Chapter 89: Corpses and Cold Ambitions
The hallway of the dilapidated apartment complex smelled of wet rot and neglected lives. Silas Thorne stood before Apartment 4B, his finger hovering over the doorbell for the tenth time. Silence was the only answer. He adjusted his glasses, his patience thinning like a frayed rope. He hadn't climbed all the way to this gutter of the Lower Sectors to be ignored.
"I know you're in there, Miku," Silas muttered.
He didn't wait any longer. Pulling back his leg, he delivered a sharp, calculated kick right next to the door's lock. With a splintering crack, the wooden frame gave way, and the door swung open, hitting the inner wall with a dull thud. Silas stepped inside, his hand instinctively covering his nose. The air inside was stagnant, heavy with a sickly sweet scent that he knew all too well—the smell of death.
"Miku?" he called out, though he already knew he wouldn't get an answer.
He moved through the small, cramped living room. Everything was undisturbed, a layer of dust settling over cheap furniture. He checked the bedroom; the bed was unmade, but empty. He moved to the kitchen, then finally, to the small bathroom at the end of the hall.
As he pushed the bathroom door open, the stench hit him like a physical blow. There, slumped over the edge of the bathtub, was the body of a young girl. It was Miku. Or what was left of her. Her skin had turned a mottled, bruised purple, and her eyes were cloudy and staring at nothing. Deep, dark bruises encircled her throat—fingerprints of a killer who had used immense strength to crush her windpipe. She had been dead for days, left to rot in the shadows.
Silas stood over the body, his expression unreadable. He didn't feel pity; he felt annoyed.
Cleaners, he thought. The moment she became a liability, they removed her. They knew I'd come looking for the source of that necklace.
He pulled out his phone, snapped a few high-resolution photos of the neck marks, and dialed a private number. "I have a dead witness at the Sector 4 coordinates. Send a cleanup crew, but make it look like a standard police discovery. This isn't my job. My job is getting the Voritys out of that cage, and my only lead just turned into a rotting pile of flesh."
He turned and walked out, not looking back. The conspiracy was deeper than he had imagined. If they were willing to kill a 10th-grade girl to hide the truth, then Ren and Hana were sitting on a mountain of secrets they didn't even understand.
The Iron Maiden's Forge
While the shadows of death deepened in the Lower Sectors, the Inner City was buzzing with the sounds of a different kind of struggle. Inside the high-end "Iron Vanguard" gym, the air was thick with the scent of sweat and the rhythmic clanking of heavy iron.
Mina was centered in the middle of a power rack, her body slick with perspiration. She was wearing a tight, black athletic top and leggings that showcased her transformation. Over the last few Mojerks, she hadn't just been training; she had been rebuilding herself. Her shoulders were broader, her arms corded with lean, functional muscle, and her gaze was sharper than any blade.
She was currently performing heavy deadlifts, the bar bending under the weight of the plates. With a sharp exhale, she locked out the final rep.
As she rested, her mind drifted back to that night in the alleyway. She remembered the fear, the cold grip of Rocky and his thugs, and the moment Ren had stepped out of the darkness to save her.
Never again, she thought, wiping the sweat from her forehead. I will never be the one who needs saving. I will be the one who stands in the way.
Her father, Kimo, had been pushing her harder than ever. Since her older brother, Lai, had flatly refused to join the military or the Palace Guard, the weight of the family's legacy had fallen on Mina. Kimo wanted her to become a member of King Zero's Elite Guard, and eventually, one of the Higherups—the shadow rulers of Athelgard.
At first, it was hell, Mina mused. But now... I crave the burn.
Across the gym, a group of veteran male bodybuilders were whispering as they watched her.
"Hey, look at her," one said to his friend. "I've been coming here for ten Beraos, and I've never seen a girl gain that much density in just two Mojerks. It's like her biology is changing."
"She's Kimo's daughter," the other replied, his voice low. "The blood of a Master runs in those veins. She isn't just training; she's preparing for a war."
In this world, time was measured in the cycles of the sun and the moon. A single day was a Vers. Twenty-seven Vers made a Mojerk, and seven Mojerks formed a Berao. According to the ancient laws of the realm, a King could rule for forty Beraos before they had to face a "Tournament of Public Will," where the people could demand changes or a new ruler.
Currently, the date was the 25th Vers, of the 6th Mojerk, in the 2000th Berao. It was a time of great tension; the current era was reaching its peak, and the whispers of revolution were growing louder. Mina knew that as the daughter of a Master, she would be at the center of whatever storm was coming.
The Deep Dark
Deep beneath the city, far below the gym and the pristine streets, lay a facility that didn't exist on any map. It was Kimo's private sanctuary—an underground lab where the line between science and cruelty was blurred.
The floor of the lab hissed open, revealing a dark pit that echoed with the sounds of wet tearing and low, guttural growls.
Kimo stood at the edge of the pit. He was dragging four heavy, black body bags across the floor. These weren't strangers. These were the students who had been drinking at the bar with Adam, Mika, and Lira just a few Mojerks ago. They had gone on a "scouting mission" while intoxicated and had never returned.
The truth was far darker. They hadn't died on a mission. They had been "harvested."
Kimo unzipped the first bag. The student's face was frozen in a mask of terror. Without a hint of emotion, Kimo kicked the body into the pit. A second later, the sound of dozens of Ferals—the mutated, mindless monsters of the waste—swarming over the meat echoed up to the lab.
One by one, Kimo fed his own students to the monsters below.
"The Higherups are getting impatient," Kimo whispered to the darkness as he zipped the last empty bag. "They want these Ferals conditioned to the taste of Vaner flesh. They want a weapon that can sniff out a pathway from a mile away."
He pressed a button, and the floor slid shut, sealing the horrors of the pit away from the world.
"One more Mojerk," Kimo muttered, checking his watch. "Four more students must be 'sacrificed' to finish the conditioning. I wonder if the Academy will even notice they're gone. In a world of 47 deaths in a single market, a few missing students are just statistics."
He turned off the lights, leaving the lab in total darkness. Above him, the city slept, unaware that the man they called a "Master" was feeding the very monsters he was supposed to protect them from.