CHAPTER 151

  WHEN THE SILENCE BROKE

  The Deadlands never had mornings.

  No sunrise. No shadow crawling across stone.

  Only time, guessed and measured by habit. It dragged them awake.

  But it was enough.

  Freedom had never been closer for these miserables. Killing Anfaleen meant more than revenge—it meant silence could no longer be enforced when they left this godforsaken place.

  The fear would be no more.

  Hans stood with Adrian and Zilong at the leftmost edge of the Council Node.

  The structure loomed—vast, layered, absurdly large.

  “Why is it so big?” Hans muttered.

  “Because it was ours… Parv,” Xandor said, appearing beside them. “Did you not know, Atelier?”

  Hans didn’t look impressed. “So you knew.”

  “Was that a question?” Xandor replied, pointing to the breach point. “This was a retreat point. One of many to exit without alerting superiors.”

  Zilong’s gaze flicked toward him.

  But said nothing.

  As they closed in, the translucent shimmer of the shield became visible—thin, precise, old.

  “Take Positions,” Theodred ordered.

  No one questioned it.

  Under Xandor’s veil, nearly a hundred figures vanished from sight.

  Zilong reached out—not with mana, not with voice—but with intent.

  His contact answered immediately.

  A sixth-circle mage emerged, sweating before he even spoke.

  “How much this time?” the man said quickly. “Security’s been raised. Risk’s higher.”

  “You won’t see this kind of sunstones again,” Zilong replied.

  The mage opened a slit in the shield—no wider than a coffin.

  “That’s your cue,” Hans said. “Tell them why you’re fourth-ranked.”

  Adrian was already moving.

  Steel flashed.

  The mage’s head rolled before the shield could even react.

  Adrian nodded from the other side.

  The shield trembled.

  “They might’ve been alerted that something happened to this poor sod.” Hans turned to Zilong. “This is where it starts.”

  Zilong smiled. “Keep your word.”

  “Make it loud,” Hans said.

  Zilong didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

  The infection ignited.

  Red demon blood answered.

  He launched, encircling toward the main gate, to the front like a falling star.

  Hans exhaled. Remaining with others in the leftest point of the Node. “Now we wait.”

  But they didn’t wait long.

  The shockwave hit even from this distance.

  “Adrian—”

  Skill: Andromeda

  Space screamed.

  The shield tore.

  Hans smiled thinly. “That’s our opening.”

  They entered cleanly.

  Too cleanly.

  Inside the fractured shield, Hans raised a hand.

  Three signals. Three directions.

  The infected melted away first — low, quiet, hugging stones and shadow. They didn’t charge. They crawled. Every step took them closer to the rear platforms overlooking the main gate.

  Behind them, Eclipse moved differently.

  Xandor’s presence folded light. Bryan marked angles. Adrian vanished and reappeared like a walking breach point, already testing the shield’s repair threshold.

  The biggest risk wasn’t the battle.

  It was Anfaleen.

  A cornered warlock with nothing left would burn the Node to the ground if it denied him escape.

  That was leverage.

  That was why Delimira and Chris mattered more than any army.

  Hans caught them just before they split.

  “Must capture his son and kill the mana scientists,” he said quietly. “Burn the bodies. Nothing for Xandor to claim as undeads.”

  Delimira didn’t blink.

  Chris did. “You don’t trust Xandor?”

  Hans smiled thinly. “I trust him to be himself.”

  A pause.

  “We all want different things,” Hans continued. “Make sure no one walks away with more than they’re promised.”

  Chris nodded too. “When this ends, you answer everything.”

  “We’ll see,” Hans said. “Go.”

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  They vanished into shadow.

  Gone before the echoes of Adrian’s entry finished dying.

  Hans watched them disappear, then addressed Eclipse powerhouses.

  “Remember,” he said quietly. “If this turns into chaos too early, we lose.”

  No one answered.

  They didn’t need to.

  The first horn sounded from the main gate.

  Then it shattered.

  Zilong did not roar.

  He existed.

  The Infection broke fully, and with it came the pull.

  Soon the mindless red demon heeded his command.

  Not warriors. Not elites.

  Summoned from all over deadlands.

  They attacked the front like moths flying to the burning lamp.

  The Council reacted exactly as Hans had predicted.

  Soldiers redeployed.

  Artillery turned forward.

  Then Zilong strengthened his pull.

  The mindless turned into formations.

  Command shifted to containment.

  The front became everything.

  That was the mistake.

  At least for Council Node.

  “Now,” Hans said.

  The infected flowed in low and fast.

  Siege engines went silent first — crews dead before alarms could finish forming.

  Platforms collapsed.

  Blood spilled down inner walls in sheets, darkening stone meant to be never touched.

  By the time the Council realised their rear was compromised, half their inner defence had already vanished.

  Inside, Eclipse moved like knives in the dark.

  Hans didn’t waste energy on the strong.

  He killed the weak who came aiding the frontlines.

  Fear spread faster that way.

  Xandor moved next.

  Undead rose screaming from the fallen.

  Bryan didn’t waste words — he broke morale instead. A young knight tried to flee. Bryan didn’t let him die quickly.

  Hans noticed.

  Filed it away.

  Adrian burned.

  Fire swallowed stone. His salamander mount turned corridors into furnaces.

  An Andromeda strike far deadlier than what made them enter here struck at the front from inside. Breaking a big hole in the shield.

  That was the entry point for Zilong’s maddened army to enter.

  At the rear, siege engines fell silent.

  At the front, Zilong’s demons kept hammering the frontlines, drowning the Council in noise and blood.

  The pincer worked.

  For a while.

  And then—their presence finally made notice to the heavy hitters of Node.

  The guardians arrived.

  Three warlocks.

  One warlord.

  Xandor hummed. “Time for your last dance.”

  Adrian’s heart thundered—And with that Parvian blood surged.

  Akin to war drums, his heart beat, loud.

  Declaring his presence.

  His grade snapped upward.

  Nineties.

  The beats even reached Chris, a resonance he felt.

  “They have begun, Deli.” He whispered, scaling the second wall.

  The wall wasn’t stone.

  It was bone-reinforced alloy—grown, not built. Delimira felt it the moment her fingers touched the surface. The texture was wrong. Warm in places. Faintly pulsing.

  She moved first.

  Chris followed half a step behind, close enough to react, far enough not to interfere.

  The inner corridors of the Council Node grew narrower than expected—built to funnel, not welcome. Old wards pulsed faintly in the walls, their mana signatures tired but stubborn, like habits that refused to bend.

  She brushed a sigil with two fingers.

  It collapsed without sound.

  “How did you do that?” Chris questioned, moving forward.

  “An equation Lady Sierra taught. Nothing much—Left,” she murmured.

  Chris shifted with her, blade already angled.

  They moved like this for minutes. No alarms. No bodies yet. Just silence thick enough to press against the ears.

  She liked this part.

  Clean. Controlled. Purposeful.

  Suddenly, the corridors sloped downward.

  Lights dimmed. Mana density thickened.

  This wasn’t administration.

  This was storage.

  Cells lined the walls—not containment, not prisons. Observation chambers. Many were empty.

  And far too many to exist.

  She stopped at the first occupied one.

  Inside, a figure knelt on all fours, breathing shallowly. Its spine bulged unnaturally, bones pushing against skin like they wanted out.

  A failed conversion.

  Not infected enough to weaponise. Not stable enough to release.

  Chris swallowed. “This is… later-stage?”

  She didn’t answer.

  She burned the chamber’s lock instead.

  The subject didn’t scream when the flames took it.

  The silence was worse. As if liberation had come for the poor soul.

  She turned away sharply.

  Her hands were steady.

  But her eyes were not.

  “This wasn’t recent,” Chris said quietly.

  She nodded once.

  Years, her mind supplied.

  Not days. Not weeks.

  Long enough for maintenance routines to continue after intent was gone. Long enough for suffering to become background noise.

  Her gaze shifted to the runes again.

  Stability. Preservation. Observation.

  Someone had wanted to see how long it would last.

  She thought of her father.

  The man she never knew—but the man who must have been here.

  Strapped. Measured. Reduced to data.

  Something tightened behind her ribs.

  How many times did he walk these halls?

  How many doors did he pass, knowing what was behind them?

  She imagined Zilong here.

  “I should’ve never given in,” she said. “Then at least I would’ve found him sooner. Why didn’t Hans tell me the situation was this miserable.”

  Chris didn’t slow. “You didn’t know.”

  “I knew enough,” she snapped.

  Chris just stood there. He knew it was all he could do for her.

  She clenched her fist, hard enough to drip blood from within.

  “Deli—”

  “Ugh! I’m angry at myself, Chris,” she said suddenly.

  Her voice didn’t shake.

  “When my father was here… when he was being tortured in places like this—” She gestured vaguely at the walls. “I gave up.”

  Chris stayed silent.

  “I chose my life,” she continued. “Chose comfort. Happy and giddy around Hans and you…told myself there was no point.”

  She exhaled slowly.

  “I feel pathetic. How am I supposed to stand in front of him? How do I look him in the eye and pretend I didn’t walk away?”

  For a moment, only distant explosions answered her.

  Then Chris spoke.

  “He’s your father,” he said. “And if he endured this… it wasn’t so you’d live in the same fire.”

  She turned to him sharply.

  “That doesn’t erase it.”

  “No,” Chris agreed. “It doesn’t.”

  He met her gaze.

  “But it doesn’t make you a coward either.”

  She looked away.

  “He would’ve wanted you not to be what you regret now,” Chris added. “Not burning yourself alive just to prove something.”

  Her jaw tightened.

  “That sounds like an excuse.”

  “It’s a perspective,” Chris replied. “You don’t owe your life to his pain. He paid it so you wouldn’t have to.”

  Delimira didn’t answer.

  She didn’t accept it.

  But she didn’t reject it either.

  Another chamber lay ahead.

  This one sealed tighter. Fresher wards. Active personnel routes.

  Delimira stepped forward, all hesitation gone.

  Her anger hadn’t faded.

  It had sharpened.

  “They’re all guilty,” she said quietly. “Every one of them.”

  Chris nodded, adjusting his grip. “Then we don’t leave loose ends.”

  A distant tremor rolled through the structure—the kind that meant someone powerful had just hit something important.

  The battle was escalating.

  Somewhere deeper inside the Node, something moved.

  Delimira felt it.

  Her senses registered her prey.

  A target, marked by her unfurling fury.

  They vanished into the corridor as alarms finally began to scream.