Chapter 34: No Warning
“Ashen Aegis.”
Cole’s shield stopped bullets as they flew toward him, that invisible line in the sand, that subtle, quiet no that pulsed outward.
The first burst came from behind the barricade, the muzzle flashes strobing through gaps between stacked cars. A few rounds cracked off the hood of a ruined sedan. Another sparked against rebar. Most of them died in midair the moment they crossed into the space in front of Cole, hanging for a heartbeat.
He didn’t flinch.
He gripped his staff and walked forward anyway, boots crunching over grit and drifting ash. Wrath thugs flooded toward him through the opening, shouting, half panicked and half furious.
Two of them lifted shotguns, firing simultaneously.
Cole didn’t move fast.
He renewed his shield with a thought and a word, and the blast of pellets hit the Aegis and stalled. Some of them flattened, as if striking an invisible wall. Others simply stopped and fell, harmless, the way rain slides off glass.
One thug swore, eyes wide. The other screamed something incoherent and pumped his shotgun again, hands shaking so badly the barrel wobbled.
Cole kept walking.
“Choir of Verdict.”
Shadows emerged from his back, subtle wings, there and gone, as authority blanketed the area.
It was pressure. A verdict descending with the weight of something ancient and uncaring.
Men stumbled.
Some dropped outright to their knees. Others fought it, veins bulging in their necks as they tried to keep their feet under them, but even those couldn’t move with any speed. Their bodies betrayed them. Their muscles locked. Their breath turned harsh.
The ones behind the barricade shouted again, confused now.
They couldn’t understand what was happening. They’d never seen anything like this. They’d lived through monsters and waves, sure, but monsters didn’t do this. Monsters didn’t make reality itself lean on you until you begged for permission to stand.
Cole’s staff hummed a silent, dangerous note.
Shadows around the men sharpened.
“Black Halo Lance.”
Seraphic black light erupted from the darkness beneath them and behind them, stabbing up and through.
It didn’t leave gore on the street.
It turned them into ash.
Their guns hit the ground a moment later. One rifle clattered into a car door and slid down with a screech. A pistol spun in a circle and settled, useless. A shotgun thumped onto the pavement beside a hand that no longer existed.
Ash drifted across the checkpoint.
Cole strode on.
More men came from behind the barricade, some from deeper inside, some scrambling up onto the ramparts that now had no snipers left. They raised rifles and pistols, firing through fear and habit.
Cole lifted his Crozier slightly.
“Ashen Aegis.”
Bullets stopped again.
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The ones who fired stared at the rounds hanging in the air and their courage broke in real time. Cole could see it. The moment they realized they were shooting at something they didn’t understand, something that didn’t react the way a man was supposed to react.
Some tried to back up. Others surged forward, thinking maybe distance was the problem. Maybe if they got close, the wizard would be weaker. Maybe he’d panic.
Cole didn’t.
“Edict: Disarm.”
Rifles fell from hands, thugs blinking at their empty palms as if they were in a dream.
One man looked down at his hands and turned them over. Another patted his belt in disbelief, fingers scrabbling for a pistol that had simply decided it wasn’t his anymore.
Their hesitation cost them.
Cole didn’t see people as he killed.
He saw predators.
He saw monsters.
He saw men who’d demanded tolls and threatened the weak. Men who trafficked children to demons and called it business.
He didn’t speak to them. He didn’t argue. He didn’t warn them.
He ended them.
“Black Halo Lance.”
Ash.
Another step.
A sobbing shout from behind the barricade. A man trying to crawl away with his weapon gone. Cole’s shadows reached for him anyway. The street turned gray.
Before long, the entire checkpoint was blanketed in a thin layer of ash, guns scattered about.
The barricade itself was pocked with bullet marks and soot, but otherwise untouched. Cars stacked at odd angles. Metal trash bins dented and bolted together. The whole thing looked suddenly ridiculous.
Cole slowed.
The shouting, the running, the firing.
All of it died away until there was only wind and the faint crackle of settling debris.
Except for one person.
He stood on the far side of the opening, just inside the territory beyond the checkpoint, and he hadn’t fired a gun.
He had a buzzcut, skin the color of a football, and just as leathery. His face looked carved from sun and bad decisions. He eyed Cole wearily, chest rising and falling slow, but held a sword in his hand.
The sword itself wasn’t anything fancy. Plain steel. Worn grip. A tool.
Cole was no expert, but the man looked like he knew how to use it. The way he held it wasn’t for intimidation. It was for work. His feet were set right. His shoulders were loose. His eyes weren’t wide with panic like the others had been.
He wore biker leathers and a revolver on one hip. A patch was on his upper right shoulder.
Cole could see the red demon skull, the horns, the crude stitching. Wrath.
“End of the road,” the man breathed out slowly.
Cole eyed him, then casually swept a glance at all the ash around them.
“For you, maybe,” Cole replied calmly.
The man’s eyes flicked over the dead checkpoint, the scattered weapons, the gray film coating everything. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t look shocked.
“These were chumps,” he said, voice low. “Not even level 2 yet.”
Cole wasn’t interested in getting into a pissing contest with the man.
Words didn’t matter here.
He was a monster and Cole would put him down.
“Black Halo Lance.”
Seraphic black light lashed out.
Only, this time, the man’s sword came up and batted the light aside.
Cole’s eyes narrowed.
The lance didn’t shatter. It was redirected, skipping across the pavement and carving a blackened line through the ash where it struck.
The man flowed forward at speed.
A smooth, practiced closing of distance that made Cole’s instincts flare. The sword flashed toward Cole’s neck with precision.
As fast as he was, words were faster.
“Ashen Aegis.”
The blade stopped mid-swing.
It hit the invisible line and held there, trembling slightly as the man leaned into it, trying to force it through.
His eyes widened a fraction.
He twisted his blade, testing, dragging the edge along the Aegis, trying to find a gap. Then he flicked the sword sideways and deflected another lance that rose from his own shadow, the movement so smooth it made Cole’s stomach tighten again.
This one wasn’t a random thug.
Cole’s Crozier hummed. Cole’s anger stayed calm.
“Is your class letting you do that?” Cole asked.
The man shrugged, even while his sword kept moving, testing the shield’s boundary.
“Skill,” he said simply. “I’m a sword squire.”
Cole grunted.
“You lasted longer than your friends,” Cole said. “I’ll give you that.”
The man’s mouth twitched.
Cole didn’t give him time to turn that into momentum.
“Edict: Disarm.”
Just like that, he no longer had his sword.
The weapon vanished from his grip as if reality had decided it belonged somewhere else. It clattered onto the pavement between them.
Cole saw him try to resist.
To his credit, he fought the spell for a fraction of a second, jaw straining, shoulders tensing, trying to hold onto the sword with sheer will.
He failed.
And when he did, he reacted quickly, diving for it.
Cole didn’t let him.
“Choir of Verdict.”
Authority crashed down.
The swordsman hit the ground hard, as if the world had suddenly doubled in weight. His palms slapped the pavement. His teeth clenched. His muscles shook as he tried to push up and couldn’t.
Cole strode forward and put a boot on his chest.
Pinning him. A simple, brutal certainty.
“You all trafficked kids to monsters,” Cole said, voice quiet. “Time to pay that tab.”
The swordsman’s eyes widened.
A flash of recognition flickered.
He opened his mouth.
Maybe he was going to argue. Maybe he was going to claim he didn’t know. Maybe he was going to blame Devin. Maybe he was going to beg.
Cole didn’t care which one it was.
A moment later, Cole’s boot was pressing down on ash.
The sword lay on the street beside it, useless and clean.
