The last clone writhed on the ground—its leg twisted the wrong way, one eye missing, slack jaw mumbling incoherently as it tried to crawl toward something it couldn't name. Niko stepped back, breathing heavy, his fists bloodied.
He had finished it with nothing but his hands.
The original guard lay slumped against the chamber wall, head bent at an unnatural angle—his neck broken from the final impact. No weapons. No dramatic kill. Just brutality. Raw, precise, cold.
Niko stood over the body, shoulders heaving. His hands hurt. One wrist throbbed from blocking a hit too hard. His knuckles were swelling. He flexed them slowly and winced.
He hadn't fought like that in a long time—fists, instinct, and grit.
Too loud, he thought, dragging in a breath. Way too loud.
There was no way the guard hadn't alerted someone. Whether by voice, signal, or just the sound of chaos, someone would be coming. Unless the guard had been utterly stupid, which Niko doubted.
He turned toward the chamber again.
The air inside was heavier than before. Maybe it was in his head, or maybe the blood on the walls was still warm. The horn remained among the viscera, half-buried in mangled limbs. The sight turned his stomach again, but this time he didn't look away.
He stepped closer, slow.
No names. No faces. Just torn bodies that had been people.
And now… offerings.
He kneeled, lowering his head slightly—not in prayer, but in something quieter, less defined. Not reverence, but resolve.
'I won't let this be for nothing,' he thought. 'I didn't know you. But I know rage. And I know loss. And if that war god breathes because of this…'
He clenched his fists tighter.
'Then I'll rip out his lungs myself.'
He stood again, looking once more at the horn. A grotesque monument. Niko gave it a final nod.
Then he turned and moved, quieter now, deeper into the hall. His body ached, but he moved anyway.
The stone corridors seemed narrower. Shadows stretched longer. But he didn't falter.
Not now.
Niko's boots slammed against the cold stone floor, each step echoing down the corridor like a warning bell. His breath came fast, sharp, loud in his ears as he sprinted through the underground complex, heart pounding, panic biting at the edges of his focus. The blood-slicked chamber he'd left behind still lingered in his senses—metallic stench, the thick, clotted silence of death. It clung to him like a second skin.
'Should've known,' he thought bitterly. 'Should've known the second I saw the horn… this was bigger than me.'
He didn't look back.
Every turn was a gamble. Every hallway a fresh unknown. Somewhere behind him was a corpse—broken and burned from the final blow—and Niko knew better than to believe that had gone unseen. No way that guy didn't send word. Unless he was the stupidest zealot in this whole damn cult… which, come to think of it, wouldn't be a first.
Still. Niko wasn't about to count on stupidity saving him.
He kept running, the hallway narrowing and widening, twisting through what felt more like a catacomb than a base. The walls pulsed with a strange, almost living silence. His thoughts, though frantic, drifted once again—to that word from earlier.
The Watcher.
The god that guards Dem Oche.
The way the speaker had said it earlier… not with reverence. With fear. Even in this den of worship for the War God, they had spoken of that god with caution. Like it was a presence that lurked just beyond their reach, outside their dogma.
'Why would a god protect Dem Oche?' he thought, feet pounding, lungs aching. 'Why him? What makes him so damn special?'
A turn.
A sharp breath.
He skidded around the corner—and froze.
Twenty, maybe twenty-five guards lined the corridor ahead like a wall of armored fate. They stood in two crooked rows, some leaning lazily against the wall, others adjusting weapons, others already watching him. All wore the dragon-crest cloak. All were armed. And none looked surprised.
His heart sank like a stone.
Niko's eyes widened, not in confidence this time—but fear. Cold, heavy fear that sank deep into his spine.
'Shit. Shit, shit, shit.'
No way out. No blade. No allies.
He reached for his back, a muscle memory reaction—his fingers brushing only fabric. Of course. No blade. He'd ditched it before infiltration, choosing subtlety over force. It had made sense then. Now, it felt like a noose he'd willingly tied around his own throat.
They started laughing.
One of them, tall and missing an eyebrow, barked out, "This the rat? The one who snuck in like a stray?"
Another, broader, his voice thick with disdain: "He's scrawnier than I thought."
"Maybe he's a runner," someone else chimed in, chuckling. "A real quick little dog, huh?"
"Poor thing looks like he's about to cry."
More laughter followed. Cruel. Confident. They weren't scared of him—they were entertained.
Niko didn't move.
His mind spun like a storm. Twenty-five of them. Each probably enhanced. Each probably with abilities that had been honed and trained within this cult. If they were mundane, maybe—maybe—he could scatter a few, run, break through a line.
But they weren't. He could feel it in the way they carried themselves. Some of them glimmered with that faint, unnatural aura he'd come to associate with ability-users. Beyond the House, some of them had clearly reached.
Niko exhaled through his nose, slow, measured.
'No weapon. Only my ability. Dormant. Not awakened fully. Not yet.'
Another voice from the group, this one with a mockingly curious tone: "You lost, pretty boy? This isn't the way to the bathrooms."
Laughter again.
He said nothing.
They didn't realize it, but in that silence, Niko was thinking. Hard. Every inch of corridor, every breath of air, every position of the guards was being memorized. If he had one opening, he'd take it. If he had two, he'd cause chaos.
But right now? He had none.
Another guard—this one missing an arm—tilted his head and said, "Let's just take him in already. Speaker wants fresh blood for the final rites anyway."
Niko clenched his jaw.
'Twenty-five. No blade. Dormant power. I'm cornered.'
And yet, some small part of him—buried beneath the fear, beneath the logic—smirked. That same stubborn, reckless part that had gotten him into this mess in the first place.
'If I have to burn every nerve in my body… I'll make them remember this.'
But he didn't move yet. Not until someone made the first mistake. Not until one of them got too confident.
The moment was building. Pressure. Suspense. Like the air itself was waiting for the signal to explode.
Niko's pulse was a war drum, his legs already beginning to ache—but his decision came fast.
"Screw it."
He pivoted on his heel, spun around, and bolted in the opposite direction.
The guards shouted, surprised, some of them laughing.
"Coward!" one barked.
"Run, rabbit, run!" another howled, raising a crackling gauntlet.
Niko grinned through gritted teeth, breath ragged. "Better a rabbit than a dumbass cultist!"
He didn't hear their full response, because one blur—just one—peeled off from the line. A thin man in a torn blue scarf, moving like the wind. In an instant, he was right beside Niko.
A flash of silver.
A jab straight for Niko's ribs.
Niko barely twisted away in time—felt the sting of a shallow graze across his side. The speedster clicked his tongue. "You talk a lot for a broomstick."
"You talk a lot for someone who wears a scarf indoors," Niko snapped.
Then—Blitz.
A crackle ran across his skin like static as the ability surged, not as a weapon but a boost. He shot forward like a bullet, the hallway blurring around him. His eyes watered. He ducked under a wall of flame conjured by one of the guards, leapt a jagged tendril of earth that burst from the floor, sidestepped a geyser of steam—
He kept running.
He jumped, slid, ducked, every movement burning more energy, more focus. He couldn't afford to stop. Not now. Not with his punishment hanging over him like a blade—burnout. If he went too far, if he pushed too hard, his body would betray him. Ten minutes of total paralysis. Death, basically.
He winced, barely dodging a flying spear made of smoke. "If I was Iri…" he muttered under his breath, a humorless smile cracking across his face, "this whole damn place would be a smear on the wall."
Another explosion behind him.
He sprinted harder.
The corridors bent and twisted—featureless, dim stone halls lit by flickering glyph lights. He should've reached a turn by now. A door. A chamber. Something.
Instead, it was the same hallway.
Again.
And again.
And again.
His breath caught. He slowed, blinking sweat from his eyes, boots skidding slightly as he came to a stop. His chest rose and fell like a piston. The guards were still behind him, not even running anymore. Just walking. Laughing.
And then he heard it.
"He's slowing down."
"Took him long enough."
"I was betting five minutes."
The corridor shimmered, almost imperceptibly. And now Niko saw it—the repetition. A crack in the wall he passed twice. A loose tile. The faint smell of burning oil that came and went, then came again.
He turned around slowly.
The whole squad was there, maybe fifteen now—the rest had peeled off or stayed back. Some leaned against the wall, one sat cross-legged, idly flipping a coin through the air.
"Finally figured it out, genius?" one of them called, arms crossed. "Not bad for someone built like a paper straw."
"We looped you!" another said cheerfully. "Your legs must be killing you."
Niko rolled his eyes, masking the spike of dread deep in his gut. "Tch. You cult boys really love your parlor tricks."
He said it coolly. Even with his hands on his hips, panting hard. His voice didn't crack. But inside? His mind raced.
'Okay. Illusion? Loop? Spatial fold? Which one is it?'
He didn't know.
He didn't know.
"C'mon," one said, gesturing lazily with a dagger made of shadow. "Just kneel. You'll live longer. Well. A little longer."
Niko scoffed again and rolled his shoulders like he wasn't dying inside. "You keep talking like this is a done deal."
The guard tilted his head. "Isn't it?"
The hallway grew quieter.
Niko's eyes scanned every corner, every guard, every hand movement. No weapon. No exit. No time. All he had was whatever seconds he could steal—
"Let's test how long I can stretch them," he muttered under his breath.
His hands twitched at his sides.
One last blitz left.
Maybe.