Conus drifted through a fog of broken sound and blurred color. His body felt weightless, yet every nerve burned as if he were being pulled through fire. He felt strong arms lift him and place him on a stretcher. Through his gaze, he could see they were porters, and they were not alone. Some raiders, all dressed up stared at him with pity. He must have looked really bad. They were saying something but he could barely make sense of any sound.
The cold was gone as soon as he was brought out, but the pain from the burns remained. His skin blistered and split. The screams of his friends clawed at his mind, louder than the chaos that unfolded around him.
The portal's glow shook behind him like a dying star. Inspectors in their famous coats poured across the floor, all busy questioning and investigating. The air bristled with chaos.
Beyond them, a sea of voices surged. Reporters crushed against the Police barriers, microphones thrust high, camera drones swarming overhead like restless birds. Questions collided into one another in a storm of noise. The world demanded answers, demanded meaning, demanded blood.
But none of it touched Conus.
The sound passed him like distant thunder. His vision swam, closing and opening in flickers, his body trembling in the hands of those who carried him. They lowered him gently onto the ground, and for a moment he felt the cold bite of stone against his back.
"Conus!"
That voice pierced through. His father broke into view, Ishira, the man whose composure had always been iron. Yet now, his calm was shattered. His eyes, wide and desperate, locked on the charred ruin of his son. He dropped to his knees at Conus's side, his hands hovering, trembling, terrified to touch and make the wounds worse.
"Son… who did this to you?" His voice cracked like glass.
Conus turned his gaze, but it was not his father he looked at. His eyes slid toward the wrapped corpses being carried out of the portal. One body after another. Each new shrouded figure tightened the knot in his chest until it felt as though his ribs would snap from the weight.
He did not need to see their faces. He already knew.
Deb and Lucas were amongst them.
A medical Pugnator pressed gloved hands to his wounds. Light flared from his hand, glowing lines crawling over skin and fabric as it poured into him. The fire was blinding, scorching his nerves, but Conus made no sound. His lips stayed sealed, his body unmoving except for the irregular lift of his chest. His strength was gone, leaving him silent.
Then the air shifted.
Another body emerged from the portal, draped in white. The Inspectors moved towards it, but before they could reach it, a figure appeared.
Not stepped. Not walked. Appeared.
The world stopped.
The man seemed no older than his mid-thirties. His hair was the color of forged steel, his eyes cold as cut stone. His frame was lean, but the black coat that hung from his shoulders carried with it quiet command.
It was not his youth, nor his posture, that froze the crowd. It was his very Identity.
Power radiated from him in suffocating waves. It pressed against lungs, boiling in the blood, dragging every heart into fear. Inspectors who had stood unflinching against horrors now faltered. Their jaws clenched, their eyes widened, sweat formed across their brows. Beyond the barricades, Normies began to cry out. Some collapsed outright, their bodies folding as blood vessels strained beneath the pressure.
Conus already knew who this man was. He recognized that face from many public interviews. Moreover, his face bore an obvious semblance to the late Crowley.
This was Elder Powell. Crowley's grandfather. One of the few A-rankers in the country. The man also known as The Blood Monarch.
The Elder reached down, his fingers brushing the white cloth that covered the body. The motion was delicate, almost reverent. His jaw tightened as his face flickered with grief, only for that grief to collapse into something darker.
His anger rose. Silent, invisible, yet heavy as a storm.
The atmosphere thickened, choking. Voices died in their throats. Even the Inspectors shifted uneasily beneath its weight.
An Inspector, desperate, forced himself forward. His posture was stiff, his voice trembling, but he spoke. "Elder Powell! Please, sir. You must control yourself. If you do not, we will be forced to act."
Powell turned his head slowly.
His eyes locked on the Inspector, cold and sharp. His lips curved into a faint scoff. Not laughter. Mockery.
The Inspector froze. His courage cracked in an instant, and his eyes fell to the ground.
Powell's gaze returned to the body. He slipped his arms beneath it and lifted with care, cradling it as though it were glass. Then, without a ripple of air, without even the sound of departure, he vanished.
Reporters screamed even more frantically for answers now. The appearance of The Blood Monarch was definitely a selling story. Conus lay unmoving, staring at the place where Elder Powell had stood.
That was the power of an A-rank.
He trembled faintly as the stretcher carried him away. His blood pooling under broken charred skin, yet his mind refused to quiet. He had felt it, the suffocating force that bent the crowd without a single motion.
Strength. Power.
He wanted it. Hungered for it. The thought burned hotter than his wounds. If he had had such power, maybe his friends would still be alive.
But another realization struck him. Powell's ability.
Blood manipulation.
Rumors had followed him for years. They said he could appear wherever his blood reached, including wherever those related to him by blood were. That he could sense when his kin were in peril. That he always came before death.
Always. Except now. Why had he not appeared? From what had just happened now, it seemed the rumors were true. So, he wondered why the man had not appeared until-
Conus's eyes cracked wide as he figured it out. His mind thundered. He did not come because he could not.
The portal! He recalled the assassin had summoned it. It was for a reason.
It was never random.
Deb. She had been the bait. She was the chain that pulled Crowley into the otherworld. Once inside, he was no longer under Powell's shadow. The assassins knew. They had built the trap with precision, knowing Powell's reach ended at the barrier between worlds.
Lucas.
Conus's chest seized. Lucas had never been a target. He was nothing but collateral. Wrong place. Wrong time.
A death for nothing.
Rage roared inside him, violent and hot, burning against the weakness of his body. He tried to move, to scream, to tear the truth into the air, but his body convulsed instead. His breath caught.
"Conus!" Ishira's voice cracked as his hands gripped his son's shoulders. "Stay with me! Hold on!"
Practitioners shoved him aside. Their hands blazed as they tried to keep him from going into shock, their voices snapping orders. But all sound drained away.
The truth burned into Conus's mind as the black tide closed over him.
Crowley was the target.
His vision soon turned black as darkness enveloped him. He was gone.