Somewhere in the Tenth Ring, the fire crackled softly, its faint warmth barely pushing back the cold that seeped through the cracks in the outpost’s weathered walls. Outside, the wind howled, sweeping through the hollowed-out husks of old buildings, a bitter reminder that the place had little warmth left to offer.

  Nyx sat cross-legged on the floor, idly turning her knife in her fingers, the firelight casting sharp shadows across her face. The flickering glow caught in her violet eyes, making them seem even colder than usual. Across from her, Sam lounged against a rusted supply crate, peeling back the lid of a dented can of tuna with an exaggerated grimace.

  “This is just sad,” he sighed, lifting the can as if inspecting a crime scene. “You’d think after years of surviving in hell, the Wardens could afford something better than expired fish.” He gave it a tentative sniff. “I swear, this smells worse than the last batch. You think food poisoning counts as a combat injury? Maybe I can get out of patrol duty.”

  Nyx didn’t look up. “Eat it or starve, Sam.”

  He groaned. “Heartless. Completely heartless.”

  She finally glanced at him, arching a brow. “You’ve eaten worse.”

  “Doesn’t mean I liked it.” He stabbed his fork into the mushy contents, grimacing before taking a reluctant bite. “Ugh. I’d kill for real food.”

  Nyx leaned back against the crate, but her thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.

  The Wardens were losing. They both knew it.

  Over the past few months, Sentinel raids had grown more precise. More ruthless. Outposts wiped out overnight. Safehouses exposed. Squads disappearing without a trace.

  It was only a matter of time before they found this place, too.

  “This is getting bad,” she muttered, almost to herself.

  Sam let out a dry laugh. “Oh, you’re just now figuring that out? I thought the pile of bodies three bases ago was a good hint.”

  Nyx shot him a look. “I mean worse. They’re finding us too easily.”

  Sam twirled his fork idly. “Well, yeah. The Sentinels don’t screw around. And if the High Sentinel’s involved, we might as well start digging our own graves.”

  Nyx’s jaw tightened.

  The High Sentinel.

  The man who had burned her city to the ground.

  The suffocating smoke, blotting out the sky. The deafening roar of collapsing buildings. The screams, swallowed by Sentinel gunfire.

  And the worst part? It hadn’t been a war.

  No enemy forces. No terrorist group like they had claimed. Just civilians. Ordinary people, wiped out in a single night under the guise of “security measures.”

  That was when she had learned what real power was.

  Nyx exhaled slowly. Fighting back against power meant never letting it consume you.

  And yet, here she was—thinking about it again.

  "You’re doing it again," Sam noted, watching her with rare seriousness.

  Nyx inhaled deeply, forcing herself back to the present. "It doesn’t matter."

  Sam hummed, unconvinced.

  Before he could push further, hurried footsteps echoed down the hall.

  A young cadet burst into the room, breath uneven, face pale. "General Nyx—" He hesitated, glancing between the two of them.

  Nyx sat up straighter. "Speak."

  The cadet swallowed hard. "News just came in from the Eleventh Ring."

  Nyx’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her knife.

  "Go on."

  The cadet hesitated. "A week ago, there was an attack. City Seventeen was wiped out. No survivors."

  The fire cracked loudly. Then—silence.

  Nyx felt something heavy settle in her chest.

  The Eleventh Ring.

  Where he lived.

  She hadn’t spoken to him in years. Had barely let herself think about him beyond fleeting moments of regret and what-ifs. But now—

  Her knuckles whitened around the blade’s handle.

  Nigel.

  She forced the thought away. Dwelling on it wouldn’t change anything. She stood up abruptly, grabbing her coat.

  Sam raised a brow. "Uh… where exactly are you going?"

  "I need to confirm something."

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  He stared at her for a moment before realization clicked.

  "Oh."

  Nyx fastened her gloves, movements quick and precise. "I’ll go to the ruins. If the Sentinels really did wipe out the entire city, there should still be evidence."

  "Or it’s a trap."

  "Maybe." She adjusted her belt, checking her knives. "But I have to see for myself."

  Sam exhaled through his nose, then pushed himself up, tossing the empty can aside.

  "Fine, fine. You win. But I’m coming with you."

  Nyx turned to him, eyes narrowing. "You don’t have to."

  He smirked. "Yeah, but you’d miss me."

  She rolled her eyes and headed for the exit. "Get ready. We leave in an hour."

  Sam let out an exaggerated sigh. "Great. Another suicide mission. Just what I needed."

  But despite the sarcasm, he was already strapping on his gear.

  They went to the building were the portal that would take them near City Seventeen was.

  The machine was falling apart. A rusted metal frame, half its wiring exposed and fraying, barely holding itself together. The generator stuttered weakly, fighting to stay running.

  Nyx crossed her arms, watching as a tired-looking soldier in patched-up gear cursed under his breath, adjusting the frequency dials. Every time the machine sputtered, his scowl deepened.

  "How long is this going to take?" she asked, patience wearing thin.

  Sam, standing beside her with his hands tucked into his coat pockets, let out a dramatic sigh.

  "Oh, don’t rush the man. He’s performing technological necromancy here. You can’t just force these things to work with sheer willpower."

  Nyx shot him a look.

  Sam smirked. "Or maybe you can. Have you tried kicking it?"

  The soldier didn’t even look up. "Try it, and you can walk."

  Sam muttered something under his breath but wisely let it go.

  After several more minutes of tweaking, the machine let out a violent spark, and a swirling vortex of unstable energy formed within the rusted frame. It flickered erratically, barely holding together, but it was enough. The soldier wiped his brow.

  "It’ll get you there. Try not to die mid-jump."

  Nyx wasted no time. "Let’s go."

  Sam groaned. "Ugh, I hate these things."

  Then, without another word, they stepped through.

  The sensation was instant and unnatural—like being ripped apart and stitched back together in the span of a heartbeat.

  When they emerged on the other side, a dull gray landscape stretched before them.

  The Eleventh Ring outpost was barely holding together—a skeletal ruin of makeshift barricades, damaged comms towers, and exhausted soldiers keeping watch at poorly guarded entrances. Beyond it, the horizon was a wasteland of rusted metal and crumbling concrete.

  And the air—thick with the stench of oil and decay.

  Nyx took a measured step forward, scanning the area. "Status report."

  One of the stationed soldiers snapped to attention, but there was a weariness in his posture, like a man long past the point of hoping for good news.

  "General Nyx," he greeted. "No sign of enemy movement. We received reports of the massacre a week days ago, but we haven’t been able to confirm it. No reinforcements were sent."

  Sam scoffed. "Yeah, because dead people don’t need backup. Damn, news travel slow around here. This shit happened a week ago and we just received the report?"

  The soldier’s jaw clenched. He didn’t reply.

  Nyx ignored Sam’s remark. "Any surviving civilians?"

  The soldier hesitated. "Not that we know, ma’am. If there were, they didn’t come here."

  Nyx gave a small nod, then turned to Sam. "We move now."

  Sam stretched his arms, rolling his shoulders. "Figured. A nice, peaceful stroll through the land of broken dreams. Can’t wait."

  The trek was slow. Unforgiving.

  With no real cover, they were exposed to the elements—the biting wind, the occasional dust storm that stung their skin, the unsettling silence of a city that had already been dead long before the massacre.

  At some point, Sam kicked a jagged piece of metal aside. "Hell of a place to live."

  Nyx didn’t respond.

  She had spent most of her life surviving in places like this.

  But this time, the journey felt different. Not just because of the emptiness—but because something was waiting at the end of it.

  By the time the city came into view, the sun had dipped behind a thick curtain of smog, staining the sky in bruised shades of orange and gray.

  And then, they saw it.

  The smell hit first.

  A heavy, choking stench that coiled around them like a living thing—cooked flesh, rot, blood soaked too deep into the stone to ever wash away.

  Bodies.

  Piles of them. Some burned beyond recognition, others left to bloat and rot in the open air, like garbage tossed aside. Blackened corpses slumped against collapsed buildings. Human remains crushed beneath the weight of fallen steel.

  Whatever the Sentinels had done here, it hadn’t been war.

  It had been erasure.

  Sam exhaled sharply. "Well, that’s a new level of fucked up."

  Nyx stared at the devastation, her fists clenching so tightly her knuckles went white.

  She had seen massacres before. She had witnessed cities burn.

  But this—

  This was systematic.

  The Sentinels hadn’t just killed. They had made sure nothing remained.

  A slight movement caught her eye—a ragged cloth, shifting with the wind. For a fraction of a second, she thought someone was still alive.

  But it was nothing. Just debris.

  She let out a slow, controlled breath, but it did nothing to suppress the anger coiling in her gut.

  "They’re animals," she muttered, voice laced with venom.

  Sam didn’t argue.

  There was nothing to argue.

  They moved carefully, eyes scanning their surroundings.

  But the Sentinels weren’t here. Of course, they weren’t. They never stuck around, and they left nothing worth returning to.

  Once they were certain they were alone, Sam exhaled sharply and crossed his arms.

  "We’re not leaving them like this."

  Nyx turned to him.

  "The bodies," he clarified. "We should at least separate them. Bury them, if we can. I know it won’t make a damn difference, but leaving them like this is just wrong."

  She hesitated. Then—she nodded.

  "Agreed.”

  They worked for hours.

  The process was slow, grueling. The bodies were broken, mangled, burned beyond recognition. They sorted them carefully, silently, trying to grant some scrap of dignity to those who had been denied it in death.

  But there was one body they never found.

  Nigel’s.

  Nyx stood over the last grave, arms tense at her sides.

  Sam dusted off his hands. "So… what now?"

  She was about to respond when her radio crackled.

  Not from her touch. The channel had switched on its own.

  Then, through the static, a voice slid into her ear. Smooth.

  "You’re wasting your time, Nyx."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Who is this?"

  A low chuckle. "No need for introductions."

  Sam stiffened, shaking his head frantically, mouthing, Don’t engage.

  Nyx ignored him. "How did you get this frequency?"

  "That’s not important." The voice remained casual, unfazed. "What is important is that you’re needed elsewhere."

  Her grip tightened. "Explain."

  A pause. Then, with quiet certainty—

  "Nigel Lowell is alive."

  Her entire body locked up.

  "He’s in the Chaos Tournament," the voice continued. "He’s already advanced to the Second Stage."

  Sam cursed under his breath, shaking his head even more aggressively.

  But the voice remained calm. "I can arrange it so you join him immediately. Skip the First Stage entirely."

  Nyx said nothing.

  She didn’t know this man, and that was the problem. Whoever he was, he wasn’t offering this out of kindness. He probably had an agenda. A purpose.

  Then—he spoke again.

  This time, only for her.

  Sam saw the shift in her face. He couldn’t hear the words, but whatever was said, it changed everything.

  Nyx’s jaw clenched. Then, after a heartbeat—

  "Fine. I accept."

  Sam threw up his hands. "Of course you do. Because why would we ever take the safe option?"

  Nyx didn’t bother responding.

  She turned her back to the graves. Back to the ruined city.

  She had a new destination now.