Chapter 22
By the fourth month, stronghold city in Kamaran no longer reacted to rifts.
It anticipated them.
That distinction mattered.
Prediction algorithms ran twenty-four hours ahead, feeding probability trees into Nexus Tech's newly established Rift Operations Branch at many locations allover the world, and one of them was at Alexa current work and adoptive country, moving away now and move to Korea, didn't cross her mind, and beside were will she go, her biological mother has her own life now, she never once reach out to call her even when Alexa grandparents passed away .
and her newly renovated apartment was finally done , but she hasn't decided to go back, living with Magnus felt home and she was comfortable for a very weird reason, Magnus never entered her space without being invited, she finds his thinking a bit old fashion but she really liked it.t heir work schedule were different even before the tower trials landed in the middle of the pacific ocean.
The newly created role existed by direct instruction of Chairwoman Deng Mei-ling. As the primary corporation tasked with assisting the stronghold, now transformed into the main operational city that supported those assigned to clear the rifts, the company had been forced to adapt quickly. What had once been a temporary emergency response evolved into a permanent structure. The department Alexa now belonged to was not born from vision or ambition, but from necessity. And like every industry forged in crisis, it carried strain, imbalance, and consequences that no predictive model could fully account for.
Alexa felt it the moment she stepped onto the operations floor for the twenty-seventh time. It still felt new to her, unfamiliar in ways that went beyond orientation or routine. At the beginning, there had been only five of them, an improvised team working long hours in a borrowed space, reacting rather than planning. Now, the department had grown to nearly two dozen personnel, screens lining the walls, data flowing constantly, voices overlapping in controlled urgency. The expansion was efficient, but not gentle. Every added station carried the weight of another crisis, another rift, another reminder that this was no longer a temporary measure, it was the new normal.
The space had been retrofitted from what used to be a data analytics wing, long glass panels replaced with reinforced composites, server stacks now interwoven with rift-monitoring arrays, and holographic boards displaying live anomaly metrics instead of market trends. Dozens of personnel moved with practiced urgency, voices low, eyes trained on shifting energy signatures and casualty ratios.
She was no longer just coordinating communications.
She was learning how to manage instability.
Officially, Alexa held the rank of Junior Operations Liaison, a deliberately modest title for a role that now placed her at the intersection of data flow, Cleaner deployment requests, and real-time rift escalation alerts. She answered to senior directors, but her console fed directly into Kamaran's field command and Nexus' internal decision core.
It was overwhelming.
And worse, it was understaffed.
"Another priority escalation," someone muttered behind her.
Alexa glanced up as the board updated: Cleaner Demand Index , +18% in the last seventy-two hours.
That number hadn't gone down in weeks.
The problem was simple in theory and brutal in practice: rifts were increasing in frequency and complexity faster than trained Cleaners could be produced. Awakening was unpredictable. Training was dangerous. Attrition, while officially labeled "non-fatal rotation loss" was quietly rising.
Cleaners were becoming essential.
And essential roles warped societies.
Outside, agencies established by governments across the planet to manage recruitment and training overflowed with applicants. People came in droves, drawn by fear, by ambition, or by the simple instinct to survive. Many were ordinary, unremarkable, carrying weak or latent abilities, but their presence alone underscored the anxiety gripping humanity.
A smaller, far more dangerous group came for different reasons. Awakening had changed them: enhanced strength, sharpened perception, minor elemental control, reflexes that bordered on precognition. For them, the rifts were not just a threat, they were opportunity. They offered legitimacy, purpose, and power that the ordinary world could never grant. The rifts had become a proving ground, and these individuals were eager to stake their claim.
But not everyone could become a Cleaner. Not everyone possessed the skill, the discipline, or the resilience required to step into the field and face the rifts without succumbing. And not everyone accepted that fact. Some argued, some rebelled, some lingered in the shadows, seething with resentment. For every success, there were whispers of frustration, envy, and defiance, a reminder that human ambition, once awakened, could be as chaotic and uncontrollable as the very rifts they were meant to contain.
Alexa saw the social fractures in the data before she ever witnessed them in person:– Civilian unrest near exclusion zones– Labor shortages in non-awakened sectors– Increased black-market trade in illicit awakening tech– Rising resentment toward Cleaners receiving priority housing, medical access, and compensation
Humanity was adapting, but unevenly.
That imbalance was the problem Nexus had not anticipated fast enough.
During the afternoon briefing, Alexa flagged it.
"We're prioritizing rift containment," she said, steady but firm, "but the social load is starting to crack secondary systems. We're pulling too many candidates from logistics, engineering, even healthcare. The cities outside what we could see beyond our own world, are compensating, but barely."
A senior director frowned. "Containment comes first."
"I agree," Alexa replied. "But if we don't stabilize support sectors, containment efficiency drops in six to eight months. Burnout isn't just a Cleaner issue."
The room went quiet.
She was the youngest voice there.
But the data supported her.
Later that evening, she found Magnus in the upper atrium of the Nexus Tech main building, a space few employees ever entered without clearance, and one he walked through without hesitation. No scanners stopped him. No access gates denied him. Security personnel nodded reflexively, then second-guessed themselves after he passed.
Rumors followed him like static.
Some said he was an original architect. Others claimed silent shareholder status. A few whispered stranger things, that Nexus answered to him, not the other way around.
None of it was confirmed.
Magnus stood near the glass wall overlooking the city, the skyline fractured by the glow of emergency lights and the constant hum of activity. This was where he often met Alexa, and today was no different. His hands rested loosely at his sides, his eyes unfocused in that way she had learned to recognize, he was observing far more than what was visible, cataloging, analyzing, and taking in details most people would overlook.
Alexa couldn't help but be drawn to him. There was something quietly magnetic about Magnus, a mysterious aura she couldn't define. He was silent, yet his presence spoke volumes. Charming in a way that felt deliberate but effortless, he carried himself like an old-fashioned romantic, thoughtful, deliberate, and unhurried.
Even the way he spoke, measured and precise, left a lingering impression; his words and actions were never frivolous, but meaningful, resonating long after he said them. Unlike other men, with their predictable chatter and clichés that she found dull, Magnus was different. He didn't rush, didn't fill silence with unnecessary noise, and his mind seemed to operate on a rhythm entirely his own.
Appearance and background had never mattered to her, yet Magnus still made her heart flutter. Seeing his face, or glimpses of him half-dressed during moments of intimacy, was enough to make her blush, a reaction she could neither hide nor control. Despite knowing him well, despite the quiet confidence and control he always maintained, he still had the power to make her feel vulnerable in the best way, reminding her that beneath his calm and calculated exterior, there was a depth she could never fully predict, and a presence she could never ignore.
"You're thinking too linearly," he said, without turning.
Alexa exhaled, running a hand through her hair. "We're running out of people."
"No," Magnus replied calmly, his hand brushing hers as he stepped closer. "You're running out of roles that people believe are worth living in."
She frowned, stepping to the edge of the balcony beside him. The cool night air brushed her skin, and she felt the faint warmth radiating from his side. "Cleaners are becoming symbols. Necessary ones, but it's creating division."
"Yes," he said, letting his hand rest lightly against her lower back, guiding her subtly closer without forcing it. "Because power always does."
She studied him, brushing her fingers along his forearm. "You knew this would happen."
"I knew it was inevitable," Magnus corrected, tilting his head to glance at her. "Rifts don't just alter physics. They expose hierarchies. Those who can fight the impossible will always be seen differently than those who support them."
"Then how do we fix it?" she asked quietly, resting her palm against his chest. She could feel the calm, steady beat of his heart beneath her fingers.
Magnus finally looked down at her, his eyes catching the dim light. "You don't reduce demand," he said, tightening his hold on her hand and letting his thumb brush across her knuckles. "You redistribute meaning."
He explained it simply: expand rift response beyond Cleaners. Formalize auxiliary roles—civilian stabilization units, rift-adjacent logistics corps, anomaly analysts, recovery engineers. Give non-awakened individuals ownership in survival, not just proximity to danger.
"People don't resent strength," Magnus said, letting his forehead brush hers lightly. "They resent irrelevance."
The next day, Alexa proposed the framework.
It wasn't radical. That was its strength.
Within weeks, Nexus Tech began restructuring rift operations into layered response systems. Cleaners remained frontline, but now they were supported by trained civilian units with defined authority, progression, and recognition. Not heroes. Professionals.
Demand stabilized.
Not because rifts slowed, but because society adjusted.
Later that night, Alexa leaned against the balcony railing, exhausted yet strangely lighter. Magnus stepped closer, sliding an arm around her waist, drawing her gently against him. His presence was grounding, comforting, but in a way that reminded her he was always aware, always calculating.
"I… I don't know what I'd do without you," she murmured, letting her head rest against his shoulder.
"You don't have to," Magnus replied, pressing a soft kiss to her temple, then tilting her chin up so their eyes met. "I've got you."
She smiled, closing her eyes and letting him adjust his hold, fingers tracing soothing patterns along her back. Even in the tenderness, there was vigilance behind his gaze, a silent awareness of everything around them. He already knew.
Those connected to her past, the loan sharks, her ex-boyfriend, had been drawn into Cleaner operations. They were no longer idle threats; they were trained, empowered, and quietly waiting to settle old scores. Some might perceive Alexa as an easy target, even though she had done little of note, but Magnus was aware. Always aware. And while she found comfort in his arms, she didn't have to fear.
He pulled her closer, their foreheads touching, her hands resting on his chest as his lips brushed the top of her hair again.
They had adjusted. Together.
And in that moment, despite fatigue, tension, and invisible threats lurking just beyond sight, Alexa felt something rare and unshakable: safe, seen, and profoundly understood.
Magnus pulled Alexa into a warm hug, his arms snug around her shoulders as she melted against his chest. She let out a small sigh, the tension of the day slipping away in the safety of his embrace.
"You know," he murmured into her hair, his voice low and teasing, "if you keep solving the world's problems this fast, I might have to start calling you 'Captain Save-Everyone.'"
Alexa laughed, a sound that felt bright against the quiet hum of the city below. "Oh, so you're admitting I'm better than you now?" she teased, tilting her head up to meet his smirk.
Magnus chuckled softly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Better? Maybe. But I'll always be better at keeping you out of trouble… most of the time."
She giggled again, the sound mixing with the night air. For a moment, they stayed like that, wrapped in each other, laughter and warmth cutting through the lingering fatigue. Even with the threats that hovered beyond their awareness, the world's chaos and the weight of responsibility, here, in his arms, everything felt lighter, almost normal.
Magnus tightened the hug slightly, his hand brushing hers. "You laugh like that," he said softly, "and suddenly the universe doesn't feel quite so overwhelming."
Alexa rested her head against his chest, smiling. "Good. Because with you around, I think I can handle whatever comes next."
Alexa's phone buzzed against the railing. It was her team leader. Her break was over. The soft glow of the city below faded as reality tugged her back in, her work shift was now longer, more erratic, and unpredictable. She felt a twinge of fatigue ripple through her muscles, but there was no time to dwell.
She thought back to when she first joined the team. Back then, she had never imagined that her skills in gathering and analyzing data would propel her into this kind of role. She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't a licensed Cleaner. Her awakened healing powers were modest at best, her combat assessment too low to qualify for frontline work. Yet somehow, the government's ever-shifting priorities had placed her here, in a position where every decision and observation could affect the lives of those on the field.
The pay was generous, a reminder that her work was valued, but it came with a cost. Exhaustion was constant, and the stakes were relentless. The government drafted those with abilities according to the situation, sometimes pulling civilians into operations without warning, sometimes elevating those like Alexa into roles they had never envisioned for themselves. Every day felt like a balance between survival and responsibility, between fear and purpose.
Alexa braced herself and answered the call, the weight of the shift settling across her shoulders. She couldn't predict what the day would bring, nor the dangers it might expose. But she knew one thing, she had no choice but to step forward, to do her part, and to keep moving in a world that refused to stand still.
Alexa stepped onto the operations floor, the hum of servers and the low chatter of her team greeting her ears like a constant pulse. It was still night, and the glow of city lights outside mixed with the cold, artificial brightness of screens lining every wall. She rubbed her eyes and muttered under her breath, long hours were becoming the norm, and it felt like sleep had become a distant memory.
Her station was in the west monitoring room, one of the few specialized locations tasked with observing rifts forming along the perimeters of ten densely populated city sectors. The west side had been selected for a reason: it served as the primary entry point for major population zones, and its geology made it exceptionally sensitive to early anomalies. Any rift appearing there could jeopardize critical infrastructure, traffic hubs, and tightly packed residential areas long before emergency response teams had the chance to intervene.
For that reason, the room was outfitted with enhanced surveillance systems, multiple fail-safes, and redundant communication lines, making it one of the nerve centers of the city's rift monitoring network, where a single alert could set off a cascade of coordinated responses across the city.
"Morning, or… night?" muttered Li, one of the newer analysts, as Alexa settled into her chair. He gave her a tired smile.
"Night," she replied dryly, tapping her screen. "And it's about to get longer."
The team around her was small but efficient: a mix of seasoned analysts and freshly recruited civilians, each responsible for scanning anomalies, logging shifts, and relaying updates to field teams. Alexa navigated the dashboards, confirming sensor arrays and scanning the energy readouts from the city's outer grid. Her healing abilities might be limited, her combat rating low, but she had a knack for spotting inconsistencies, a skill that had saved her team more than once.
Then, the alarms went off. Not a single one, but five simultaneous alerts, pulsing in bright red across the central console. Two of them were dangerously close, one within the northern industrial sector, the other almost directly above the city center.
"Five new rifts just opened," Alexa said, voice tight, as she scrolled through the sensor feeds. "Two of them are… here. In the city."
The team froze for a moment, then began typing and coordinating rapidly.
But something else caught her eye, the previously monitored rifts, the ones that had been active for weeks, had abruptly gone offline. Their data streams had closed, as if the Tower of Trial itself had recalibrated its schedule. A subtle, almost imperceptible pattern suggested external intervention. Something, or someone, was orchestrating the rift activity, adjusting it in real-time.
Magnus's voice, soft and steady, came through her earpiece, not a command, but a presence she could feel. "Stay calm," he said. "Focus on containment protocols. I'm watching the network."
Alexa felt her shoulders relax slightly, though the tension in the room remained thick. She directed her team, assigning tracking points, rerouting field units, and issuing preliminary evacuation protocols for areas near the new rifts. Her hands moved quickly over the interface, overlaying predictive models even as her mind raced, five simultaneous rifts, two within the city, and a possible pattern she couldn't yet decode.
Even in the chaos, she noticed Magnus's subtle touch on the network from his own station elsewhere: rerouting bandwidth, prioritizing critical alerts, silently watching over her without interfering. She allowed herself a small, private smile. It was strange, comforting, that in the midst of escalating chaos, someone was always there, aware, ready.
Hours passed, the floor buzzing with activity. Alexa's break disappeared, swallowed by the urgency of the night, but she pressed on, guiding her team with precision. The rifts' energy signatures fluctuated violently, testing the sensors, but they held. And through it all, the quiet knowledge that Magnus was monitoring her, combined with the adrenaline of the unfolding situation, gave her a strange clarity.
By the time the first hints of dawn began to wash the west-side monitoring room in pale light, the immediate threat had been stabilized. Not resolved, far from it, but for now, the rifts were contained, and the city's grid, population zones, and field teams had survived another night.
Alexa leaned back in her chair, exhausted but alert. The Tower's adjustments, the new rifts, and Magnus's silent presence reminded her: survival wasn't about strength alone. It was about precision, coordination, and trust.
And tonight, all three had been tested.
The room was quiet for only a moment before the next wave of alerts pinged across the consoles. Alexa rubbed her temples, trying to keep her focus steady. "We need field units deployed to Rifts Three and Five immediately," she instructed, voice clipped but calm. "Evacuation corridors are compromised; prioritize civilian stabilization units first."
Her team moved like clockwork, fingers flying across keyboards, eyes darting between data streams and live camera feeds. She noted the names of each unit, tracking their locations as if she could somehow guide them personally through the chaos. For a moment, she imagined herself in the field, a Cleaner like the ones she monitored, but her own abilities were too limited, her combat rating too low. This was her front line: coordination, prediction, and oversight.
"Rift Four is fluctuating," Li called out, pointing at the holographic overlay. The anomaly's energy spikes were irregular, almost pulsing with intent. "It's, wait, it's moving closer to the north residential cluster."
Alexa's fingers flew. "Redirect Units Delta and Sigma. Update the containment fields. Keep civilians out of range. I don't want anyone in the critical zone until it stabilizes." Her voice carried over the chatter, steadying her team like a metronome.
Through it all, Magnus remained a quiet presence in her mind. Not physically, not hovering, but always there. He hadn't spoken again since the first instructions, but she felt him—watching, rerouting network load, prioritizing signals, keeping the system from collapsing under the sudden surge. She allowed herself a brief, private thought: He's always here. Always.
Minutes stretched into hours. The team had adapted to the new rifts, but the suddenness of their appearance left everyone tense. Alexa's exhaustion was creeping in, her eyes stinging from screen glare, but she refused to falter. One of the new rifts pulsed closer to the western residential sector the area she and her team were tasked with protecting.
Her stomach tightened. "Unit Gamma, evacuate all personnel from Sector Seven," she ordered, quickly overlaying predictive maps with sensor input. "Containment fields at full power. No deviation. Repeat, no deviation."
Li glanced at her, concern flickering across his face. "Are you… okay?"
Alexa allowed herself a brief, tired smile. "I'm fine. Just… focus."
A quiet hum of acknowledgment filled the room as the team adjusted their protocols. The sensors confirmed containment fields activating around Rift Two and Four, isolating the energy surges. Two rifts had already stabilized, temporarily, but the other three continued to pulse with unpredictable energy.
And then she saw it. On one of the city-wide feeds, a faint figure moved along a rooftop, watching the evacuated zones, careful but deliberate. Someone, or something, was monitoring the rifts from the city itself.
Alexa froze for a heartbeat, the hair on her arms standing on end. Magnus's voice, calm as ever, whispered in her earpiece: "Not everyone in the city is neutral. Stay sharp. Trust your team. Trust yourself."
Her fingers tightened on the controls, overlaying tracking grids on the figure's position while continuing to manage the rift responses. Even in her exhaustion, adrenaline surged, a mix of fear and clarity. Magnus was silent, watching, ready, but this time, the threat wasn't just rifts. It was something, or someone, within the city itself.
And for the first time tonight, Alexa realized: her role had never been about being strong enough to fight. It was about being precise, being smart, being aware. And that was enough, if she trusted herself, and the quiet presence keeping watch over her.
Suddenly, an alert flashed across Alexa's console, sharper and louder than any of the others. She froze, eyes widening. Another rift had opened, this time, just outside the building.
Her stomach tightened as she analyzed the energy signature. Dormant rifts usually glowed a calm blue, but this one burned crimson. Active. Already active. And huge, roughly three meters tall and three meters wide, its jagged edges pulsating with volatile energy.
"Rift Nine," she whispered, the words barely escaping her lips. "It's… right outside."
The team scrambled, fingers flying across keyboards as the alarm blared through the west monitoring room. Alexa overlaid the live feed with sensor data, her heart hammering. Small rifts that had appeared around the world in the past few days had been deadly enough. A mere half-meter rift had unleashed low-level creatures that killed ten thousand people in hours.
But this—this was unprecedented. A rift this size, in the parking lot of Nexus Tech itself, was a direct threat not just to infrastructure, but to everyone nearby.
"Activate all emergency protocols!" Alexa barked, her voice cutting through the panic. "Security, evacuate the parking lot! Civilian units, block all access! Containment fields at maximum!"
Outside, alarms from the city itself joined the cacophony. Police and government personnel rushed to respond, sirens blaring and vehicles streaming toward the area. Alexa quickly overlaid evacuation paths onto the building's security feed. The parking lot was a mix of high-end vehicles and wealthy civilians, people accustomed to ignoring the world beyond their comfort. Now, fear replaced complacency.
"Containment drones?" she called to her team. "Deploy immediately. No one in the blast radius!"
Even as her commands shot across the network, she could feel Magnus' presence through her earpiece, a quiet reassurance, his fingers subtly rerouting bandwidth, prioritizing alerts, and ensuring nothing critical was delayed.
"This is… bad," Li muttered, scanning the live camera feeds. "Look at the size of that thing… it's… it's massive."
Alexa clenched her jaw, overriding the initial panic rising in her chest. She had trained for emergencies, for anomalies, for rifts, but the scale of this one made every previous scenario feel like practice. She traced containment grids around the crimson energy, coordinating with field units on-site.
"This area has to be cleared in ten minutes," Mara Jones ordered. "Everyone out. No exceptions. Field units, engage only if absolutely necessary. Don't… don't provoke it."
The words barely settled before the rift reacted.
The crimson membrane convulsed violently, stretching outward like a wound being forced open from the inside. Its edges fractured with a sound like wet stone tearing apart. Heat levels spiked so sharply that several sensors overloaded at once. Alarms howled as thermal readings punched through every known ceiling.
Then something stepped through.
Not fell.Not spilled.
Stepped.
The creature emerged with deliberate weight, as if gravity itself hesitated before accepting it. Humanoid in outline only, it stood just over six feet tall, yet its mass was grotesque—nearly five hundred kilos of dense, compact muscle settling onto the asphalt with a force that cracked the pavement beneath its knuckles.
Four arms unfolded from its torso. Two in familiar human placement, the lower pair thicker, heavier, built for leverage and tearing. Each limb ended in elongated claws, narrow and tapered like ritual daggers, catching the emergency lights with a dull, predatory gleam.
It had no eyes.
Its face was smooth and featureless, broken only by a shallow indentation where a mouth should have been. Yet its head turned precisely, locking onto movement the instant civilians fled into the street.
"It's tracking thermal output," one analyst whispered, voice shaking. "Heat and motion. That's how it sees."
The creature dropped forward onto its arms, posture shifting—less human, more animal. Its spine flexed, shoulders rolling as it moved like a gorilla stripped of restraint.
When it advanced, it didn't hesitate.
It launched.
One bound carried it across the parking lot in seconds. Its claws punched through the side of a luxury sedan as if the metal were paper. A man screamed—cut off abruptly as the creature dragged him back in a spray of blood and shattered glass.
Police units opened fire.
Rifles barked. Sidearms cracked. Rounds struck the creature's torso and limbs, but the impacts barely slowed it. The bullets sank into its pale, vine-laced flesh, leaving shallow craters that sealed almost immediately.
"Rounds ineffective!" a police captain shouted over the open channel. "It's not slowing—!"
The creature surged forward and slammed into the police line. One officer was crushed against a patrol car. Another was torn from his feet and thrown bodily into a storefront window, disappearing in a cascade of glass.
SWAT units moved in next, disciplined, coordinated. Flashbangs detonated, light and sound erupting across the parking structure. For half a second, the creature staggered.
Then it adapted.
It turned sharply, tracking the heat bloom of the explosives, and charged. Two SWAT operators went down before they could retreat, one crushed beneath its weight, another impaled cleanly through the chest.
Licensed Cleaners arrived moments later, three of them, already awakened and armed with sanctioned gear. They engaged without hesitation, abilities flaring: kinetic barriers, energy strikes, reinforced melee weapons.
They managed to slow it.
They did not stop it.
Then the rift pulsed again.
Alexa's blood ran cold as new signatures appeared on her screen.
"Multiple exits," she said sharply. "No, this isn't a secondary wave. It's"
The rift widened.
One creature became three.
Then five.
Then ten.
They stepped through in rapid succession, each one identical in form and mass, moving with coordinated intent. Within seconds, the count climbed, twenty… thirty…
"Fifty," Li whispered hoarsely. "Fifty confirmed entities."
An army.
They spread out immediately, not clustering, not panicking. Some charged into nearby malls and hotels, tearing through glass facades and collapsing entryways. Others scaled buildings with brutal efficiency, claws biting into concrete and steel.
Several turned toward the largest heat concentration of all.
The Nexus Tech building.
"No," Alexa breathed. "They're vectoring toward us."
Inside the west monitoring room, the team froze as exterior feeds showed the first creatures breaching the lower floors. Security barriers failed within seconds. Screams flooded internal channels as office workers tried to evacuate.
"Mara, they're inside the building," Alexa said. "Lower levels compromised."
Mara Jones swallowed hard, fingers gripping her tablet. She wasn't brave. She wasn't decisive under fire. But she did what she always did, she followed procedure.
"Lockdown protocols," she said, voice tight but controlled. "Seal nonessential floors. Reroute survivors upward. Security teams, delay only, do not engage alone."
Licensed Cleaners already in the building fought desperately, buying seconds at a time. Some succeeded.
Some didn't.
Feeds cut out one by one.
Alexa's hands flew over her console, redirecting survivors, overriding elevators, opening emergency stairwells. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest.
And somewhere else in the building, Magnus was already moving.
She didn't hear his voice this time.
She didn't need to.
The network shifted subtly, bandwidth cleared, priority routes opened, predictive overlays adjusting faster than the system should have allowed. It was his silent presence, unmistakable.
Watching.Calculating.Preparing.
Outside, the Tower's crimson glow pulsed again.
And this time, it felt almost deliberate.
Earth wasn't being tested anymore.
It was being entered.
The attack began without ceremony.
One moment, emergency vehicles still flooded the streets. The next, the creatures moved as if a silent signal had been given.
They didn't roar.They didn't hesitate.
They charged.
The first wave slammed into the police perimeter with overwhelming force. Barricades were torn aside, vehicles shoved out of position like toys. Officers fired in controlled bursts, then broke formation as the creatures closed the distance too fast, too strong.
Officer Reyes went down first.
He barely had time to raise his weapon before one of the creatures struck him aside with a single arm, the impact hurling him into a storefront. He didn't get back up. His body lay still beneath the flickering glow of a shattered luxury sign.
SWAT teams engaged immediately after, moving with trained precision. Flashbangs detonated. Heavy rounds hit center mass. For a moment, just a moment, it looked like discipline might hold.
Then the creatures adapted.
One leapt straight into the firing line, absorbing bullets as it tore a shield from an operator's hands and crushed it against him. Another swept through a flank, claws flashing too fast to track. Two SWAT members fell almost simultaneously, dragged into the chaos as their comms cut out mid-scream.
"Unit Seven is down, repeat, Unit Seven is"Static.
Licensed Cleaners arrived from multiple directions, abilities igniting the night. Energy barriers flared. One Cleaner, Isaac Moore, kinetic-class, managed to slam a creature backward into a concrete pillar, collapsing part of the structure. Cheers rose briefly from nearby units.
They died seconds later.
Three creatures converged on him at once. His barrier fractured under repeated impact, and when it failed, the feed cut away before anyone could confirm anything else.
Chaos consumed the district.
Civilians ran in every direction. Some tripped and didn't get back up. Luxury storefronts became death traps as creatures burst through glass and steel, pulling people from restaurants, nightclubs, hotel lobbies. Fire alarms blared uselessly over screams and gunfire.
And then they reached Nexus Tech.
Security teams sealed the outer doors within seconds, reinforced plating sliding into place with a deafening finality. Unlike the surrounding buildings, Nexus Tech had been designed for catastrophe.
But design didn't erase fear.
Inside, employees crowded stairwells and secure zones, faces pale, voices shaking. The building went into full lockdown, floors isolated, elevators disabled, emergency routes rerouted upward.
On the fifth floor monitoring office, Alexa and her team watched it unfold in real time.
No one spoke.
Feeds showed security personnel holding choke points on the lower levels. One guard, Damon Cruz, barely a year on the job, fired until his weapon overheated. When a creature breached the barricade, he stood his ground long enough for others to retreat.
The feed went dark.
Li covered his mouth, eyes wide and wet. "They're… they're inside the building."
Another analyst whispered, "That was supposed to be impossible."
Alexa felt frozen and burning at the same time. Her hands stayed on the console, but her heart pounded violently as casualty alerts stacked faster than she could read them.
Outside, more creatures poured into the district. Fifty became impossible to track individually. They spread with intent, entering buildings, climbing structures, forcing humanity into tight spaces where escape became a liability.
"This isn't a raid," someone said shakily. "It's a sweep."
Through reinforced glass, distant impacts echoed through the structure. The building trembled, not from collapse, but from weight.
Mara Jones stood rigid near the doorway, clutching her tablet like an anchor. Her face had gone pale beneath the harsh lights, but she didn't run. She didn't scream.
She issued lockdown confirmations with trembling precision.
"Fifth floor remains sealed," she said quietly. "No movement unless instructed. No heroics."
Alexa swallowed hard.
They were safe, for now.
But watching people die through cameras, hearing channels go silent one by one, feeling the building shudder as something massive struck its lower levels—it stripped away any illusion of distance.
This wasn't data.
This was slaughter.
And somewhere below them, the creatures were learning the building's layout.
Learning them.
Alexa's gaze flicked to a system log she didn't remember opening.
Network activity, silent, deliberate, moving faster than any human operator should have been able to manage.
Magnus.
He was already acting.
Because whatever this was, it wasn't going to stop at the door.
So he did what he had done countless times before. He lowered his defenses, not out of fear, but intent. He allowed his presence to contract, to dull, to appear weak and unremarkable—another fragile human caught in a disaster beyond his control. To the creatures, and to whatever systems observed through layers far deeper than Earth's sensors, he would register as insignificant. Frail. Disposable.
Bait.
Magnus recognized them the moment they emerged. Not as a man of Earth, but as something far older. These creatures were not natural, not truly alien in the way humanity imagined. They were manufactured, grown and refined inside laboratories that predated human civilization by eons. He had seen their kind before on other worlds, in other ages, under different designations. Four-armed hunters. Blind predators attuned to heat and motion. Each variant engineered to force adaptation in a target species.
He had watched entire civilizations break under them.
And he had watched others survive, changed beyond recognition.
Even now, as chaos consumed a single city on Earth, another version of Magnus walked beneath vaulted ceilings millions of light-years away. His other self moved through the High Imperial halls, where time bent differently and empires did not collapse, only recalibrated. Nothing there had changed. The High Imperial still debated force projections and genetic yield. They still spoke of worlds as variables, populations as stress responses.
Earth was not unique. It was simply late.
A training ground.
A crucible designed to harvest survivors.
The methodology was ancient and proven. Introduce controlled threats. Escalate unpredictably. Allow catastrophic loss. Those who adapted, who awakened under pressure, who survived repeated brushes with extinction, became valuable. Their genetic code refined by desperation, evolution forced to accelerate. The rest were acceptable losses.
At first assessment, Earthlings had been deemed too primitive. Too fragile. Their societies inefficient, their biology soft. Not worth immediate integration. But the Tower of Trial had changed that calculation. Humanity's refusal to collapse, its ability to reorganize under impossible conditions, had drawn attention, not admiration, but interest.
From the High Imperial perspective, the experiment was yielding favorable data. Awakening rates exceeded projections. Psychological endurance surpassed baseline expectations. Even resistance, panic, rebellion, denial, fed the process.
Adapt or perish.
The empire had done this many times before.
And it almost always worked.
Back on Earth, inside the sealed Nexus Tech building, the creatures moved with purpose, tearing through lower floors, testing defenses, mapping resistance. Every scream, every failed stand, every desperate act fed an unseen calculus being conducted far beyond the stars.
Magnus felt the pattern. The intent. The grim inevitability, unless something intervened.
He remained still, masked, unassuming. Let the creatures hunt. Let the observers believe the cycle continued uninterrupted. Because if the High Imperial realized what Earth truly housed, if they realized who walked among their data points, the outcome would not be forced evolution.
It would be annihilation.
For now, Magnus watched through human eyes as Alexa and her team huddled behind reinforced glass, witnessing the collapse of the illusion that humanity was merely being tested.
They were being measured.
And soon, very soon, Magnus would decide whether Earth was worth breaking the cycle for, or whether history would be allowed to repeat itself once more.
Owning a weapon had once been framed as a debate, rights versus responsibility, necessity versus restraint. That argument ended the moment the massive object fell into Earth's oceans and the first gates opened. When rifts began appearing without warning, spilling creatures unknown to mankind into cities, farmlands, and coastlines, weapons stopped being political symbols and became tools of survival. What had once been optional became essential to daily life.
Change came brutally fast. Early on, countless lives were lost in places where people hesitated, where those who had awakened to strange abilities refused to use them out of fear, denial, morality, or simple disbelief. Others froze, convinced help would arrive in time. It often didn't. The mounting death toll erased hesitation. By the end of the first weeks, civilians armed themselves with whatever they could find, firearms, blades, improvised weapons, anything that gave even the illusion of control against an unknown enemy.
Within days, governments were forced to abandon decades of policy. One by one, countries revised their laws under emergency powers. Weapon restrictions collapsed almost overnight. Firearms, defensive gear, and survival equipment were legalized and distributed on an unprecedented scale. In some regions, no one over the age of fifteen remained unarmed. Complications followed, panic, misuse, accidents, but those risks were quickly outweighed by a far greater fear: being torn apart by something that didn't recognize surrender, law, or mercy.
Ironically, prisons became some of the most stable institutions left. Cut off from society, rigidly controlled, and already accustomed to violence and scarcity, they adapted faster than most civilian zones. While cities struggled to reorganize, prisons endured almost unchanged, as if isolation itself had insulated them from the wider collapse.
Among the awakened, the realization spread quickly, they had been given something rare. Enhanced strength. Altered perception. Supernatural abilities that defied biology and physics. Many called it a blessing. But a blessing without instruction was still a liability. Raw power meant little without discipline, coordination, or understanding. Most awakened individuals had never trained, never fought, never learned how to wield their abilities under pressure. They were stronger, yes—but no more prepared.
Only months had passed since the first rifts appeared, and humanity was still scrambling to understand what had been unleashed. Universities, military academies, and research institutes worked around the clock, studying phenomena that broke established scientific models. Entire branches of physics, biology, and psychology were being rewritten in real time.
And yet, beneath it all lay a bitter truth.
For decades, secret projects had existed, buried under layers of classification, aimed at creating super soldiers through genetic engineering, cybernetics, chemical enhancement. Billions had been spent. Careers built. Ethics bent. Progress had been slow, incremental, fragile.
Then the rifts opened.
And everything those programs had chased emerged spontaneously, across the population, without permission or control.
Years of covert development became obsolete overnight.
Even with awakened humans, with weapons flooding the streets, with nations unified by fear, the greatest minds on the planet were still at a loss. The enemy did not follow human logic. The rules kept changing. And for the first time in modern history, humanity had to confront a reality it could not dominate through preparation alone.
Survival was no longer about perfection.
It was about adaptation, and whether it would come fast enough.
Owning a weapon was once seen as a personal right. However, when a massive object fell into Earth's oceans and opened random gates filled with creatures unknown to mankind, weapons became an essential part of daily life. Change was unavoidable. After countless failures and deaths across different locations, especially among those who had gained powers but chose not to use them for various reasons, the rising death toll pushed people to arm themselves with anything they could get their hands on.
Within days, every country was forced to change its stance. Weapons were made legally available, and no person above the age of fifteen was left unarmed. Complications arose in some areas, but the threat of being killed by an unknown alien lifeform outweighed the dangers posed by erratic or undisciplined individuals. Prisons were the only places that seemed to retain their old institutional structure, perhaps because they were, in many ways, detached from the rest of society.
All awakened humans, those who gained enhanced physical abilities or supernatural powers, knew they were blessed. What they lacked was knowledge: how to use those powers effectively. It had only been a few months, and institutions around the world were still studying these unnatural phenomena. Projects once hidden from public view by military and scientific elites crumbled overnight. Years spent developing super-soldier programs became meaningless when such beings appeared without effort. Even so, the greatest minds were still at a loss.
Magnus, like the rest of the people, knew how to identify the awakened. A mark appeared on their palm, resembling a tattoo. At first, it caused confusion, but it soon became clear that the mark merely confirmed the presence of an unknown ability. What that power was, however, could only be answered by the person who bore the mark.
In Alexa's case, her ability was healing. The duration and strength of such powers varied greatly. The stronger the will, the more potent the ability became. Yet Alexa rarely used hers. She once said it felt unreal and believed it came with a cost. Growing up, she had learned that everything demanded an equivalent response. She wanted a simple life, even if the world itself had changed. To Alexa, this was just another event, no different from when the pandemic came.
Magnus stepped out of his office as alarms echoed through the building. Around him, his non-awakened workers were in panic. Some hid behind overturned desks and reinforced doors, their breathing shallow and uneven. A few, braver or more desperate than the rest, stood their ground and drew their weapons. Most carried guns, hands shaking, fingers tight on triggers, ready to face something they barely understood.
Magnus remained still.
For a second, he did nothing. To anyone watching, it might have seemed like hesitation. To him, it felt like an eternity.
In that frozen moment, his mind drifted far from the chaos. He remembered a quiet night before the tower arrived and changed everything. He and Alexa were curled together on the couch in his apartment, a movie playing softly in the background, more noise than focus. They had been comfortable, safe. Alexa rested against him, her fingers tracing idle patterns on his arm, when she suddenly asked him a question.
"What would you do," she had said, "if you had god-like powers?"
Magnus had answered honestly. There was no hesitation in his voice, no joke to soften the truth. He told her what he would do, what he could do, because he already possessed such power, and far more than she could imagine.
Alexa had smiled.
Not in awe. Not in fear.
She thought for a moment before giving her own response. She said it would be wonderful at first. She would heal the sick. End suffering. Prevent death wherever she could. Humanity, she believed, deserved that chance. But as she spoke, her expression slowly changed. She admitted that, over time, it would become boring. Meaningless. Saving everyone would strip life of struggle, and without struggle, purpose would fade.
Magnus had been intrigued by her answer.
He turned to her then, curiosity evident even as he held her close, and asked what made her think that way.
Magnus recalled Alexa's explanation clearly, as if she were speaking right beside him in that quiet apartment. She had leaned back against the couch, eyes tracing the ceiling, fingers still entwined with his, and said softly, almost to herself,
"Power isn't just about what you can do. It's about why you do it. If everything is in your hands, then nothing you do matters… because the world doesn't respond, it just exists. Struggle gives it shape. Pain gives it meaning. And if you take that away… then what's left?"
He remembered the pause that followed, how she had turned her gaze to him, vulnerability mixed with clarity. "I think… that's why I don't want to fix everything," she continued. "Even if I could. Some things, people, life, suffering, they need to move forward on their own. Interference feels like… cheating. Like skipping the part that matters."
Magnus had felt something shift in that moment, a flicker of respect, of intrigue. Not fear. Not envy. But understanding. She had the rare instinct to see beyond the surface of power. To grasp that control, even if absolute, could strip the world of its essence. Her reasoning had been simple, human, and yet profound, far beyond the easy idealism most would cling to.
And now, as he stepped into the chaos of the Nexus Tech building, hearing alarms blare and seeing panicked colleagues ready their weapons, Magnus felt that same quiet resolve she had displayed that night. He understood her fear of doing too much, of overreaching, but he also knew that tonight, the world demanded action. The creatures outside were not a thought experiment. They were real. Brutal. And they would not wait for anyone's philosophy.
He exhaled, grounding himself in that memory. Alexa's words had reminded him of what it meant to be human, what it meant to choose even when you could impose godlike will. And now, he would act with both power and restraint, letting her lesson guide him through the chaos.
it felt natural like when he was holding her hand, caressing her lips, he knowns how to act human, but to feel pain , suffering and discomfort was knew to him, or he just didn't care, demons Angel and gods were hesitating in front of him, so this time he can move little freely now but still with restraint.
he didn't have a weapon, as he never had to in the past, so might as well portray what was expected of him, he took out a fountain pen he got as a present from Alexa, when he got hired at Nexus as a consultant, while he gave her a silver serpent bracelet .
Meanwhile the third-floor lounge had been designed as a sanctuary amid the sterile hum of the Nexus Tech building's operations. Soft, indirect lighting bathed the space in a warm amber glow, bouncing off polished hardwood floors that contrasted with the industrial gray of the rest of the office. Plush, low-profile couches were arranged in clusters around coffee tables, some stacked with magazines, tablets, and personal notebooks left by overnight staff.
Along the far wall, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of the city streets below, normally a calming panorama of lights and movement, now glowing ominously with the pulsing red of the newly formed rift. A row of ergonomic chairs faced a sleek bar-height counter with power outlets and docking stations, where freelancers and remote operators had set up laptops to monitor data streams or complete coding tasks.
Muted greenery softened the space, tall potted plants with broad leaves placed in corners and hanging terrariums suspended from the ceiling, adding a touch of life to an otherwise functional area. Abstract artwork lined the walls, geometric shapes in calming blues and greens, meant to inspire creativity and focus. A subtle scent of citrus and sandalwood from discreet diffusers lingered in the air, a humanizing touch in a building otherwise dominated by glass, metal, and screens.
A small kitchenette occupied one corner, stocked with coffee, bottled water, and prepackaged snacks. A few staff lounged with cups of coffee, their laptops open, headphones on, and shoulders slumped from long overnight shifts. The atmosphere was almost domestic, a carefully curated blend of comfort and productivity, where employees could feel at ease—even while the Tower of Trial's monitoring systems hummed quietly in the background.
It was the kind of space where someone might forget, just for a moment, that the world outside teetered on the edge of catastrophe.
And now, as Magnus sat quietly, pen in hand, the calm was about to shatter.
the chaos outside below them were finally notice, didn't touch him, but the team watching through the reinforced glass knew better. The massive creature, still loping and snarling across the parking lot, hadn't yet noticed him, but the smaller groups of panicked civilians and security personnel were already scattering. Sirens blared, alarms echoed, and the red glow of the rift painted everything in crimson and shadow.
Alexa's fingers hovered over her console, eyes wide. Li and the other analysts had stopped typing for a moment, glued to the feeds. "He… he's actually going out there?" Li whispered, voice trembling.
"Yes," Alexa said, her jaw tight, a mix of fear and awe in her voice. "But… watch. He's not going all out."
this even was no longer like the previous days, the sounds of computers and voices of people were once work related, being a part of the marketing team working at the top floor was the hight of Alexa career, within just a few months the Nexus building was retro fitted , renovated and they were delegated to different position based how they were assessed by the upper management,
Meanwhile, far from the chaos in the city, Deng Mei-ling, the new chairwoman who had recently acquired Nexus Tech Communication Company, had already transferred to the Stronghold in Kamaran. Alongside her was Secretary Lin Qiao, meticulously managing every operational detail from the fortified facility.
All directives to the city-based Nexus teams now came through email, secure messaging, or live video communication. Orders were precise, sometimes impersonal, but always binding. Staff in the building below had no choice but to comply, relying entirely on remote oversight for evacuation protocols, rift management, and emergency response coordination.
For Alexa, Magnus, and the third-floor lounge staff, this added layer of detachment only heightened the tension. Guidance arrived in real time, but it was impossible to know if help could reach them before the creatures breached their sanctuary. Every instruction, every alert, felt both vital and distant, an omnipresent reminder that leadership existed far away, beyond the walls now shaking under alien force.
Magnus didn't unleash the full force of his abilities. Instead, he adjusted the environment around the creature subtly, nudging debris to block its path, redirecting its attention without harming it outright. He wanted to see how the situation would evolve when the world, the humans in it, had to respond to danger, when survival wasn't guaranteed by a godlike hand.
A pair of license cleaners moved to intercept a smaller creature that had slipped into the perimeter, guns and claws drawn. Magnus stayed back, letting them engage but subtly reinforcing their movements, bolstering their reflexes without directly eliminating the threat. When one cleaner was struck down—his body thrown into a car hood and mangled—Alexa's breath caught in her throat. Li flinched, his hands shaking on the console. Magnus allowed himself only a grim acknowledgment, letting the pain register, letting the world feel it.
"Stay focused," he murmured to himself, his eyes scanning for the next threat. From his elevated vantage, he guided civilians along safer paths, opened escape corridors, and calculated trajectories of falling debris. But he never intervened with enough force to erase the danger entirely. Every injury, every panic-stricken scream, was being observed, processed. It was a test, not of his power, but of humanity's resilience under pressure.
Another creature, this one larger and more grotesque, smashed through the glass doors of a high-end hotel. Security teams fired as best they could; gunfire barely seemed to graze the pale, vine-like flesh. Magnus stepped closer, deflecting a massive blow with a single hand, but the impact wasn't enough to kill. It sent the creature staggering slightly, buying precious seconds for evacuation. From the monitoring room, Alexa could see the precision: each action calculated to delay, to shape outcomes, but never to erase struggle entirely.
"Look at him," she whispered to Li. "He's… holding back. He's letting them experience it."
Li swallowed hard, eyes wide. "Is he… really doing that?"
"Yes," Alexa said, voice low but firm. "He understands what I meant. About struggle. About choice. About meaning."
Outside, chaos consumed the parking lot and surrounding streets. Civilians scrambled for cover, cars collided, and the smaller creatures tore through the facades of luxury shops. The cleaners fought valiantly, but casualties mounted. One team member, a young woman named Tessa with pyrokinetic abilities, was impaled on a jagged shard of twisted metal, screaming as the creature moved on. A security officer, Miguel, fell attempting to drag a wounded civilian to safety; Magnus subtly slowed the impact of the fall, but he did not prevent it, allowing consequence to teach, to test, to shape.
As another wave of creatures emerged from the rift, this one numbering nearly fifty, an army of pale, vine-fused humanoids with four arms and clawed hands, the scale of the disaster became horrifyingly clear. The creatures fanned out into nearby hotels, restaurants, and even toward the Nexus Tech building itself. Magnus intercepted a charging behemoth at the entrance, absorbing its brute force with a calculated resistance, but he didn't obliterate it. Instead, he redirected it just enough to prevent it from crushing the evacuees in the lobby.
Alexa's hands flew over the console, coordinating evacuation routes, tracking the Noids' movements, and marking casualties in real time. Her heart hammered in her chest as she watched the carnage unfold: cleaners shredded, security personnel falling under blows, civilians screaming as they scattered. Each pulse on the monitors felt like a countdown.
At the far corner of her station, several CCTV feeds focused on the lobby and stairwells leading up to the fifth floor where they were stationed. Through the flickering screens, Magnus appeared—moving with a calm, almost casual precision that belied the chaos around him. A simple fountain pen gripped in his hand became a weapon of unimaginable lethality. Bullets bounced harmlessly off the Noids' thick, pale skin, which resembled galvanized rubber, yet Magnus found the gaps between the twisted layers of muscle and root-like fibers, puncturing and wounding them with brutal efficiency.
Those who were awakened watched in stunned silence. Many assumed he must possess a combat-focused ability specifically suited for killing Noids, but nothing could have prepared them for the reality: he relied on sheer skill, timing, and instinct.
Magnus's presence was mesmerizing. He moved like a warrior sculpted for battle, yet his face held the calm serenity of an angel, disarming, impossible to read. Each Noid he faced was six feet of pure muscle, four arms flailing, claws slicing through concrete and steel. They threw him like a ragdoll, each impact a violent reminder of their strength and fury, but he rose every time. Without hesitation, without fear, he struck back, impaling the creatures with precision and intent. By the time three had fallen beneath his hands, the observers on the feeds could barely comprehend what they had seen: a single man standing against creatures born from another world.
Even as relief and awe spread among the monitoring team, another wave of Noids surged into the building. Alexa's stomach sank as she realized the scale of the attack: dozens more, moving with an eerie intelligence toward the Nexus Tech building. Why here? Why now? None of the protocols, historical data, or emergency plans accounted for this.
The reason behind their assault remained a mystery, but one thing was clear: Magnus and his strength, skill, and unshakable resolve had become the team's only anchor in a storm of violence, fear, and uncertainty.