109 ORDER IS SERVED
Rewind's power could fold time itself, splitting it into individual frames.
If she missed a strike, she simply rewound to the frame before the miss and struck again—correcting her mistake, becoming faster, more focused, more furious with every iteration.
The Order of the Cockerel had a name for this kind of meta-skill: Rewind.
According to Damen, it was called cheating.
Damen swore under his breath. "Why haven't I heard of this damn cheat skill before?"
"Because it's special to our cell," Rewind IX replied, stepping forward to finish the job. "We wouldn't be top assassins without a surprise like this."
Her eyes burned.
"Now die."
She struck again.
Damen twisted aside—barely—evading the blade.
But time snapped back to the moment before. The moment rewound. The strike corrected mid-arc, and steel tore into his other shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the ground.
"Damn. This isn't good," Damen thought, staggering back. "With a skill like that, no matter how fast I am, she'll always course-correct to hit me."
"Think, Damen. Think."
The next strike came.
Damen retaliated with Momentum Collapse, compressing kinetic force into a single, devastating blast.
Before it could detonate, Rewind flickered—time reversed—and she avoided the attack entirely. She reappeared behind him, her blade slicing across his back.
"You're strong, boy," she said, blade dripping with blood. "But there's no escaping a true assassin of time."
Even Damen's fusion skills were useless if Rewind IX could undo every mistake…. She was bound to kill him eventually.
"You're not an assassin of time," Damen snarled. "You're an assassin of cheats."
Damen was soaked in blood. Fortunately, his blue blood was already healing him—but not fast enough.
A few more cuts and he'd bleed out.
He gritted his teeth.
It was time to use his final trump card.
"Drain…"
He tried to trigger the mining app through Vision Connect, but the Drain icon refused to appear.
The Conditions were not met. Damen remembered last time he used Drain on Ivory…. He was badly wounded. That could be the missing ingredient here.
"Damnit, I barely hurt the cheat and therefore couldn't Drain from her… and if I can't Drain, what else can I do?"
Rewind lunged again, aiming straight for his heart.
Damen threw out both arms and unleashed a sonic burst. The wave smashed into her, hurling her backward—but she flickered, rewound the second before impact, and appeared in front of him again, her blade sinking into his chest.
"Damnit! The bloody rewind even dodges sound!"
Pain burned through him. Rewind laughed, while circling and teasing him.
"I've killed metas far stronger than you—some with even flashier skills. You're nothing special. You'll die here."
Damen's breath came ragged. "Then there's only one thing left to do."
He turned and dashed into the nearest derelict building, vanishing into shadow.
"You can't hide," Rewind called after him. "Just give up."
She stepped inside the dark building carefully, her blade raised. The interior was half-collapsed, shafts of light cutting through holes in the ceiling. Damen stood motionless in the center, blood dripping from his fingers.
"Found you…", she muttered before she moved in for the kill.
A blinding sonic detonation exploded outward—not at her, but upward.
The shockwave shattered the cracked ceiling as concrete and steel rained down.
Rewind instantly rewound to a few seconds before—but when time snapped forward again, she was still buried under falling rubble.
"You tricky bastard!" she shouted. "Now we're both trapped under this rubble?"
"That's right," Damen said, coughing under the dust. "Try rewinding again—no matter how far back you go, the rubble still falls on you."
Damen timed Rewind's movement. He made sure that she was close enough to him before he detonated his soundwave ability causing the roof to collapse all around him.
He also made sure that when Rewind returned to her last framed position, no matter where she went, she was still caught under the debris.
"Do you think this can stop me?" she snarled, straining to shove debris aside.
Damen lunged, grabbing her leg. Instinct made her rewind again—but each time she did, the structure collapsed the same way, the rubble resetting around her.
The time loop couldn't set her free this time.
"Damn you, boy! You've trapped me in here with you," she cried.
Damen crawled closer, seizing her ankle once more.
"What do you think you're doing?" Rewind hissed.
This time she didn't rewind. Perhaps she thought resisting was useless or she no longer had enough Command power to continue rewinding her actions.
"Finally," Damen said, his palms flaring with meta energy.
He unleashed everything he had left. Electricity burst from his hands, coursing through her body.
"Zzzzzzzzappp—!" "Electrocution."
Rewind convulsed, her metal mask sparking, her muscles locked in place. For a brief moment, she was frozen by the electrocution.
And then Damen saw it—the Drain button reappearing on his Vision Connect.
He smiled through bloodied lips. "I was correct. This function only works when the target's weak or immobilized. The function couldn't be used to defeat an opponent… its meant to mop up the reward after the battle is won."
He pressed Drain.
"Arrgghh—what are you doing to me?" Rewind screamed as her form began to unravel into streams of blue meta-particles.
Her powers dissolved completely, the particles spiraling into him, absorbed by his cursed blood.
"Thanks for becoming my food," Damen said quietly. "You'll make good nutrition."
Shawn Zetheris paid for a meal and the Order of Cockerel really delivered the meal to Damen in the form of Rewind IX- how ironic events turned out.
When it was over, the alley was silent again—only the hiss of settling dust and the smell of ozone.
"Damnit," Damen muttered, sinking to the floor relieved. "It's finally over."
He collapsed amid the rubble, unconscious but alive, the faint blue glow of his veins pulsing in the dark.
-----
When Damen woke up, sunlight filtered through the cracks of the collapsed building.
Dust motes drifted in the golden light like tiny spirits. He shoved the rubble off his chest, coughing as he pushed himself upright.
His body ached, but it was the good kind of ache — the kind that came after surviving something he shouldn't have. He flexed his arms and felt the power pulsing through him, stronger, heavier, more alive.
His wounds were gone.
He brushed the dust from his coat and looked around. The ruins were silent now, save for the faint chime of bells ringing somewhere far off.
Ring… Ring.
He followed the sound through winding streets until he reached a solid building—a church, tall and white despite the grime of the slums. Its bell tower rose above the broken roofs like a promise.
He stepped inside.
Warm air greeted him, along with the low murmurs of prayer. Despite his ragged clothes and bloodstained sleeves, no one turned him away. The deacons even smiled, gesturing for him to sit.
For the first time in a long while, Damen felt… equal.
There were no stares. No judgment. No suspicion.
Only silence, and light filtering through stained glass.
The feeling was calming. Serene.
"No wonder the poor would die for religion," he murmured.
He sank into one of the benches and glanced around. A pamphlet lay on the seat beside him.
The Church of Rejuvenation.
"Wait," he muttered. "Isn't this the same church Lander's been investigating?"
The thought had barely settled when his heart skipped. His gaze locked onto a figure near the altar—someone he never expected to see here.
His jaw tightened.
"Damn it," he whispered. "Why is Sienna here?"
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