protectors had turned into a death squad.
And his wife and closest friends stood trapped in the center of the nightmare, waiting for the executioner's axe to fall.
A sudden, sharp rustle surged through the captive crowd as a group of armed guards parted at the rear of the stage.
A man stepped calmly into the spotlight.
Captain Jin.
He wore a pristine, unblemished military uniform, carrying himself with the relaxed, effortless confidence of a man walking onto a stage to accept an award.
His dark hair was neatly combed. His face was freshly washed.
The ugly purple bruise and laceration Raizo had carved into his temple this morning had been expertly cleaned and dressed, though a faint discoloration still lingered near his hairline.
Jin swept his cold, calculating gaze across the silent, terrified hall.
He looked down at the kneeling citizens, the armed checkpoints, and the bloody corpses resting under the tarps.
Then, a slow, pleasant smile spread across his face.
"Good morning, everyone," Jin's smooth voice echoed clearly through the PA speakers.
Absolute silence answered him. Not a single person moved.
Jin didn't lose his smile. He waited patiently, letting the heavy, suffocating atmosphere press down on them.
Then he raised his voice slightly. "I said... good morning."
A few terrified, trembling voices near the front stammered out a compliance.
"Good... good morning, Captain."
"Much better," Jin replied smoothly.
He clasped his hands neatly behind his back, pacing a slow, deliberate circle across the platform.
"I understand that many of you are deeply confused about the events of the past several hours. Some of you are undoubtedly frightened."
He paused, letting his sharp eyes travel over the huddled crowd.
"That is entirely natural. Transition periods are never easy... and, as you can see, they occasionally involve unavoidable, unforeseen tragedies." He casually glanced down toward the two bodies under the tarps.
A brave civilian near the front snapped, lifting his head in defiance. "What is the meaning of this?! Why are we being locked up like animals?!"
Jin stopped pacing, turning his gaze slowly toward the man. "You're being secured because maintaining our current survival requires absolute, unyielding discipline."
"We didn't do anything wrong!" another resident shouted out in desperation.
"Didn't you?" Jin countered softly.
The man's mouth opened, but no words came out.
Jin tilted his head, his tone dripping with condescension. "Are you entirely certain? Because I have spent the better part of the past two weeks listening to endless civilian complaints, breaking up petty disturbances, and watching this entire community slowly rot away into lawless chaos."
He gestured broadly toward the kneeling crowd.
"You people mistook my predecessor's profound kindness for absolute weakness. You mistook basic freedom for an absolute absence of consequences. And, worst of all, you mistook the man who built these walls for someone actually capable of leading you through the horrors of an apocalypse."
Several residents exchanged terrified, guilty glances.
Jin stopped his pacing altogether. "Daichi Kazuma is a fundamentally good man."
His tone carried a note of affection.
"An intelligent man. A generous man. A man who genuinely wanted to save every single soul he crossed paths with."
He paused for dramatic effect.
"Unfortunately... those noble qualities do not make him an effective leader."
A low murmur of shock rippled through the hall.
Jin raised a single gloved hand, and the murmurs instantly died.
"Under his naive leadership, soldiers were permitted to question lawful direct orders. Civilians were coddled when they challenged military authority. Every minor dispute turned into an endless bureaucratic debate, and every disciplinary infraction became an argument about abstract fairness."
He shook his head in mock disappointment.
"And while he was busy trying to ensure everyone's feelings remained intact, this community became dangerously vulnerable to external and internal collapse."
He pointed a finger directly at the covered corpses.
"Good people died today simply because iron-fisted order was not enforced when it mattered most."
The monstrous accusation hung thick in the air.
Up on the mezzanine, Daichi felt his jaw lock so hard his teeth threatened to crack.
Jin was actively weaponizing the very murders he had just committed to justify his own bloody tyranny. He was taking the suffering of the dead and twisting it into propaganda to prove that his slaughter was a necessary evil.
"Some of you are undoubtedly wondering where Mr. Kazuma is at this very moment," Jin continued, his smile widening.
He let out a light, airy laugh.
"Do not worry yourselves. Your beloved founder is perfectly safe."
His dark eyes drifted slowly upward toward the shadows of the upper balconies where Daichi stood.
"At least... he was when I checked on him earlier this morning."
A few of Jin's sycophantic soldiers let out a sharp chuckle below.
Jin smiled down at them warmly.
"He's fast asleep."
More laughter rippled through the armed guards.
"He drank himself into absolute unconsciousness last night while the rest of us were forced to make the heavy, difficult decisions required to keep you all alive. He was too busy enjoying the comfortable consequences of his own reckless indulgence to notice the world burning."
Daichi's expression turned black as pitch.
Jin had no idea how close he was standing, or how clearly every word was piercing the darkness.
Or maybe... he knew completely.
Perhaps this entire public performance was meticulously staged to draw him out into the open.
Jin stepped right to the edge of the wooden platform, looking down at the masses.
"Let me impart a fundamental truth to all of you."
His voice dropped an octave, turning razor-sharp.
"Trust is an expensive luxury. Trust is a fatal weakness when the people standing beside you lack the spine to obey authority. Trust is what naive leaders offer when they have zero intention of enforcing their own hard decisions."
He spread his arms wide.
"I do not require your trust."
He stared down hard at the kneeling citizens.
"I require your absolute obedience."
Nobody dared to breathe.
Jin's expression turned granite-hard. "And if obedience cannot be willingly earned from you... it will be brutally enforced upon you."
He leaned forward over the podium.
"I do not need you to love me. I do not need you to respect me. I don't even need you to agree with my methods."
His voice rang off the high rafters like a hammer blow.
"I only need you to understand that there are immediate, permanent consequences for defying my authority."
He gestured sharply toward the rows of armed guards.
"Any individual who continues to cause friction or spread dissent will be dealt with swiftly and permanently."
Several soldiers nodded eagerly, racking the slides of their rifles in unison.
Jin returned his attention to the silent, terrified crowd.
"As for those of you who choose to cooperate and fall in line, you have nothing to fear. Obey instructions, respect the chain of command, and you will be fed and protected accordingly."
His gaze slowly drifted back toward Hiori and Raizo standing near the front.
For a fraction of a second, his polite mask slipped, revealing a look of dark, predatory satisfaction.
Then, he smoothed his expression back out.
"Welcome to the new order."
A smattering of forced, terrified applause broke out among the guards.
At first, only a few soldiers clapped. Then, out of sheer survival instinct, a few more joined in.
The hollow, rhythmic sound echoed across the hall, drowning out the miserable, muffled whimpers of the trapped civilians.
Jin stood right in the center of it all, soaking in the applause as if he were a benevolent savior delivering a historic address.
Up on the gallery, Daichi watched the sickening display.
He had trusted this man with everything.
He had welcomed a stranger into his private sanctuary, handed him a sanctuary, shared his food reserves, and integrated a military unit into his home because he genuinely believed they shared a common goal: keeping humanity alive.
And Jin had repaid that absolute trust by turning his life's work into a concentration camp.
Daichi's hands trembled violently.
Not from cowardice.
From a murderous, incandescent rage that threatened to burn his veins from the inside out.
He forced himself to take a slow, deep breath.
In.
Out.
He couldn't just leap over the railing and charge blindly into the hall. Jin had hundreds of heavily armed loyalists deployed at every choke point. The civilians were trapped in the crossfire. Hiori was zip-tied, and Raizo was battered and barely standing.
One reckless, emotional move would get everyone he loved slaughtered in seconds.
He needed a tactical opening.
He needed to see what Jin's next move was.
Down below, Jin stepped down from the elevated platform, his boots striking the concrete with a sharp clack.
His eyes locked onto Raizo.
"Ah... before we conclude this morning's briefing, there is one final disciplinary matter I wish to settle."
The guards surrounding the giant stepped aside, clearing a path.
Jin strolled up to Raizo leisurely, stopping just out of arm's reach. "Raizo Kurogane."
Raizo slowly lifted his head. Even with blood matting his hair and pouring down his ribs, he stared straight into Jin's eyes with an expression of pure, unadulterated contempt.
Jin let out a dry chuckle. "You gave me and my security teams a remarkably difficult morning, old friend."
Raizo didn't give him the satisfaction of a reply.
"Several broken ribs. Multiple cracked jaws. Two of my best men had to be stitched up after you physically threw them through a reinforced drywall." Jin sighed theatrically. "You really should learn to govern your violent temper."
The corners of Raizo's bloodied lips curled upward in a grim smile. "Go to hell."
Several nearby guards raised their rifle barrels instantly, tensing to fire.
Jin nonchalantly flicked his hand, signaling them to hold their fire.
Then, he crouched down slightly so his face was level with Raizo's. "Still stubbornly defiant. I can actually respect that trait in a soldier."
He glanced sideways toward Hiori. "Though I must admit... your tactical priorities are painfully predictable."
Raizo's eyes flashed with a dangerous light.
Jin caught the shift instantly. "Ah. There it is."
He stood back up to his full height. "You honestly don't give a damn what happens to your own skin. You never have. But threaten the woman... and suddenly, the legendary Raizo Kurogane becomes remarkably easy to manipulate."
Raizo threw his weight forward, straining furiously against his heavy zip-tie restraints.
The guards slammed him back down hard.
"You touch her again," Raizo growled, his voice a deep, gravelly promise of murder, "and I'll tear your fucking spine out through your throat."
Jin laughed out loud, unbothered. "You know... for a moment there, I was genuinely wondering if you possessed any strategic intelligence at all."
He took a slow step backward. "Fortunately, you've just provided me with a textbook opportunity to test that exact theory."
He gestured over his shoulder.
One of Jin's officers stepped forward, pulling a heavy tactical pistol from his holster and handing it over.
Raizo stared down at the black steel of the weapon.
Then up at Jin's face.
His expression remained unyielding, but the crushing weight of exhaustion was unmistakable in his eyes.
Raizo knew precisely what was coming.
And battered as he was, he had no way left to stop it.
Jin accepted the pistol, checked the chamber with a crisp mechanical click, and raised his gaze back to the giant.
"You have been an intolerable thorn in my side from the exact moment my boots crossed your threshold. You question my authority, you sabotage my patrols, and you encourage the weak to rebel."
He leveled the barrel of the pistol directly at the center of Raizo's forehead.
"People like you make the establishment of absolute order mathematically impossible."
Down in the crowd, Hiori fought violently against the guard holding her captive, screaming at the top of her lungs.
"No! Stop it!"
Jin didn't even blink an eye. "Any final words, Raizo?"
Raizo spat a mouthful of dark, iron-rich blood directly onto the polished floorboards at Jin's feet.
"You're a coward hiding behind a gun."
Jin's pleasant smile vanished into thin air.
For a single, agonizing heartbeat, the entire assembly hall held its breath.
Then, Jin exhaled a slow, cold breath. "Perhaps."
He tightened his finger around the trigger curve.
"But I'm the coward who holds the gun."
"STOP RIGHT THERE!"
The roar didn't come from the crowd.
It didn't come from the guards.
It echoed down from the shadows of the upper mezzanine gallery.
It wasn't deafeningly loud.
It didn't need to be.
Jin froze mid-motion, his finger locking against the trigger guard.
Every head in the hall snapped upward toward the balcony.
Hiori's breath hitched, her eyes flying wide.
Raizo lifted his gaze through his matted hair.
And Daichi Kazuma stepped calmly out of the dark shadows of the gallery rail.
The Man Who Built the Sanctuary
For several long, stunned seconds, absolute silence gripped the hall.
Daichi stood at the very top of the concrete staircase leading down into the main assembly area.
His shirt was rumpled from the sofa. His hair was messy, and the severe lingering aftermath of the previous night's alcohol binge left him looking slightly more worn than usual.
But his brown eyes were terrifyingly clear.
He locked his gaze onto Captain Jin's face.
"Put the damn gun down," Daichi commanded, his voice cold enough to freeze water.
Jin stared up at him in utter disbelief.
Then, slowly, a twisted grin spread across his face.
"Well, well, well..." Jin murmured.
He lowered the barrel of the pistol a few inches, shaking his head. "The ghost of the sanctuary has finally decided to crawl out of bed."
A few of the nervous guards let out a low chuckle.
Jin turned his head toward the captive crowd. "Everyone, please... let's give a warm, enthusiastic round of applause for our beloved, slumbering founder."
A handful of soldiers started clapping mockingly.
Some whistled. Others laughed outright at the spectacle.
Daichi didn't flinch. He didn't blink.
He began walking slowly down the concrete steps.
One step.
Then another.
Every measured footfall brought him closer and closer to the man who had systematically dismantled his dream.
Jin watched him descend, his grin tightening. "I must say, Daichi... you look like absolute hell."
Daichi stopped dead at the foot of the stairs, standing twenty feet away. "Get away from Raizo. Right now."
Jin tilted his head playfully. "What, no good morning? No polite handshake?"
"I said... move away from him."
Jin chuckled softly, shaking his head. "You know... I had a distinct feeling you were going to take this hostile takeover personally."
He swept his arm out toward the terrified crowd, the armed guards, and the corpses on the floor.
"Just look at this place, Daichi. Look at these pathetic sheep. Look at the absolute anarchy your naive leadership allowed to flourish here, even after everything you sacrificed for them... and how quickly they turned their backs on you the second things went south."
Daichi cast a brief, heavy glance across the sea of civilian faces. Many of them looked away in deep shame, unable to meet his eyes.
Then he looked down at the two murdered doctors beneath the canvas tarps.
Then at Hiori, bound and trembling.
And finally, his eyes locked onto Raizo, who was bleeding out on the concrete.
Daichi's expression hardened into a mask of pure granite.
"You did all of this," Daichi said quietly.
Jin spread his hands defensively. "I corrected your catastrophic failures."
"You murdered innocent human beings."
"I established ironclad military order."
"You slaughtered doctors who were trying to save lives!" Daichi roared.
"Regrettable collateral damage," Jin countered coldly, his voice carrying remorse. "They interfered with direct military operations. Besides, in a world like this, we can always requisition more medics."
"You terrorized and abused helpless residents."
"They refused to submit to the chain of command."
Daichi took a deliberate step forward. "And you honestly expect me to believe this fascist slaughter was necessary?"
Jin's manufactured smile slipped just an inch. "I expect a grown man to finally understand that the brutal rules of the world have fundamentally changed."
"The world changed when the dead started walking the earth," Daichi interrupted, his voice dropping into a lethal register. "It didn't change just because a power-tripping soldier decided he was entitled to crown himself king."
Jin stared at him hard. For the first time since the assembly began, the arrogant amusement vanished completely from his eyes.
Daichi kept walking forward.
"I trusted you," he whispered across the open floor.
"I opened these gates wide to your men. I handed you food caches, clean water, electricity, medical supplies, and a fortress where your soldiers could sleep safely. I listened to your endless complaints, and I agreed to partner with you because I genuinely believed we wanted the same thing."
He gestured to the hundreds of kneeling citizens around them.
"These people trusted me with their lives."
His voice shook with suppressed fury.
"And I foolishly let a wolf inside the hen house."
Jin studied him in silence for a long, heavy moment. Then, with a chilling steer, he offered a cruel verdict.
"That was your first, last, and fatal mistake, Daichi."
Something inside Daichi's mind finally snapped.
There was no more room for debate. No more negotiations. No more words.
In a blinding burst of motion, Daichi lunged straight forward across the open floor, his right fist drawn back hard, aiming directly for Jin's jaw.
"DAICHI—NO!" Hiori screamed at the top of her lungs.
Jin's eyes widened in sudden alarm as he threw his upper body backward to dodge.
"BANG!"
A deafening gunshot tore through the vaulted assembly hall.
The high-caliber round struck Daichi squarely in the right leg.
The kinetic impact shattered his forward momentum instantly. His knee buckled violently, sending him crashing hard onto the polished concrete floor, skidding several feet across the surface in a spray of blood.
"AGHHH! DAMN IT!" Daichi screamed, clutching his torn thigh as agony flared through his entire body.
For a horrifying second, the air was knocked completely out of his lungs. He couldn't draw a breath.
He forced his eyes open and looked down.
Dark blood was already pooling rapidly across his trousers, soaking the concrete.
A few yards away, one of Jin's elite guards stood with his smoking pistol still raised at shoulder height.
He had shot him right through the thigh.
Daichi pressed his palms hard against the mangled flesh, a sharp, white-hot burning sensation radiating up into his hip.
All around the hall, civilians shrieked in terror.
Hiori fought furiously against her captor, kicking and thrashing.
Raizo roared like a wounded bear, trying desperately to stand up, only to collapse back down onto his injured knee.
Captain Jin slowly lowered his smoking weapon, staring down at Daichi's bleeding form on the floor.
Then, a dark, wretched chuckle escaped his throat.
"Look at that..." Jin murmured, shaking his head.
He strolled over lazily, stopping right beside Daichi's writhing body. "Look at what absolute foolishness forced me to do."
Daichi glared up at him through clenched, bloodstained teeth, his vision swimming with pain.
Jin crouched down beside him, peering into his face. "You could have stayed upstairs in the penthouse, fast asleep. You could have simply accepted that the old world is gone for good. You could have stepped aside and let someone with actual backbone take command."
He leaned in close, whispering in his ear.
"HMMMM... UGGGHHH!" Daichi groaned, his fingers clawing desperately at the polished floor.
Jin watched him struggle for a moment, then sighed. "You know... under different, more civilized circumstances, I genuinely believe you and I could have been exceptional allies."
Daichi forced his head up, spitting blood onto the floor. "Go... fuck... yourself..."
Jin laughed out loud, unfazed. "Still got that stubborn corporate fire, I see."
He straightened up to his full height.
Then, with agonizing slowness, he raised his tactical pistol and pointed the barrel directly down at the center of Daichi's forehead.
Hiori stopped struggling entirely. Her breath hitched, her eyes blowing wide with sheer, unadulterated terror.
"Jin, NO!" she shrieked.
Raizo's expression twisted into a mask of pure, murderous despair. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
He threw his immense weight forward again, dragging two guards several feet across the floor before a third slammed a rifle stock into his spine.
Daichi looked up into the black circle of the gun barrel.
In that final, suspended fraction of a second, his mind didn't flash with fear.
Instead, he thought of the complex.
He thought of the hidden hydroponic vaults beneath the parking garage. The sealed food stockpiles. The clean water tanks. The reinforced blast doors.
He thought of all the terrified, exhausted human beings who had walked through his gates during that first terrible week, truly believing he was strong enough to keep them safe from the end of the world.
He thought of the murdered doctors.
The crying children.
Hiori.
Raizo.
Every single person who had placed their fragile lives into his hands.
And he understood, with a crushing, unbearable clarity, where he had failed them.
Not because he had been too kind.
Not because he had held onto his humanity.
But because he had naively believed that simple human trust alone could ever cage the monsters of the new world.
His dark brown eyes locked onto Jin's.
There was no cowardice left in them. Only a profound, heavy disappointment.
"I really... I really did trust you, Jin," Daichi whispered.
For a fraction of a second—a microsecond that felt like an eternity—Jin's cold, calculating expression flickered with genuine hesitation.
Then, his finger squeezed the trigger.
"BANG!"
The heavy bullet drove straight through the center of Daichi's skull.
His entire body jerked violently backward against the floor.
A thick splash of dark crimson sprayed across the polished concrete.
And then... he went completely, dead still.
The assembly hall erupted into pure, unadulterated chaos.
Hiori screamed her husband's name with a sound so agonizing it tore the vocal cords from her throat.
Raizo roared like a cornered beast, swinging his bound fists with such terrifying kinetic force that he threw two armed guards off their feet before a third clubbed him unconscious.
Chisato slammed her hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
All around the hall, terrified residents wept, screamed, or stared in catatonic, horrified silence.
Captain Jin stood tall over Daichi's motionless body, the smoking pistol hanging limply in his grip.
For a long moment, he said nothing at all.
Then, he let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Well..." Jin muttered, shaking his head. "That was entirely unfortunate."
He glanced down at the lifeless body pooling in blood at his feet. "You really should have just stayed down, Daichi."
He turned his back on the corpse, raising his voice to address the frozen crowd. "Take his body out carefully, handle him with care"Jin ordered his men.
A soldier stepped forward with a heavy body bag.
Then, the soldier stopped dead in his tracks.
"Captain...?" the guard whispered, his voice trembling.
Jin stopped, frowning over his shoulder. "What is it now?"
The soldier didn't answer. He simply pointed a shaking finger down at Daichi's body.
Something was fundamentally wrong.
At first, it was subtle—barely visible to the naked eye.
A fine, microscopic cloud of warm brown dust had begun to drift outward from the fatal bullet entry wound on Daichi's forehead.
The tiny mineral particles floated silently in the air above the corpse, catching the harsh glare of the emergency overhead lights.
One of the nearby soldiers frowned, taking a nervous step back. "What the hell is that...?"
Jin turned his body fully around, his eyes narrowing.
The dust cloud was rapidly growing denser.
Countless tiny grains of sand were lifting themselves directly off the concrete floor, spiraling upward in a tight, kinetic vortex around Daichi's motionless corpse.
And then came the sound.
A faint, dry, whispering rustle.
Jin's face drained of all color, his arrogant composure instantly shattering into cold panic. "Everyone... step back from the body right now!"
The soldiers nearest to Daichi scrambled backward in terror.
The brown particles multiplied exponentially.
They gathered thickly around the damaged portion of his shattered skull, swirling into a tight, frantic, orbiting miniature sandstorm.
Then, before anyone in the hall could process the impossible physics of what they were witnessing, the swirling cloud collapsed inward with a sharp snap.
The missing bone and tissue began to violently reform.
White bone knitted together.
Flesh wove itself back into place.
Torn skin stretched and sealed shut.
The entire head wound knitted itself together underneath a thick, swirling veil of drifting brown sand.
The bleeding stopped instantly.
The ruined tissue reconstructed itself from nothing, as though an invisible, godlike hand were stitching his skull back together piece by piece in real time.
Within three terrifying seconds, the bullet hole in his forehead was completely gone.
Daichi's body lay still on the floor.
But the sand didn't stop rising.
Jin stared down, his jaw dropping open. "No..."
He stumbled backward, shaking his head frantically. "No, no! That's impossible! He's dead! I shot him in the brain!"
Nobody answered him. Every guard stood paralyzed.
Jin raised his tactical pistol with a shaking hand, "HE'S DEAD!"
"BANG! BANG! BANG!"
Three rapid-fire gunshots echoed off the walls.
The heavy projectiles tore directly into Daichi's chest, shoulder, and side.
But instead of spraying blood and tearing flesh, the bullets struck his body with a strange, hollow thud—and wherever the lead made contact, his physical form dissolved instantly into clouds of loose brown sand.
Daichi's torso lost its physical solidity entirely wherever the bullets hit.
The projectiles passed straight through the shifting, sandy mass, embedding themselves deep into the concrete floor behind him.
And the exact second the bullets passed through...
The scattered sand flowed fluidly back inward, re-knitting his flesh.
The bullet wounds vanished like smoke.
Jin's face turned the color of ash.
He raised the weapon and fired again. And again. Empty.
Each round punched right through Daichi's body, scattering clouds of grit that immediately flowed back together to reform him.
Click.
The pistol slide locked back. The magazine was completely empty.
Absolute, breathless silence swallowed the massive hall.
Jin stared blankly at the useless weapon in his trembling hand.
Then down at Daichi's untouched body.
Then across at his paralyzed soldiers.
"RELOAD!" Jin shouted, his voice cracking with rising hysteria. "SOMEONE GIVE ME A FRESH MAGAZINE RIGHT NOW!"
A terrified soldier fumbled forward with a spare mag, but Jin couldn't tear his wide, bloodshot eyes away from the corpse on the floor.
He had seen ability users before.
He had witnessed kinetic fighters withstand heavy beatings, and telekinetics throw cars across intersections. He knew the terrifying boundaries of what awakened humans could survive.
But this?
This defied every law of biology and nature.
Jin had watched a high-caliber bullet shatter Daichi's skull. He had watched the blood pool. He had verified the lack of a pulse. He had watched him die.
There had been zero respiration. Zero neurological activity.
And yet... his body had flat-out refused to stay dead.
The bullets couldn't pierce him. The wounds couldn't kill him.
Jin swallowed a dry, suffocating lump in his throat.
"An...ability user...?" the words spilled out of Jin's mouth in a breathless whisper of pure terror.
He stared down at Daichi in sheer disbelief. "... you're an awakened ability user?"
The question received no reply.
Because deep down inside the shell of his body, Daichi Kazuma himself had no idea what was happening either.
Something Beneath the Skin
For Daichi, there was no black void of unconsciousness.
No peaceful dream.
No distant, echoing voice calling him back from the brink.
There was only a strange, alien sensation.
A massive, overwhelming pressure building up deep within his core, spreading outward through his veins and marrow like an underground river searching for an outlet.
He couldn't see the frightened faces of the residents.
He couldn't hear Jin screaming hysterically or the soldiers shouting orders around him.
He couldn't feel the hard concrete floor beneath his back.
Yet something profound was moving inside his flesh.
Something had finally stirred from a deep, multi-year slumber.
And it was violently rewriting every cell of his body.
The pressure surged through his arms. Into his fingers. Down into his legs.
And then, his physical form seemed to dissolve entirely into a sensation beyond human description.
He felt the bullet wounds in his skull, his chest, and his thigh.
Not as blinding pain... but as empty voids. Missing puzzle pieces where his physical mass had been temporarily displaced.
And he felt those empty spaces aggressively closing.
Filling themselves in.
Reforming from the ground up.
The sensation was so all-consuming that, for one impossible, transcendental heartbeat, Daichi could no longer tell where his human skin ended and the drifting mineral dust began.
He was the sand.
The sand was him.
Then, a sound cut through the ringing in his ears.
Daichi.
It was faint. Distant.
But instantly recognizable.
Hiori.
He instinctively reached out toward her voice through the swirling dust.
And he opened his eyes.
The first thing Daichi saw when his vision cleared was the high vaulted ceiling of his sanctuary.
The second thing he saw was Captain Jin, standing twenty feet away, staring at him with a look of pure, unadulterated disbelief.
Daichi blinked slowly.
He was lying flat on his back on the concrete.
His clothes were scorched, torn, and heavily stained with his own dried blood—yet his physical body beneath them was completely, miraculously whole.
He slowly lifted his right hand toward his own head, his fingers trembling.
His fingertips found only smooth, unbroken skin.
No entry wound. No shattered bone. No warm blood.
He pressed his palm against his chest. Then his shoulder. Then his leg.
Every single place where Jin's bullets had torn through him was completely healed, smooth, and functional.
Daichi stared down at his own open hands in stunned silence.
"What... the hell..."
His voice sounded like a deep, echoing rumble, barely sounding like his own.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position.
His body responded with terrifying speed. Zero stiffness. Zero weakness. Zero dizziness.
He felt stronger, sharper, and more alive than he had ever felt in his entire life.
That should have been physically impossible.
He vividly remembered the agonizing impact of the bullet tearing through his leg. He remembered the blast of the gunshot. He remembered the cold circle of metal pressed against his forehead before the world went black.
And yet—
Daichi glanced down at the floor surrounding him.
A thick layer of rich, brown mineral sand covered the polished concrete surface, swirling in lazy, silent circles around his fingertips.
He slowly pulled his hand back.
The floating particles followed his movement like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
Daichi froze, his breath catching.
He held his palm open in the air.
The brown dust gathered directly above his skin, weaving into a thin, shimmering, wavering stream of sand.
He could mentally feel every single grain of sand.
Not through ordinary physical touch. Through an entirely new sensory organ.
An instinctive, psychic awareness that extended far beyond his physical skin, plunging deep into the physical architecture of the room.
He could feel the sand grains trapped in the tile seams beneath him. He could sense the fine mineral powder clinging to the stone walls of the hall. He could even feel the heavy dust coating the heavy boots of the armed soldiers standing twenty feet away.
It was all connected to him.
Waiting for his command.
Daichi stared down at his glowing palm in absolute awe.
"What... is this...?"
A young soldier nearby panicked, snapping his assault rifle up to his shoulder with shaking arms. "Don't move an inch!"
Daichi slowly raised his head, locking his eyes onto the guards.
The soldier's hands were vibrating so violently he could barely hold the weapon straight.
Another officer stepped up beside him, his pistol trained dead-center on Daichi's chest. "I said stay right where you are, freak!"
Daichi didn't flinch. He slowly rose to his feet.
The armed guards instinctively recoiled backward, tripping over each other in sheer panic.
Shouts erupted from the perimeter.
"He's an ability user!"
"Captain, what the hell do we do with him?!"
"Keep your sights locked on him! Shoot him again!"
Jin didn't issue an order. He couldn't.
He was staring directly into Daichi's face—specifically, his eyes.
Daichi's natural brown irises had completely transformed.
At first, a faint, earthy luminescence flickered around his pupils. Then, it rapidly intensified into a blinding, radiant brown aura that illuminated his entire face.
A terrifying, low-frequency atmospheric pressure rippled outward from his body.
Fine dust began lifting off the floor across the entire hall.
Not just near his feet. Everywhere.
Millions of tiny mineral particles streamed upward from the corners, the walls, the cracks in the tiles, and the air vents, swirling into a massive, rising column as though gravity had suddenly reversed itself inside the building.
Hiori stared up at him from the front row, tears carving tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
"Daichi..." her voice broke completely.
Daichi turned his head slowly to look at her.
For a brief, tender moment, the frightening, godlike coldness in his eyes melted into absolute warmth. "Hiori."
She wrenched her body forward, trying desperately to run to him, but the guard holding her tightened his grip with a cruel wrench.
Daichi's expression instantly turned glacial.
His gaze snapped down to the soldier's hand bruising his wife's arm.
Then to the rifle pointed at her back.
Deep within his core, something happened.
The brown aura violently surged.
Every loose grain of sand, dirt, and stone in the vast hall lifted off the ground, forming a swirling, roaring tempest of earth around his shoulders.
The heavy concrete floor beneath his boots trembled and groaned.
A low, subterranean frequency rolled through the foundation of the high-rise.
The overhead emergency lights flickered, popped, and died.
Panic exploded.
Several guards lost their footing as the concrete floor rolled beneath them like a ship at sea. Metal fixtures rattled loudly on the walls. Somewhere deep in the underground vaults, a massive support beam shrieked in protest.
The terrifying seismic shockwave rolled through the entire apartment complex like an earthquake.
And then, absolute, paralyzed silence fell over the room.
Daichi looked down at his outstretched hand.
Thick streams of glowing brown sand orbited his forearm in a hypnotic helix.
He didn't understand the mechanics of it. He didn't know how or why his biology had undergone this radical metamorphosis.
But he knew one terrifying, absolute truth with every fiber of his being:
These particles were no longer foreign matter.
They were an extension of his own nervous system.
A frontline soldier took a slow, terrified step backward into the dark, his rifle dipping. "What... what the hell kind of monster is he?!"
Captain Jin finally clawed his voice back out of his throat, his face pale and slick with cold sweat. "Everybody... stay back! DO NOT FIRE!"
His command came far too late.
The swirling storm of sand was growing denser by the second, rising into a towering pillar that swallowed the light around him. More and more particles were streaming in from every crack in the high-rise.
The brown aura flared blindingly bright.
Daichi's glowing brown eyes swept slowly across the terrified faces surrounding him.
He looked at the armed soldiers who had betrayed his trust.
He looked at the kneeling, broken citizens who had looked to him for salvation.
He looked at Hiori, bound and crying.
And finally, his gaze settled on Raizo, still bleeding out on the cold floor, fighting for his life.
Then, his burning eyes locked directly onto Jin.
The man who had shot him in cold blood.
The man who had stolen his life's work.
The man who had arrogantly believed that human kindness and trust were nothing more than weaknesses to be exploited by the strong.
The confusion inside Daichi's mind was completely gone.
The pain of the bullet wounds had vanished.
The fear of death had been burned to ash.
In their place stood something entirely new—something vast, and terrifyingly powerful.
Daichi slowly raised his open palm toward the ceiling.
The towering pillar of sand rose in perfect synchronization with his movement.
For the first time since the apocalypse had plunged the world into chaos,Captain Jin was watching and analyzing daichi thinking to do next.
Daichi watched the glowing mineral particles circle his hand.
He took a slow, heavy step forward And with a voice that shook the foundations of the earth itself, Daichi Kazuma whispered the only words that remained:
"Let's see how much of my sanctuary you can take from me now."
The floor shuddered beneath them once more.
End of Chapter 73 — The Awakening