The street was no longer a battlefield.
It was a pressure chamber
in which one unconscious boy,
one terrified girl,
and one trembling squad
were all trapped under the same crushing instinct:
Don't move.
Don't provoke the monster.
Kai wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth
as she pushed herself up from the cracked wall.
Her ribs ached.
Her spine burned.
Her arms shook.
But she stood.
Because the alternative was unthinkable.
Qin Mian held Yin Lie tightly,
his face buried against her shoulder,
his glowing eyes half-shut
as his aura twisted with violent protectiveness.
He was clinging to her like she was gravity itself.
"Mian…"
his voice rasped,
broken and echoing with layered resonance.
"Don't… let go…"
"I won't," she whispered, tears trembling.
"Just stay with me.
Please stay with me."
But his power was spiraling again.
The Hunters saw it too.
One whispered:
"He's building pressure—
He'll detonate—!!"
Another:
"We have to neutralize him NOW—!"
Their voices weren't calm anymore.
They weren't trained soldiers.
They were frightened humans
talking themselves into violence
because fear demanded they act.
And fear is always loudest
right before dying.
Kai spit blood onto the ground
and stepped between them again.
"No one fires a shot."
The lieutenant, clutching his bleeding arm, whirled on her.
"You don't get to command anymore, Captain."
He raised his pistol.
"The Director's kill order stands."
Kai's posture went still.
Too still.
The stillness of a predator deciding
which throat to open first.
"…You're pointing a gun at a boy who can barely breathe,"
she said softly.
"And at a girl who hasn't done anything except try to keep him alive."
"They are an existential threat,"
the lieutenant snapped.
"Look at him! He doesn't even look human anymore!"
Qin Mian flinched.
Kai's jaw tightened.
He looks human to me.
But she didn't say it.
Instead, she said:
"You shoot him…
and the world ends right here."
Some Hunters faltered.
Others lifted their weapons higher.
Kai stared at the barrels pointed at her chest.
And she felt something
she had not felt since she was a child—
fear.
Not for herself.
Not for the mission.
For them.
For a boy she'd trained
and failed to understand.
For a girl who looked at him
as if he were worth the world.
Her voice wavered by a hair's width.
"Please…
don't make me choose this."
The lieutenant's finger tightened over the trigger.
"You already chose, Kai."
And that was it.
That was the line.
The last one.
The one she could not let them cross.
Kai's sword slid from its sheath
with a whisper sharp enough to cut breath itself.
Her voice dropped to something cold, raw, and final:
"Then forgive me."
The First Kill
The lieutenant fired.
Kai moved.
Her blade caught the bullet mid-air—
splitting it cleanly in half.
The two fragments embedded into the ground behind her,
hissing with heat.
The lieutenant froze in horror.
Kai didn't.
She stepped in,
pivoted,
and drew her blade across his chest
in one fluid motion.
A diagonal line of red opened under his armor.
His eyes went wide.
He stumbled backward.
"You—
You cut me—"
He choked.
"You aimed at my agents,"
Kai said quietly.
He collapsed.
Dead before he hit the ground.
Silence.
Utter, unbreathing silence.
Every Hunter stared at her.
A few stepped back.
One stammered:
"C-Captain…
you killed him…"
Kai raised her blade again.
"No.
I defended them."
The Squad Fractures Beyond Repair
Half the squad broke instantly.
They dropped their weapons,
hands raised,
shaking their heads.
"We're out—
We're DONE—
We didn't sign up to fight you—!"
But the other half—
the hardliners,
the ones who believed the Directorate was god—
tightened their grips.
"She's a traitor—!"
"She's protecting an anomaly—!"
"She has to be neutralized—!"
Kai exhaled.
Then she moved.
What followed was not a battle.
It was a correction.
She weaved through bullets,
redirecting gunfire with her blade,
cutting through armor straps,
striking throats,
disarming hands,
shattering visors with the heel of her boot.
Every motion lethal
but controlled.
Cold
but trembling at the edges.
Because every time she cut,
her heart lunged in her chest—
These were her soldiers.
Her students.
Her responsibility.
Her failure.
And she killed them anyway.
One tried to flank Qin Mian.
Kai was there first.
Her sword slid through his chest
to the hilt.
He fell without a sound.
Qin Mian covered Yin Lie's head, sobbing.
Kai pulled the blade free,
blood flicking across the asphalt.
She stood over the bodies, gasping,
her arms shaking under the weight
of what she had just chosen.
Of what she could never take back.
"You…"
One last Hunter backed away in horror.
"You murdered us…"
Kai didn't blink.
"You pointed weapons at two broken children
and expected me to watch."
Her voice cracked.
"I'm many things.
But not that."
She raised her blade.
He dropped his gun immediately
and fled into the alley, screaming.
Good.
Let him warn the world
what she had become.
The Street After
The dust settled.
Blood pooled.
Shattered rifles lay in crushed arcs across the ground.
And Kai—
breathing hard,
face splattered with red—
turned back toward the girl and boy she had slaughtered for.
Qin Mian stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.
Kai wiped her blade clean on her sleeve.
She sheathed it slowly.
Her voice was hoarse.
"You're safe."
Qin Mian hugged Yin Lie tighter.
"Kai…
you killed your own…"
Kai looked at her hands,
which trembled from adrenaline
or grief
or both.
"I know."
She met Qin Mian's eyes.
"And I'll kill anyone else
who tries to take him from you."
Qin Mian swallowed.
"You did this…
for us?"
Kai's smile was thin.
Sharp.
Broken.
"For him," she said.
"And for the girl who keeps him alive."
Her gaze softened—
for the first time in years.
"No matter what the Director says,
I'm not going to let either of you die."
Behind Qin Mian, Yin Lie stirred weakly,
his fingers curling around her shirt,
seeking her warmth
like a lost child seeking the sun.
Kai stepped closer—
then stopped.
Because Yin Lie's aura
flared in warning.
He sensed her.
Even unconscious.
Even half-aware.
Qin Mian stroked his hair.
"It's okay," she whispered.
"She's helping us."
Slowly—
slowly—
his aura dimmed again.
Kai exhaled.
A breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
Then she said the words
that would change everything:
"We have to leave this city.
Now.
Before the Directorate sends the real hunters."
Qin Mian looked up at her, terrified.
"Who… is the real hunters…?"
Kai's expression darkened.
"Not a squad.
Not a unit."
Her eyes shifted to the sky.
"The Director herself."
Chapter 115 End