The dust was settling. The S-Rank Hunters—Aegis-7, Velocity, and Conduit—were slowly getting to their feet, their bodies bruised, their armor dented, their pride shattered.
Jera stood apart from them, his back to the wall. The searing pain from the Disruptor bolt had subsided to a deep, agonizing throb. His S-Rank regeneration was working, knitting skin and muscle back together, but the process was agonizing. He was gritting his teeth, his entire body trembling with the effort.
"Jera... your back," Seraphina said, her voice a small, horrified whisper. She took a step toward him, her hand half-raised, as if to help.
"Don't," Jera snapped, his voice a low growl of pain. He flinched away from her, turning his ruined back toward the wall. He couldn't let them see him weak. Not now. The "Cain Walker" mask was his last defense, and it was barely holding on.
Aegis-7, the S-Rank tank, watched this. He saw the "monster" who had bent his shield wince like a man with a bad sunburn. He saw the "invader" hiding his pain.
"...Conduit," Aegis-7 said, his voice gruff.
"Sir?" Conduit stammered, still pale from his psychic possession.
"You shot him. Apologize."
"What? Sir, he—"
"Apologize," Aegis-7 commanded. "We were wrong. He saved our lives. Apologize."
Conduit looked at Jera's smoking back, then at the floor. "...Walker. Sir. I... I apologize. I was... following orders. I didn't... I didn't know."
Jera just nodded, his head down. He didn't have the energy to reply.
Aegis-7 unclipped the heavy, standard-issue Hunter Bureau tactical jacket from his own armor. He tossed it to Jera.
"Put that on," Aegis-7 grunted. "Your... 'rig'... is gone. You'll freeze on the surface. And... it'll cover the... y'know."
Jera looked at the jacket. It was a peace offering. A gesture of truce. He slowly, painfully, pulled the heavy canvas jacket on, hissing as the rough fabric slid over his half-healed, raw skin. It was too big, but it was something. It was armor.
"Alright," Aegis-7 said, clicking his comm, all business. "Commander Kane, we are allied with... 'Jera.' We are proceeding with Protocol: Aegis. We need extraction from this collapsed zone."
Kane's voice came back, thin and full of static. "...Negative, Aegis-7. The sky is... it's not safe. The Bleed is breaking out everywhere. We're detecting dozens of new, low-level 'Corrupted' signatures all over Chicago. The entire transport grid is down. You're on your own. Get to the St. Louis safe zone. That's your only priority."
Aegis-7 cursed, slamming his fist into the wall. "On our own. Fantastic." He looked at the mountain of rubble that was the Corrupted Queen and the ceiling. "Walker. You made this mess. Can you get us out?"
This, Jera understood. A simple, physical problem.
"Stand back," he said. He walked to the wall of the tunnel that led up, toward the surface. He braced himself, the movement pulling at his wounded back.
He didn't need a multiplier. He just needed his base.
He punched the ceiling. Not an explosive, vaporizing punch, but a controlled, upward shove.
THOOOM.
The sound was a deep, resonating boom. The concrete and rebar, five feet thick, simply... moved. A perfectly round, manhole-sized opening appeared, leading to the maintenance level above.
Velocity, the S-Rank speedster, just stared. "He... he just... punched us a new exit."
"Conduit, you're on point," Aegis-7 ordered, his professionalism taking over. "Velocity, you're on rearguard. I'll take the Oracle." He offered his arm to Seraphina. "Ma'am. Let's move."
Seraphina looked at Aegis-7, then at Jera. She ignored the S-Rank's arm and moved to stand beside Jera.
"I'm with him," she said, her voice small but firm.
Jera's heart did a strange, painful lurch. He looked down at her, this small, fragile woman who was, for some insane reason, choosing to stand next to the apocalypse-in-progress.
Aegis-7 just grunted. "Fine. Whatever. Let's just get out of this hellhole."
Jera went first, pushing the manhole cover aside. He emerged into a dark alley.
The first thing that hit him was the sound.
It was a city screaming.
Not just one person. The entire, collective population of Chicago. A high-pitched, wailing chorus of terror, mixed with the distant, warring sounds of car alarms and automatic gunfire.
He stepped out of the alley onto the street.
And he froze.
Elara Kane had said "chaos." This was not chaos. This was hell.
The sky was not black. It was a sick, swirling, purple-green, like a cosmic bruise. Small, oily-black cracks, just like the one he'd seen in the Blood Dungeon, were opening in the air, raining down the corrosive, black "Bleed" oil onto the streets.
Cars were on fire. People were running, covered in the black substance, their bodies corrupting, twisting, their faces contorted as they turned on their neighbors. Small, D-Rank "Blood Imps"—newly-formed monsters of pure, condensed Corruption—were boiling up from the sewer grates, pulling people down.
This was not a dungeon break.
This was a full-scale, dimensional invasion.
Jera stood on the sidewalk, his S-Rank escort team forming a defensive circle around him and Seraphina.
Aegis-7 raised his pistol and shot a half-corrupted man who was charging them. "Hostiles! Form up!"
Jera just... stared.
He saw a mother, trying to pull her child away from a small puddle of the black oil, only for the oil to lash out like a snake, grabbing the child's ankle.
He saw the city he had been sent to save, now being eaten... because of him.
"This..." Jera's voice was a choked whisper, his new jacket flapping in the toxic wind. "This is... my fault."
He had been so focused on his levels. On his power. On his anger.
He had never, not once, stopped to think about the cost.
He had punched a hole in the universe to save one person, and in doing so, he had murdered this city.
"Jera..." Seraphina said, her voice urgent. She grabbed his human, non-gloved hand. It was cold as ice. "Jera, you can't freeze! This isn't your fault! You didn't know!"
"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Jera roared, his voice a raw, human sound of pure agony. He ripped his hand from hers. "I did it! I was... I was angry... and... I broke the world!"
He looked at the chaos, at the screaming, dying people. The "Cain Walker" mask, the "Overlord" persona, it wasn't just a shield. It was the lie he had told himself. The lie that he was in control.
He was a failure. He was the same reckless, emotional idiot who had been betrayed in The Scrapyard. Only now, his failure wasn't just losing his job. It was this.
"Walker! Move!" Aegis-7 yelled, firing his sidearm into an approaching Imp. "We have to get to the airfield! We can't fight a whole city!"
Jera didn't move. He was locked in his own guilt, drowning.
"JERA!" Seraphina screamed. She slapped him.
A sharp, stinging slap across his face.
It was a pathetic gesture against his S-Rank skin. It didn't hurt.
But it shocked him.
He turned, his eyes wide, looking at her.
She was crying, her face streaked with soot. "This... this is not you," she said, her voice fierce. "The man who saved me... he wasn't a failure. He was a choice. You chose to save me. Now... choose to save them!"
She pointed at the city.
At the chaos.
At the apocalypse he had started.
Her words cut through the guilt.
Choose.
Jera looked at the burning city. He looked at the S-Ranks, now struggling to hold a perimeter. He looked at Seraphina, the Oracle who believed in him.
His guilt was a luxury. His panic was a weakness.
He had no time to be Jera Murphy, the victim.
He had to be Cain Walker, the weapon.
"Aegis," Jera's voice was suddenly cold. It was the old, flat, digital-sounding voice. The mask was back, but this time, it was not a lie. It was a choice. It was a tool. "What's the plan?"
Aegis-7 looked at him, surprised by the sudden shift. "Plan? The plan is to survive! Get to the Bureau airfield, steal a fast transport, and get to St. Louis!"
"A bad plan," Jera said. "It's too slow. And you're drawing too much attention."
He pointed to the sky, at a massive, new crack that was tearing open, the purple-green light pulsing. "That's the source. That's where the Bleed is strongest."
"That's an S-Rank rift, Walker!" Velocity yelled. "We can't fight that! Not without the Ascended!"
"You're right," Jera said. He looked at the S-Ranks. "Give me your weapons."
Aegis-7 stared at him. "...What?"
"Give. Me. Your. Weapons," Jera commanded. "Your daggers, your cannon, your sidearms. All of it. The Bleed may be immune to my mana... but physics is not."
He held out his hand. He had a new, terrible, brilliant idea.
He was a walking railgun.
And he was about to reload.