Vienna was dying slowly beneath the crimson veil.

  Nine days.

  That's all the time that had passed since the cult's assault shattered the city's defenses and sealed it under corrupted essence thick enough to taste. Nine days since the screaming stopped because there was no one left to scream. Hours stretched into days, days into weeks. It felt like the final stage of some ancient war that had ground on for years.

  The outer districts remained largely intact. Buildings stood with windows blown out and doors hanging crooked on hinges, but the structures themselves held. Residential blocks, commercial centers, administrative offices. All abandoned now. The damage here was superficial. Scorch marks, essence burns, the occasional collapsed wall where fighting had spilled into the streets during those first chaotic hours.

  Moving inward told a different story.

  The mid-districts showed real devastation. Entire blocks reduced to rubble where ORDER IV entities had clashed with the city's defenders. Craters that went down three stories and filled with water that stank of rot. Buildings that had simply folded in on themselves when spatial manipulation warped the foundations beyond structural tolerance. Streets torn up and reformed into jagged terrain that made navigation a nightmare.

  The Cathedral ward, devoted to the worship of the Primes, had once been a symbol of holy and unwavering faith. Now it served as a beacon of death and corruption.

  Unholy. The end. Those were the only words that fit. Twisted spires of corrupted stone rose where churches had stood. Ritual circles carved into streets that had once seen markets and festivals. The very ground pulsed with sickly light that synchronized with the veil overhead. Architecture that shouldn't exist in three dimensions bent space around itself in ways that made eyes water and stomachs churn.

  And through it all, the abominations hunted.

  They moved in packs, bio-mechanical nightmares stitched together from flesh and metal and essence. Sensors swept through abandoned buildings. Claws scraped against pavement. They searched methodically, block by block, hunting for any souls still hiding in basements or sewers or the spaces between walls.

  The ones they found weren't killed. Death would have been mercy. The cult needed them alive for whatever ritual waited in the Cathedral ward's transformed depths. For the Convergence that drew closer with each passing hour.

  The veil pulsed overhead. Red light filtered down through corruption that saturated the atmosphere, turning everything the color of old blood. It hung there like a dome of diseased flesh, sealing Vienna off from the outside world. No help was coming. No rescue would arrive. Everyone trapped inside knew it.

  ???

  A distortion in reality pulsed high above the dying city, on the rooftop of a residential complex still intact from all the death and destruction.

  A seemingly ordinary wooden door materialized from the distortion. Old and weathered wood, silver inlays on the frame, dark knob on the door.

  The door opened with a whoosh and a bloodied young man with light blue hair tumbled through, falling and hitting the rooftop hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He rolled onto his back, gasping, and managed to wheeze out words between failed attempts at breathing.

  "Argh, damn you, Joe!" His voice came out strangled. "You could've opened it at terrace level!"

  He pushed himself up on his elbows, still trying to remember how lungs worked, and that's when his expression shifted from pain to horror. His head snapped toward the door that remained open, still shimmering.

  "No, wait... NO NO N—"

  Another figure came through. Larger, heavier, armored. The second similarly bloodied red-haired teen crashed down directly on top of the first with a meaty thump.

  They scrambled and shoved and swore with the kind of creative profanity that suggested long friendship and zero current patience.

  "Get OFF—"

  "I'm TRYING, stupid... your foot's in my—"

  "That's not my foot, that's my ARM—"

  The blue-haired one managed to get leverage. Started pushing up. The one with red hair drove a knee into his ribs and they both went down again, sprawling across tar that stuck to exposed skin.

  The door made that sound again. The specific whoosh of someone else coming through.

  Both teens froze mid-wrestle. Their heads turned in perfect sync. Identical expressions of dawning horror spread across faces currently pressed against gravel.

  "No—"

  "Reyana, DON'T—"

  A third figure emerged from the threshold. Female, dark hair. But instead of falling like them she cartwheeled mid-air as if knowing this was supposed to happen.

  One controlled burst of power redirected her momentum. She landed a few feet away from the sprawled boys in a perfect crouch. Straightened without hurry. Brushed invisible dust off her coat with economical movements.

  The two on the ground stared up at her.

  She covered her face with both hands. Her shoulders shook.

  The blue-haired teen found his voice first. "Are you... are you laughing at us?"

  A sound escaped from between her fingers. Might have been a cough. Definitely wasn't.

  The larger one with purple eyes flopped back against the floor, arms spread wide in complete defeat. "This is a regular thing for her, isn't it."

  "We've been had, Rudy." The blue one let his head thump back against tar, staring up at the malicious red sky. He sighed, long and suffering. "Joe definitely did this on purpose."

  "Every single time," Reyana said. Her hands dropped from her face but her eyes still held that glint of amusement. "You learn to stick the landing or you eat lots of stuff depending on where he opens his door. Hexa, one of our other members, got dumped on monster shit."

  "Ew, I'll gladly take the gravel or grass." Rudy sat up, wincing.

  Jin Winters, covered in bruises he was going to feel for days, lay on a rooftop in occupied Vienna and wondered if his life had always been this ridiculous or if it was a recent development.

  Probably recent. Definitely Joe's fault.

  Rudy offered Jin a hand and hauled him to his feet. They spent the next minute brushing gravel and sticky tar off their gear. Jin found three new tears and what felt like seventeen new bruises. He poked one experimentally and immediately regretted the decision.

  Rudy was glaring at the door where it still hung in space, slowly fading back into nothing. "I want to be mad but that would require energy I don't have."

  "Save it for later." Jin rolled his shoulders. Everything worked. Nothing broken. Small victories. "We've got bigger problems. We just went through a large group of ORDER IIIs... let's rest."

  "Agreed." Reyana and Rudy both nodded.

  The door materialized again. This time at ground level, because apparently Joe could do it right when he felt like it.

  The threshold opened and Joe stepped through with his hands clasped behind his back, walking slow and casual like he was leaving Sunday service instead of a massacre.

  He was covered in blood. Head to toe. Splattered across his coat, soaked into his gloves until the leather squelched. Some of it was still dripping.

  None of it was his.

  Joe was whistling. Something tuneless and off-key that Jin didn't recognize. He stopped after a few bars, surveyed the three of them with obvious satisfaction, and his mouth curved into a grin that somehow made the blood worse.

  "Really, Joe." Rudy stared. "What'd you do, swim in blood?"

  "Something like that. Had to do some pest extermination." Joe's grin widened. "There was one very sneaky rat that I'm pretty sure watched the whole thing."

  Reyana had already pulled a blanket from her spatial storage. She spread it across the cleanest section of rooftop and laid down.

  "Any chance of you carrying picnic supplies?" Jin couldn't help asking.

  "Nope, just a blanket." Reyana's eyes were already closed. "After all that blood, if you want to eat there's seriously something wrong with your head."

  "What's wrong with eating? I’m soo hungry I could eat a damn monster. Well not a monster but something edible." Rudy grumbled as he claimed a spot, stretching his legs. His breathing was already falling into the pattern of his cultivation technique.

  Jin watched his friend's chest rise and fall in that specific rhythm. The Asura path always burned hot. Rudy needed more recovery time than the rest of them just to keep his essence channels from cooking themselves.

  Jin picked a spot near the edge, cross-legged, facing the skyline. Or what passed for skyline now. Vienna stretched out below in shades of destruction. Burned buildings, collapsed structures. The veil overhead pulsed in that slow heartbeat rhythm.

  Joe leaned against a vent stack, still covered in blood, and started whistling again. After a minute the sound faded into silence. Just breathing. The distant crackle of fires that had been burning for days. The occasional groan of a building deciding whether to fall.

  Jin slipped into the Eternal Sovereign breathing pattern without conscious thought. Cold clarity washed through him. His essence cycled, pulling from the air, filtering out the corruption that saturated everything inside the veil. His star did most of the work but he could still taste it. Rot and copper and something that made his teeth ache.

  He let his mind settle. Let his body cool down from the fight. Let the rooftop hold them for a few minutes before the next crisis inevitably found them.

  Because it would. They always did.

  ???

  Rudy broke the silence first. He always did. Couldn't sit still for more than ten minutes even when he was supposed to be meditating.

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  "So that was fun." His voice carried across the rooftop. "By fun I mean the exact opposite of fun."

  Jin cracked one eye open. "Didn't know you were a masochist. Getting your head bonked looked pretty fun from where I was standing."

  "I tanked those attacks and retaliated!" Rudy snapped defensively. "I got my ass beat while you shot them from two hundred yards away—"

  "Essential support."

  "You were camping."

  "Strategic positioning."

  "Camping."

  Reyana's voice drifted from the blanket, flat and unimpressed. "You were both useful. Can we not do the measuring contest right now? Some of us are recovering."

  Jin shrugged, waking from the meditation and shifting position, leaning back on his arms. The gravel dug into his palms but he'd take minor discomfort over another floor show.

  Joe spoke without opening his eyes. "Salvatore's holding the western perimeter. Last check-in was forty minutes ago."

  "What are we doing next?" Rudy was already sitting forward, elbows on his knees.

  "We achieved the primary objective. Took over two outposts and planted the decoys." Jin counted them off mentally. "Salvatore is doing his part, which should scatter their response teams for the next six to eight hours minimum."

  Reyana propped herself up on her elbows. Her hair had come loose from its tie and fell around her face in dark waves. "We head for the resistance's HQ?"

  "Hmm. That's our best bet. Anyone who survived the initial assault would be there. It's fortified, supplied, and Uncle Mathew's competent enough to hold it." Jin paused. "Assuming it's still standing."

  "Cheerful."

  "Realistic."

  Rudy snorted.

  Jin let the silence settle again before asking the question that had been sitting in the back of his head since the last fight. "Hey Joe, random thing. Can you just hurl an ORDER IV through your doors?"

  The whistling stopped. Joe's eyes opened and he looked at Jin. "Hurl? No. Push through? Maybe, if they were caught completely unaware or not actively resisting. The higher the rank, the more their essence signature interferes with spatial manipulation. Underlord’s and above, their presence warps reality enough that my doors don't want to form near them."

  "But it's possible."

  "With the right conditions. But even then the distance has to be short. The farther I send them, the more resistance they and my Mantle would put up." Joe said. "Why are you asking about throwing them around?"

  Rudy was staring at Jin now. "Yeah, why ARE you asking about that?"

  "Contingency planning. In case we get caught unaware."

  "That's not reassuring."

  "Wasn't meant to be."

  Reyana sat up fully. "Something's been bothering me. Why does the cult feel weak?"

  Jin knew exactly what she meant. He'd been thinking the same thing for days now. They'd hit multiple outposts, killed dozens of cultists, disrupted supply lines and communication networks. The resistance they'd faced had been dangerous but not overwhelming. For an organization that had conquered an entire city, the cult felt scattered. Disorganized. Almost hollow.

  "They're not weak," Jin said. "My best guess is all the people they can spare, or rather the expendables, are the ones manning the outposts with a rare ORDER IV overseeing a couple of outposts."

  He held up his hand and started counting off fingers. "ONE: initial attack succeeded. They took the city in less than twelve hours. TWO: stronghold established. The veil went up, communication went down, and everyone inside is either dead or captured. THREE: rituals are active."

  His voice went quieter. "They don't need to patrol aggressively because they already have everything they want. We haven't found survivors. Not one living person who isn't resistance. It's been over a week."

  The fact hung there heavily. Either everyone was dead or everyone was being used for whatever the Convergence required. Neither option was good.

  Rudy's jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists on his knees. When he spoke his voice was rougher. "You know what I keep thinking about? What story are they telling outside the veil?"

  Jin turned to look at him properly. Surprise flickered across his face before he could stop it.

  Rudy's frown deepened. "What?"

  "Nothing, just... didn't expect strategic thinking about information warfare from you."

  "Hey." Rudy's eyes twitched. "You and Amelia are the ones who keep calling me a musclebrained fool. Doesn't mean you're right."

  "Could've fooled me."

  "I scored higher than you in history AND physical assessments."

  Jin groaned and let his head fall back. "I hate those classes. Who cares about dead kings and push-up competitions?"

  "Dead kings and push-ups won wars, dipshit."

  "Name one time a push-up won a war."

  Reyana made a sound that might have been amusement. "You two finished?"

  "For now."

  She shook her head and stood, folding her blanket with quick, efficient movements. "Fighting all those overmortals was exhausting. More than it should have been."

  Jin's expression softened. "Thanks for frontlining. I know that's not your preferred role."

  "Your support made the difference." She met his eyes. "And Rudy's tanking meant I could focus on killing instead of just surviving. So. Team effort."

  "Teamwork makes the dream work." Rudy's grin was back.

  Jin grabbed a piece of gravel and threw it at him. Rudy caught it without looking and tossed it off the roof. Show off.

  But the words sat warm in Jin's chest anyway. Team. Partners. People who had his back and trusted him to have theirs.

  He shook the feeling off and leaned back on his arms, watching the others settle back into their recovery. His mind wouldn't quiet. Kept cycling through the fights, analyzing every moment, every decision, every mistake.

  First time he'd gone head-to-head with an ORDER III. Not supporting from range or running interference. Actually fighting one at close quarters. The result had been a mixed bag.

  Reyana was an elite. No question. Give her the right environment and she could take ORDER IIIs, maybe even low ORDER IVs. Shadows, confined spaces, ambush conditions and lots of death. That's where she thrived.

  Rudy had shocked him. The breakthrough to Elite in Sword Mastery was impressive enough but he'd also picked up fragments of Salvatore's techniques. Rudimentary versions, rough around the edges, but they multiplied his damage output exponentially. Combined with his Asura path and Colossus Mantle, Rudy was built for sustained combat. Wars of attrition. Trading blows with enemies that should paste him and somehow staying standing.

  He just needed a healing skill. Something self-sustaining. Jin filed that thought away for later.

  Then there was him.

  Jin stared at the crimson sky and felt his jaw tighten. He wasn't built for head-on duels. Not yet. Marksmanship was approaching Elite but any Elite combatant would just close the distance. And then what? He had contingencies. Dozens of them. Tricks and tools and skills that could probably keep him alive even against ORDER IVs.

  But he'd be scrambling. Desperate. Using every advantage just to not die. Right now he was a trickster. Flimsy. All cleverness and no foundation to back it up when things went bad.

  Unlike Rudy, who walked his cultivation path like a highway with clear signs and destinations, Jin was lost. He could see the road. Knew the direction. But he hadn't actually started walking yet. Just circling the entrance, going round and round instead of committing.

  The Narrator's voice filtered through his thoughts. Calm and measured as always.

  ? It will become clear in due time. Unlike your friend's path, yours is of mind and soul. Those mysteries don't unravel on convenient schedules. ?

  "Still." He said mentally.

  ? Focus on what's in front of you. As for the path, meditate on it. On your oath. On what's written in the pages. ?

  "Yeah. You're right."

  He let out a long breath and shifted his focus. The skills he'd acquired, the tools at his disposal. Might as well take a look while they had time.

  His active marked skills sat in his awareness like stars in a constellation.

  Omni-Reader's Viewpoint at the center, grown to Adept mastery through constant use. The skill that had saved his life more times than he could count.

  ? [Adept] OMNI-READER'S VIEWPOINT (GROWTH TYPE) (98)

  Inevitable Doom was new, barely eleven mastery, but the Narrator had confirmed it worked in the last fight. Six afflictions on average across the cultists they'd faced. Curses that degraded their decision-making, pushed them toward aggression over tactics.

  ? [Novice] INEVITABLE DOOM (GROWTH TYPE) (11)

  "Does it give better feedback as mastery increases?" Jin kept his mental voice quiet. "Because I could barely feel what's happening to the cultists."

  ? Yes. Currently you receive only instinctual confirmation of marks landing and rough numbers. Higher mastery will provide detailed information on which specific afflictions take hold and their effectiveness against individual targets. ?

  "Good to know."

  Thermokinetic Engine remained frustrating. Three percent mastery after hours of practice. He could see the thermal and kinetic energy waves. He could even somewhat reach for them with his essence, but the timing was always wrong. Too slow. Too imprecise.

  ? [Novice] THERMOKINETIC ENGINE (GROWTH TYPE) (03)

  ? This skill requires significant practice. You'll get there.?

  But Spellshot Synthesis and Spell Weaver's Matrix made him grin despite everything.

  ? [Novice] SPELLSHOT SYNTHESIS (15)

  ? [Novice] SPELL WEAVER'S MATRIX (21)

  Grabbing broken incantation fragments, barely stabilizing them, then cramming that unstable mess into bullets felt like cheating. The explosions were satisfying too.

  ? Do not make this a habit. Against real threats those bullets radiate obvious essence signatures. Anyone competent will sense them before you fire. ?

  "Yeah, but it's fun."

  ? Fun does not prevent death. ?

  "Killjoy."

  He moved on to his gear skills. Reduvia and its shadow manipulation.

  [Novice] Reduvia's Shadow

  └─ Darkness Born [Bond Lv. 3] (Inherited)

  └─ ?????

  Iron Howl with its soul memory function storing Velakin's imprint. That was interesting. Jin let his awareness brush against the Iron Howl soulbound imprint.

  Iron Howl: Soulbound [LVL 3]

  └─ [Spatial Link Chamber]

  └─ [Essence Resonance Burst]

  └─ [Predator's Mark]

  └─ [Soul Memory] ? Imprints (1/3) → Imprint of Velakin

  "What exactly does the soul memory skill do?" Jin asked the Narrator.

  ? It allows you to fire a special attack which would have the power levels and aspect of the imprint's source. ?

  "So I have a one-time-use special attack that would deal ORDER IV damage?"

  ? Yes. I'm very sure that this ability pulls in the power level from the source. Think of this as true or transcendent damage. ?

  "That's a good trump card to have. Velakin was low ORDER IV. Still better than nothing." Jin took a deep breath. "Also, I need to get Zephyr Stride reinforced. With all the rough use I've put them through they need maintenance. I could probably entice Joe to do it."

  ? You could use the other [BOOTS OF BAKOS]. ?

  "Nah, I prefer these. Air-step is too important to let go."

  His acquired skills were a mixed bag. Entropy Zone, Spatial Seal, various essence manipulation techniques he'd picked up through combat and harvesting. Two new ones caught his attention.

  [ACTIVE ACQUIRED SKILLS]

  ???? [Novice] Entropy Zone (08) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  ???? [Novice] Spatial Seal (01) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  ???? [Adept] Essence Honing (98) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  ???? [Adept] Essence Reinforcement (73) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  ???? [Novice] Essence Construct (01) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  ???? [Novice] Feast of Absolution (01) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  ???? [Novice] Sanguine constructs (01) | [ACTIVE SKILL]

  "I didn't ask this before. What exactly do the last two do?" Jin said. "Just tell me briefly."

  ? Feast of Absolution. Born from harvested skills and memories, heavily influenced by your Mantle. Latch Chains of Harvest onto an enemy and drain their life force, rapidly healing injuries and afflictions. Five-minute cooldown. ?

  ? Sanguine Constructs. Influenced by your Blood affinity. Form permanent constructs using Blood as a resource. ?

  "Okay," Jin said, chuckling. "They sound very ominous. I'm assuming the essence constructs do the same but using my essence?"

  ? Yes, but Essence Constructs are temporary. The Blood-based version creates permanent structures. ?

  Jin let his awareness settle back into his body. The rooftop was quiet. Reyana had gone back to meditating on her blanket. Rudy was breathing steady, essence cycling visible as faint heat distortion around his frame. Joe remained by the vent stack, eyes closed, blood drying on his coat in stiff patches.

  Peaceful. The word felt wrong in Vienna but Jin couldn't think of a better one. They had maybe an hour before the next crisis. He'd take it.

  He leaned back on his arms and studied the veil overhead. That sickly red dome keeping them trapped like bugs in a jar.

  "What do you think is causing the red saturation?"

  ? You know as well as I do. The atmosphere is accumulating dense essence. ?

  "Would be amazing if it wasn't corrupted by the cult's gods." Jin sighed. "Cultivation in this environment could push someone through an entire ORDER in months instead of years."

  ? If the atmosphere wasn't so corrupted. But that's hardly an issue for you. Your star filters corruption automatically. ?

  Jin jerked his thumb at his friends. "But it is for them. Regardless, the density keeps increasing. Eventually the pressure alone will crush anyone not ORDER IV."

  ? A blessing wrapped in a curse. At least you'll know when the ritual enters final stages. ?

  "How long do you think?"

  ? At current accumulation rate, twenty-four days maximum. After that, essence pressure will be lethal to anyone below ORDER IV. ?

  He pushed the thought away. Worry about it later.

  "Run another appraisal on the veil."

  ? Of course. Running full appraisal on— ?

  The Narrator's voice cut off mid-word.

  ? WARNING. ?

  Jin felt it before the word fully registered. A shiver raced up his spine and exploded across his scalp. Every hair on his body stood up. His danger sense wasn't screaming. It was howling.

  His head snapped toward the veil.

  Joe was already on his feet, blood-soaked coat whipping in wind that hadn't existed two seconds ago. His face had gone grim.

  Jin opened his mouth to shout a warning.

  The veil pulsed. Massive energy discharge from somewhere high above. Omni-Reader's Viewpoint flooded his vision with alerts but Jin barely processed them. He was too busy staring at what was happening overhead.

  A pillar of light and darkness slammed down from above. Dark malice wrapped in reddish glow. Black lightning crackling through the beam. It hit their location with no warning and no mercy.

  The beam faded and two figures stood where it had struck.

  Pressure crashed down on them. Jin's knees buckled. The air became thick enough to drown in. His vision narrowed to a tunnel centered on the two shapes resolving from the dissipating energy.

  ORDER IV.

  Both of them.

  He was still on his knees, staring up at the two figures as their forms became clear in the red light.

  This was bad.

  This was really, really bad.

  ~~~

  A/N: Things are about to get more intense!

  ? ? ?