Chapter 7

The city wasn't burning with fire.

It was burning with fear.

Mana storms cracked the sky in crooked bolts. Shadows twisted unnaturally, curling like broken logic. Every screen across the fractured city glitched with a single name:

* Alex Thorn.

* Subject: Godless Caster.

* Status: Uncontained. Unstable. Unauthorized.

He walked barefoot, his coat in tatters, trailing mana like blood. The pavement cracked beneath his feet—not from pressure, but grief.

With every breath, his system pulsed like a second heartbeat.

 [Godless Mode – Active]

Emotional Stability: 13%

Warning: Approaching Critical Detachment

Alex blinked at the notification. Said nothing.

Even the system had started sounding like a therapist on its third coffee and final nerve.

He passed the remnants of a school—once full of laughter, now only ash and echo.

He passed a man hiding behind a dumpster, rocking.

"Don't look at me," he whispered. "Don't let him see me…"

No one screamed anymore.

They didn't fear demons.

They feared him.

Lia sat in the wreckage of their hideout. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

She hadn't followed him.

Couldn't.

Every step toward him would activate the Bureau's tracking signal buried deep in her bloodstream. She was a homing beacon in disguise.

But even if she wasn't—

It was the look in his eyes.

When he turned away.

No hatred.

No rage.

Just… absence.

Like someone had scraped out the part of him that still believed in people.

"He doesn't hate me," she whispered into the dust.

"He just doesn't care anymore."

The words stung more than if he'd screamed.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, silent and shaking.

"I broke the only person who ever saw me."

Alex stood before a fractured mirror—wedged into a cracked apartment wall long abandoned.

He stared at the reflection.

But it wasn't him.

It was the other him.

The version that lived in his blood and hissed through the system. The shadow-echo with his face, only sharper.

 "Caught up, huh?" Mirror-Alex sneered.

"Power feels good, doesn't it? You don't need them. Never did."

Alex said nothing. Just clenched his fists.

"Lia lied. The world used you. Even your own system turns your pain into performance."

"So stop pretending you care. Just be what they fear."

A spiderweb crack split the glass.

Then another.

Alex's knuckles hit the mirror before he even knew what he was doing. Shards embedded in his skin. Blood dripped down his wrist like ink from a broken pen.

He welcomed the pain.

Whispered to the echo:

 "You're not me."

Back at Bureau HQ, the room pulsed red with danger alerts.

"Target approaching full detachment," said an analyst. "If he hits Godless Tier 2, we're looking at a ten-mile radius collapse."

Rhiva stood still, face unreadable.

"Civilian estimate?"

"Twelve thousand."

Her jaw tensed.

"Deploy the Executor Protocol."

Gasps rippled through the room.

"Director… that'll wipe him out completely."

She didn't blink.

"He's no longer Alex Thorn. He's a cascading extinction event."

"But what if Lia—"

Rhiva's voice iced over.

 "Then she dies with him."

In the middle of a back alley filled with smoke and broken alarms, Alex heard a voice.

Not from the system.

Not from inside his head.

A real voice. Small. Raw.

"…Help…"

A building nearby was ablaze—real flame, not magic. Smoke coiled like serpents. Behind a steel gate, a little girl cried, eyes wide and terrified.

Alex froze.

Every instinct begged him to keep walking.

You're not a savior. You're the storm.

But the scream split something inside him.

He moved.

Without hesitation.

The gate didn't stand a chance—ripped free with one hand. Fire licked his arms. His coat caught.

He scooped the girl up, held her against his chest.

"Got you," he whispered.

Through smoke. Through flame. Through ash.

He carried her out.

When he emerged, people stared.

At him.

At the girl.

The fear didn't vanish.

But now it had company.

Confusion.

He handed her to the medics.

And walked away—again.

Alone.

In an abandoned tunnel, Alex collapsed against cold metal.

His hands bled. His skin peeled. His coat smoked.

But no tears came.

Not now. Not ever.

He hadn't cried since his parents were taken.

Since the system branded him "special."

Since every emotion became a statistic.

And yet…

He wanted to.

Because power didn't cure pain.

It just made it quieter.

He leaned back, eyes barely open.

Whispered into the dark:

 "Am I still human?"

The system blinked.

[No Response Available.]

Lia stared at the footage on a stolen monitor. Saw the girl. The fire. The boy who walked into hell to pull someone out.

 "He's still in there," she whispered.

"You go now," one of the rogue agents warned, "you're walking into your own funeral."

She pulled her coat tighter. Buckled the sword on her back.

"I'm not going to die."

"You're going to betray the Bureau?"

"No," she said softly.

"I'm going to save the boy they broke."

Alex barely had time to breathe when the rift opened in front of him—splitting space like paper.

Agent Hollow stepped through.

Expression blank.

Eyes like glass.

 "Subject Alex Thorn. By Bureau mandate, you are to be eliminated."

Alex arched a brow.

"No dinner first?"

A white-hot blast shot toward him.

He dodged—barely—then rolled to his feet.

But Hollow was already behind him.

A searing pain tore through Alex's shoulder. Blood spilled. Mana destabilized.

The system screeched.

[CRITICAL HIT – NEURAL INTERFERENCE]

Godless Mode: Unstable.

Trait Integrity: Failing.

Fight or Die.

Alex's eyes burned.

He snarled through gritted teeth—

 "You wanna see Godless?"

The tunnel erupted into black fire and screaming shadows.

Hollow didn't flinch.

He smirked.

 "Good," he said. "I came to kill a monster."