"Ismael, I'm not your enemy!"
"You are on my way, and according to my new standards, that is more than enough."
"We are all on the same side, I could have...I could have helped you inside."
"I think I'll do just fine, thank you."
"Ismael, what happened to you?"
"What happened to me?" He asked, visibly disrespected. "What happened is that all these useless fucks who couldn't do shit or didn't want to try to kill Helios, relied on me. ME. I had to torture myself, body mind and soul, to find a way to get past the Structure. They think they own me. They think they deserve to stay with me and to find the truth of Perseus when they didn't even deserve to leave the Structure in the first place. What happened is thatbI hate them all for that, but now, now, they want me to settle and relax, to stop being who I am. And it's insulting, Grid. It is insulting."
"I've never said anything like that and you tried to kill me."
"Just making sure you stay behind."
"I didn't touch any circle, Ismael. I'm dying, I'm losing my blood, I..."
"See? If you can't survive me, how could you survive the Dead Zone? Crawl back to the university and beg for help there you sad sack of shit."
Ismael continued alone, and every lieform he saw he shot. There were humans in this wierd mixture of steel and leaves until the path cleared to a narrow way made by two metal walls.
Ismael moved forward and at the end, some more leaves almost barring the route. Further, he encountered a woman but did not interact, instead, made himself as discreet as humanly possible, hiding his presence from anything and everything.
"As soon as possible I'm taking her down. But any intel I can get from her about the Dead Zone is valuable. I...I think I know her? Nicole? The dead girl I duped. Well, she read me quickly. And someone else is here. She seems to be staring at him. That's..."
Ismael looked, from behind the short white wall, and in a fast movement indicating his fear, he hid in the grass on the inclined plateform.
"The Bringer? The Nephilim who took Ambroise Ler and Geulsang Zhao? Is that why it's called the Dead Zone? Because the Nephs are constantly overlooking the area? Is it at all time? That's insane. What took us to kill Helios could take centuries to just wound this one. I can feel it, he's got a combativity and strength that bypass any technique or strategy. If I really want to keep on going in Perseus as a whole, I'll have to hide from this monstruosity."
Time passed, he heard them talking for what felt like thirty minutes, then nothing. Ismael heard a resonating blow, a skull being broken, opened in full force. He waited close to five minutes before moving again and jumped down from the grass plateform.
"He crashed her head on the wall. There's nothing left. With this, maybe, I can..."
With the blood of Nicole, he was able to draw the circle of the Structure by memory only, and perfectly. By sacrificing the dead body and the brand of Yael on his right hand, he managed to create a perfect checkpoint spot.
"With this if I die, I won't come back to the Structure. I'm prepared for anything. Plus...let's be honest, if the others gang up on me and decide to go after me, they will come here and see the circle. They'll try to mess it all up, so I had to sacrify also the brand of Yael to punish and kill anybody that's touching it. With this rule implemanted, I'm safe. For now. I could also set up some traps to kill them if they come here. The narrow passage could be perfect for that. I'm actually surprised no one did this before me."
Moving forward, Ismael walked slowly like a special forces member, his weapon in his hands, finger on the trigger, ready to shoot anything that moves. The path led to the right, then to the left, and a large black metal door was presented before him at the center of the wall.
Suddenly he realized he had not checked his six for a while and looked behind his back, to see nothing. But his sharp instinct was telling him that he was being watched.
And so, slowly, the man stepped to the door and opened it. The longer it took to open it, the more anxious he gotten. So the weapon was holding by his neck behind his head and used both his hands to hold it, open and close it.
Inside, pitch black darkness, so he crouched and waited, focusing all of his vision in front of him to adapt his eyes to the penumbra.
Steps, first far away, then closing in, ever so loudly, ever so quickly.
Ismael yielded and shot on full auto at the target, and a cracked body fell on him, completely out of organs.
"How was she running at all? I'm sacrificing it."
In silence, he sacrificed the body to understand what it was, and his soul responded: human.
"I mean even so, what does that? Oh, him. The Bringer. His white eyes in the darkness. But I have a feeling that he feeds on fear, and that this is how he manages to stay on top. I'm afraid of him but I know a clear zero point one percent Nephilim blood runs in my veins, and I'm able to perceive his presence at this rate. He's there. And the second I see him, I shoot. Even my bullets exist by sacrifice only."
Ismael once again lost his composure and screamed at the emptiness around him.
"Fight me, Bringer! Come to me! I am of the Nephilim too! You will never touch me!"
"I will."
The voice was dry, it was what we could imagine a tree would sound like if it had a raspy throat.
"Bringer, I could shoot you right now and not skip a beat."
"Nephilims don't attack each others."
"No, but I do."
"You wouldn't. Nara wouldn't like that."
"So lead the way."