Ch. 4 - Battle of Will

A sudden silence fell across the chaos. Not the calming kind, but the eerie sort, like a breath caught in the throat of the world.

Then—

> | [Serpent's Gaze] has been activated. |

The world froze.

Every non-Awakened individual, shoppers, workers, officers, even the ones still shouting orders, froze mid-motion.

Their eyes glazed over into lifeless, glassy stares.

Children stopped crying mid-scream. Police officers dropped their radios.

Civilians with phones in hand tilted their heads in unison, as if possessed by the same ghost.

Cashiers, janitors, tourists, all still as statues for one breathless second, before moving again.

Only this time… wrong.

A single command echoed into their thoughts like a voice pressed against their skulls.

"Act normal."

Code name, Serpent—Major Lazar's assistant, stood atop the central atrium, his clothing rippling unnaturally as if caught in wind that wasn't there.

His eyes glowed a venomous green beneath a serpentine mask laced with moving glyphs.

He raised a gloved hand and spoke, his voice unnervingly calm.

"Every officer. Follow only my voice.

Scan the area and look for the Awakened."

The entranced masses obeyed.

With perfect coordination.

Like puppets on invisible strings.

Beneath the mall.

"They're compromised! Civilians, police, every single one's under their control!"

Dozens of Awakened agents poured into the dimly lit underground parking structure.

The red glow of emergency lighting cast long, flickering shadows on the concrete walls.

The sounds of hurried boots and whispered spells filled the space.

"Get down, now!"

"This way! Hide! Hide!"

Finally an Awakened agent slammed the reinforced hatch shut as distant footsteps echoed above them. Shouting. Screaming. Then silence again.

Chief Tieanano's grizzled face was unreadable.

He barked into the comms, his voice sharp, worn. "Set perimeter glyphs. Barriers. Poison seals. We hold. We make them bleed before we fall."

A young Awakened agent, gulped. "Against the Apostles...? Even one of them—"

"—is enough to destroy a city." Tieanano finished her sentence. "If even one of them comes down here, we hit with everything we've got. No holding back. You don't fight an Apostle head on, you stall it. That's the best we can do."

Moments later, an Awakened agent returns to report. "Sir, perimeter is set. Booby traps laced across the western stairwell. Glyphic trip mines on both elevator shafts. We've also deployed sound suppressors."

Chief Tieanano nods in approval. "Good. Remember, you're not fighting for yourselves. You're fighting for everyone else out there. Stay alive. Don't die in vain."

Another voice crackled through the comms, someone from a remote HQ.

"What's your current status? Chief? Do you read me?"

Before he could respond, the comms buzzed, then died—utter silence.

"Connection's severed."

"Signal jamming?" someone whispered.

"It seems like something's cloaking the entire mall. We're cut off."

Back upstairs.

Verez remained relaxed, perched against the railing of the second floor like a man waiting for a coffee order. As if all this wasn't happening around him.

Hs leaned against a broken pillar, casually tossing a grape into his mouth from.

The chaos around him was... amusing. All these moving pieces. Pretending to be important.

One by one, shadowed portals began to ripple into existence throughout the mall. The temperature dropped.

The lights dimmed unnaturally. A static buzz filled the air.

The rest of Apostles are now here.

"One, two... eight... twelve?" Verez chuckled to himself. "What a turnout. Guess the afterparty's real."

Then came Lazar, the final Apostle. He stepped through the burning escalator gate, eyes glowing with fractured light like galaxies being born and destroyed in a loop.

He was silent, regal, yet terrifying, his steps seemed to make the air heavier.

"I am still wary of you and this arrangement, Verez." Lazar said, his voice deep, metallic.

"Good. Means you're smart." Verez smirked. "Our deal was never about trust. I entertain myself. You use my chaos to sniff out Awakened. I never promised allegiance. Mutual benefits, remember? I hold the Elixir. You want it. That's the arrangement."

"And if we decide to take it from you instead?" Asked one of the apostles.

As Verez casually replies.

"Then you better hope your creator grants you a respawn."

A tense silence fell. A few Apostles glared. But none moved. Not yet.

"The Awakened agents?" Lazar asked.

Verez chuckles as he responds. "Underground parking. South quadrant. You're welcome."

"They're hiding below.." Lazar coldly mutters.

"Yup. Like bugs. Should've called in pest control." Verez laughs at his own joke.

Lazar raised his hand.

"Serpent. Initiate the purge. Vent all ducts leading to Subsection D with toxin. Let's get these insects out."

Serpent nods as he activates a skill.

> | [ Neurotoxin #77 ] Deployed. |

Underground, the poisonous gas descends.

Green mist hissed from overhead vents like a living creature.

"Gas! Mask up! Now!"

"It's corroding the seals! Magical toxins! It's—agh!—eating my mana shield!"

Panic.

Footsteps.

Gagging.

Chief Tieanano stood at the center of it all. Calm. Steady. Eyes hard.

"MOVE! Retreat to the Surface.

Take every surviving unit! We have no choice. This is it, we fight. We die on our feet! GO!"

The Awakened burst through the mall's first floor. Just to be greeted by one of the Apostles who've been waiting. "Eager, aren't we?"

"Tch. They flushed us out." Evalyano wiped blood from his mouth, drawing a serrated dagger that vibrated with stored mana. "We do this fast. Hit hard. Don't stop moving."

Chief Tieanano scanned the scene with narrowed eyes. "Stick to small clusters. Target the weak links. Disrupt their coordination. One hit, then vanish. They want a clean slaughter. We give them a bloodbath instead."

"Sir, look!—flank!"

Tieanano barely dodged.

A blur of red and bronze shot from the left like a living missile, Apostle No. 14, known as "Kraw", clad in living bronze armor that screamed as it bent and warped around his body.

He slammed into the nearest agent, turning the man into paste against the wall in a single hit.

"One." Kraw muttered, cracking his neck.

Bullets rained from above, Agent Delcaro was perched high on the third floor, twin magitech rifles spewing bursts of enchanted rounds.

"You want numbers?! HERE'S MATH, YOU BASTARDS!"

Apostle No. 17, a pale woman in robes made of human eyes, lifted a single finger. The bullets stopped mid-air, each and every one.

She smiled as she mockingly says.

"Reject velocity. Reject intent. Return to sender."

The rounds spun and tore back toward Delcaro. He barely rolled out of the way, a shard grazing his cheek as he ducked behind cover.

Hannah stormed into the fray like a star gone supernova, her long coat trailing fire, her fists wreathed in shock-runes. She slid under a strike from a spear-wielding Apostle, vaulted off a marble pillar, and drove her knee straight into his chest.

He didn't flinch.

"You are unworthy." Apostle No. 3 whispered, catching her leg mid-air and slamming her to the ground with a bone-shattering thud.

Evalyano dived in just in time, unleashing a cluster of explosive glyphs from his gauntlet that detonated in a spiral, forcing the Apostle back.

"Hannah! MOVE!"

"I'm not DONE!" she screamed, dragging herself up, eyes burning. "I'm not leaving until I tear one of these motherfuckers apart!"

Agent Marell cast a field-wide mana disruption wave, and for a brief moment, just seconds, the Apostles' powers flickered.

"NOW! Hit them with everything!"

Five agents threw rune-knives at the same target, Apostle No. 9, whose body was made entirely of smoke and armor.

The blades struck true, pinning him to a concrete slab, sealing his movement.

Then came a moment of triumph—

But it was fake.

"Did you really think a seal could hold me? How rude of you." the Apostle growled.

With a sound like tearing silk and reality splitting open, he phased through the stone and reemerged behind the agents.

One sweep of his spectral blade, and three were down.

Another Apostle joined the battle.

He didn't fight physically.

Instead, he sat on a floating throne of glass and gears high above the battlefield, silently muttering incantations that rewrote gravity every thirty seconds.

"Up is left. Left is down. Let's make things... interesting."

Suddenly, the agents were flung sideways into pillars, ceilings, glass.

Their equilibrium collapsed. Blood sprayed from nostrils and ears as their bodies struggled to orient.

"I can't— I can't stand—"

Agent Rie threw a weight rune on her boots and managed to stabilize herself mid-air, sprinting sideways along what used to be a wall.

She launched a sonic disruptor at the Apostle, shattering part of his throne—but he simply smiled.

"Adaptation. Impressive. Useless, but impressive."

A temporary safe zone was created by Evalyano and two other surviving leaders using a triangulated barrier rune.

Inside were eight agents, barely holding it together.

"What's the casualty count?" Evalyano panted.

"We lost fourteen on the stairwell. Nine more here. Delcaro's bleeding out. We haven't even touched most of them."

"They're playing with us." Hannah growled, blood smeared across her brow. "They're not even serious. Not yet."

"That's our edge." Evalyano whispered. "They're not at full power. The Demon King's still dead. It's why they're going slow. We can use that—bleed them. Time our strikes. Think. Not win. Survive."

Suddenly, the floor beneath them cracked, and a voice like a thousand glass shards echoed:

"Survival was never part of this script."

Apostle No. 2, Lazar has joined the battle.

The battle continued on.

"Why are they so annoying?!" snarled one Apostle, his arm half-severed.

"Because our power is SEALED, you fool! We're bound to mortal laws until the Demon King returns!"

"They know that. They're abusing it."

At the edge of the chaos, Verez watched.

Silent.

Grinning.

One of the Apostles finally snapped.

"These insufferable insects! You, don't just sit there—do something! These pests are dragging this out!"

Verez sighed, as if finally deciding to stretch.

Then, he moved.

From the crowd of chaos, a blur of darkness surged forward.

> | Equipment is now visible. |

A black T-shirt. Black cargo pants. Desert camo ballistic vest. A black cloaked hoodie. And the cracked white full-face mask.

Like a wraith of death, Verez appeared behind Tieanano in an instant.

Shlrrrk—

The Chief's head fell before anyone could blink.

"GRANDPA!" Hannah screamed, eyes wide with horror.

--TO BE CONTINUED--