Chapter 588: Ashes and Echoes
Smoke coiled into the night sky like the fingers of a dying god.
Jayden lay half-buried under shattered concrete and twisted metal, blood oozing from a gash at his temple.
Every breath was a struggle — every movement a searing reminder that he was no longer invincible.
But he was alive.
Barely.
He clawed his way out of the rubble, coughing, his muscles screaming in protest.
The city lights blurred before him, a kaleidoscope of chaos and indifference.
Above, the stars watched coldly.
Below, death hunted him relentlessly.
---
He staggered into the ruined streets, blending into the broken world around him.
The city had always been cruel, but tonight, it was a graveyard — silent, empty, and full of ghosts.
Jayden leaned against a crumbling wall, pressing a torn piece of his shirt against his bleeding side.
The faces of those he trusted flickered before his eyes.
Tielen.
Jeff.
Linet.
Wendy.
And now Matilda — the one who had smiled at him like a sister, who had whispered secrets into the hollow spaces of his heart — had tried to kill him.
He should've seen it coming.
He should've been smarter.
Colder.
But a part of him still believed in loyalty.
A mistake he might not survive.
---
Footsteps echoed through the broken alleys behind him.
Not fast.
Not urgent.
Measured.
Confident.
Jayden's pulse quickened. He ducked into a shadowed archway, gritting his teeth against the pain.
From the mist, a new figure emerged — tall, slender, cloaked in silver-grey robes that shimmered like mist.
He couldn't see their face, but he didn't need to.
The presence alone was enough.
The Harbinger.
An assassin not known for mercy, only for clean, inevitable deaths.
Jayden's fingers tightened around the broken shard of rebar he had pulled from the wreckage — a poor weapon against a master, but it was all he had.
The Harbinger stopped a few meters away, tilting their head curiously.
"You bleed well," a smooth voice said. Neither male nor female — something in between.
"Almost beautifully."
Jayden said nothing.
There was no point in pleading.
No point in running.
In this city, only two things mattered: how long you could endure, and how fiercely you could fight back before they took everything.
---
The Harbinger raised a thin, curved blade.
A death meant to be swift.
But Jayden — broken, bleeding, betrayed — felt something shift deep inside him.
A fire.
A refusal.
Not yet.
He surged forward with a guttural cry, parrying the assassin's blade with the jagged rebar, sparks flying as metal screamed against metal.
The Harbinger's smile could almost be heard in the darkness.
"Good," they whispered.
"You'll make a beautiful corpse."
---
Meanwhile...
In a hidden sanctuary deep beneath the city, Matilda sat in silence, staring at her trembling hands.
The blood on them wouldn't wash away.
Not even if she scrubbed until her skin tore.
Behind her, Gloria stepped out of the shadows, draped in black velvet, her face a cold, perfect mask.
"You hesitated," Gloria said.
Matilda flinched.
"I—I couldn't kill him," she whispered.
Gloria smiled faintly.
"That's why you'll suffer more than he will."
Matilda's heart cracked a little more.
Because somewhere, deep down, she knew:
The one person she truly loved in this wretched, broken world — she had just condemned.
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