This is only part of 73 : The concrete floor of the subterranean chamber was slick with thick, crimson blood.
A high-ranking Spirit Hunter anomaly—an operative assigned directly to the localized sector Tae now directed—hung suspended four feet off the ground by rusted chains wrapped tightly around his wrists. His tactical armor was torn to shreds, his chest rising and falling in shallow, agonizing hitches.
Standing directly in front of him, hands folded casually behind his back, was Nox.
Nox tilted his head, his silver hair catching the dim light of a single flickering luminescent bulb overhead. He smiled—a soft, almost innocent expression that made the atmosphere in the room feel suffocating.
"Let's try this again, friend," Nox said softly, his voice light and conversational. "Where is the Prodigies' central node anchored? Is it tied to Tae's personal mana pulse, or did Joseph build a secondary fail-safe into the core apparatus?"
The Spirit Hunter spat blood onto the toe of Nox's boot. He lifted his bruised, swollen eyes, glaring through broken teeth. "Go... to hell."
Nox didn't look angry. He didn't even look disappointed. He simply sighed, stepping closer with a relaxed, languid grace.
"You heroes always say that," Nox murmured. "It lacks originality."
Nox casually raised his hand and extended two fingers. Without touching the man, a invisible, sickening force latched onto the operative's mouth.
SNAP.
The man shrieked—a raw, blood-curdling scream that echoed off the damp stone walls as six of his front teeth were ripped clean out of his gums, floating in mid-air in front of his face before dropping onto the bloody floor with quiet clinks.
Before the man could lose consciousness from the shock, Nox snapped his fingers. A sudden surge of dark, unnatural vitality flushed through the operative's veins. His breathing snapped back to full strength, his wounds stitching together just enough to force his nerves fully awake.
"There we go," Nox said, humming a quiet tune under his breath as he pulled a long, rusted steel blade from his coat. "Can't have you dying on me yet. Dying is easy. We haven't even talked about Tae's core parameters yet."
Nox drove the blade straight through the man's right knee.
The operative screamed again, his body convulsing in the chains. Nox held the hilt, twisting it slowly while watching the man's pupils dilate in agony. He pulled the blade out, let the man bleed out until his heart stopped, and then—with a casual flick of his wrist—reversed the temporal pressure around the corpse.
The man gasped violently, bursting back to life, his chest heaving, forced to relive the agony all over again.
"Fascinating," Nox mused, leaning in until his nose was inches from the terrified operative's face. "Your soul retention is surprisingly sturdy. Tell me... how many times do you think your mind can shatter before there's nothing left to revive?"
Heavy footsteps echoed down the stone corridor outside.
The heavy iron door swung open with a harsh metal screech. Karai stepped into the room, her dark combat gear pristine, flanked closely by the looming, silent form of the Prime Clone.
Nox stopped what he was doing, turning around with a mild pout. "Ah. You two always ruin my fun right when I'm getting to the best part."
Karai ignored the horrific scene completely, her eyes cold as she looked at Nox. "Leave the rat. The Beacon's signal has already locked on. We don't need minor intel from low-level Spirit Hunters anymore."
"I was just establishing rapport," Nox said smoothly, wiping a speck of blood off his cheek with his sleeve. "So? What's the directive?"
"We strike," Karai said sharply. "The Prodigies are isolated at the old facility. Tae is compromised by the mark, and their core link is fluctuating. We don't wait for them to recover."
"Hold on, hold on," a new voice chimed in from the doorway.
Two figures stepped out from the shadows behind Karai, clad in high-collared, hooded coats that obscured their true energy signatures.
The speaker pulled back her hood, revealing long dark hair and a confident, easygoing smile that immediately shifted the oppressive, dark energy of the interrogation room.
It was Katina.
Unlike the cold, unyielding aura of Karai or the terrifying, twisted presence of Nox, Katina exuded an effortless, natural charisma—a mix of Rashad's supreme, unshakeable confidence and Ayden's warm, approachable demeanor. She didn't look like a killer. She looked like someone who had just strolled into a casual gathering.
"You're always so hasty, Karai," Katina said teasingly, leaning against the doorframe with a playful smirk. "Strike now? Run straight into Tae's defense perimeter while Ethan and Diego are on high alert? That sounds like a lot of unnecessary work."
Karai glared at her. "We have the advantage."
"We have position," Katina corrected smoothly, her eyes gleaming with a sharp, brilliant intelligence underneath her relaxed expression. "There's a difference, darling. Tae isn't stupid. Neither is Joseph. If you rush in, you force them into a corner, and Tae always performs best when he's backed against a wall."
Nox turned his attention to Katina, his eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity. "And what do you propose, Katina?"
Katina walked right past the suspended, half-dead Spirit Hunter, completely unfazed by the blood, and offered Nox a warm, almost sweet smile—the kind of friendly expression that made her underlying capability infinitely scarier.
"We let the threads weave themselves," Katina said quietly, raising her right hand.
Faint, practically invisible strands of spatial force shimmered around her fingertips—threads that didn't just bind physical objects, but mapped the existing emotional and soul-bound connections between targets. She couldn't create a connection out of nothing; she needed a pre-existing bond to latch onto.
"Tae protects Joseph," Katina murmured, her voice turning soft, almost like a fond older sister telling a story. "Tae and Nox have a history that runs deeper than anyone in this room realizes. And now... Tae and Kd's energy signatures are synchronizing."
She looked up, her smile widening just a fraction as the invisible threads around her hands pulsed with a soft, ethereal light.
"They think they're setting up defenses to keep us out," Katina said, her charismatic tone laced with a chilling certainty as the entire vibe of the room shifted from warm to deadly serious. "They don't realize we're already inside."
Second part : Katina's eyes danced with a playful light as she rested a hand on her hip. "I'm going to take a little trip. I want to go visit our darling Prodigies and stir the pot a bit."
Karai's expression instantly hardened into ice. "No. You stay put. We strike together or not at all."
Katina let out a light, musical laugh, waving a dismissive hand. "Oh, honey, don't get it twisted—you are not the boss of me."
"It is an unnecessary risk," the Prime Clone's deep, synthesized voice reverberated through the damp stone chamber, stepping forward like an iron wall. "If they overwhelm you, we lose a vital asset before the grand phase."
"Risk?" A calm, almost dreamy voice chimed in from the center of the room.
Nox was currently bent over the suspended Spirit Hunter operative with a scalpel, his fingers delicately teasing back grey matter while dissecting a brain directly out of the living man's skull. The operative's eyes were rolled back, his body twitching in rhytmic, helpless shocks, kept alive only by Nox constantly rearranging the sequence of his body's physiological collapse.
"Actually," Nox mused, tilting his head as he held up a tiny fragment of neural tissue on the scalpel tip, watching it glisten under the flicking light, "I think Katina has the right idea. A little surprise visit would shatter their focus. Right now, Tae is trying to put his shattered pieces back together. Dropping a fresh element into their backyard will throw off their momentum completely."
Karai glared at Nox, then at Katina, crossing her arms in silent frustration. The Prime Clone let out a low, rumbling hum of reluctant agreement.
"Fine," Karai snapped. "Don't mess this up."
"Wouldn't dream of it, sweetie," Katina smirked.
Without waiting another second, Katina stepped backward into a swirling vortex of silver-threaded space—her own unique method of travel—and vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the faintest scent of ozone.
Meanwhile, outside the grounds of the orphanage, the afternoon sun beat down on a scene of intense, disciplined focus. The Prodigies were collecting themselves, each pushing their limits in their own way after the recent chaos.
Over by the far edge of the tree line, Tae stood with his legs shoulder-width apart, his eyes closed in deep concentration. He was trying to force his way back into his Buddha form. It was being ridiculously iffy. That one moment where he had achieved true omnipotence and omnipresence had felt like touching infinity—a transcendent state where every atom in existence felt like an extension of his own skin. But it had been a one-time phenomenon, an emergency breakthrough. Now, no matter how hard he reached for that absolute domain, it slipped through his fingers like sand.
With a low grunt, golden chakra flickered intensely across his skin, his hair lifting as a faint, shimmering halo ignited behind his head. He managed to force a Quasi-Buddha State—a partial, unstable fraction of that divine power. It wasn't the full golden god form, but the sheer gravitational weight of his aura caused the grass around his feet to flatten in a perfectly symmetrical circle.
A few yards away, sitting cross-legged under the shade of an old oak tree, Kd was motionless. To anyone watching, he looked like he was just meditating, but internally, his consciousness was stretched far beyond the physical realm. Kd's soul was anchored deep inside his Pandemonium Realm, utilizing his legendary Pandemonium Sight to scan the dimensional boundaries around the orphanage, ensuring no unexpected breaches went unnoticed.
The rest of the brothers were operating at peak effort:
* Ayden was in the center of the yard, stripped down to his training tank, blasting through rapid-fire pushups so fast his arms were an absolute blur. Air pressure waves boomed with every repetition. "Seven hundred thousand and one... seven hundred thousand and two..." he muttered under his breath, sweat glistening on his shoulders.
* Rashad sat atop a large boulder, his hands held in a seal as he concentrated on purifying his mana. Thick, iridescent streams of raw energy swirled around his body, refining from cloudy blue into a crystal-clear, hyper-concentrated violet glow.
* Marcos was on the open grass, keeping his footwork sharp by effortlessly juggling a soccer ball with insane precision, applying subtle aura bursts to the ball so it zipped through the air at hypersonic speed without breaking.
* Diego stood ninety yards away near the fence, holding his recurve bow. With terrifying focus, he drew the string back, breathing out slowly as three glowing light-arrows formed on the nock, aiming at a target so far it was barely a dot on the horizon.
* Jax hovered a few feet off the roof of the main house, floating cross-legged with his face tilted up toward the sky, greedily absorbing raw solar radiation directly into his core, his skin glowing with a warm, amber brilliance.
Suddenly, the ambient mana around the perimeter fluctuated.
Kd's eyes snapped open instantly—his Pandemonium Sight detecting a strange, thread-like distortion in the atmosphere. Tae dropped out of his Quasi-Buddha form, his golden halo dissolving into air as his hand immediately dropped to his guard. Ayden froze mid-pushup, popping up to his feet in a microsecond. Rashad's purified mana flared instantly into a combat aura, while Diego notched his bow and Marcos stopped the ball dead under his cleat.
A tear in space opened in the middle of the courtyard.
Every single brother locked onto the rift, expecting a terrifying, Genesis-level monster or an army of elite enemy anomalies to pour through. The tension was suffocating.
Then, a girl stepped out.
She pulled down her hood, tossing her dark hair back, and looked around at the wall of hostile, weapon-drawn Prodigies with a bright, effortlessly charming smile. She didn't emit a drop of bloodlust—instead, she radiated a mix of Rashad's unshakeable swagger and Ayden's warm, approachable charisma.
Katina just smiled at them.
"Wow," Katina chuckled lightheartedly, putting her hands up in a playful surrender. "You guys really don't trust strangers, huh?"
"Who the hell are you?" Ayden growled, his muscles still tense, though he was visibly thrown off by how totally normal and friendly she sounded.
"Me? Nobody special," Katina said, taking a casual step forward, her eyes twinkling with genuine warmth. She looked straight at Tae, her gaze softening like a big sister checking in on her younger brother. "I just came to see the famous Tae in person. You know... you look a lot smaller than the rumors say."
Tae didn't lower his stance, his eyes narrowed tight. "You're with the Genesis group. I can feel the space shift."
"Guilty as charged," Katina admitted openly, completely breaking the standard villain archetype. She didn't get cold or intimidating—she just giggled. "But don't get your feathers all ruffled. I didn't come here to fight all seven of you crazy monsters at once. I value my skin."
"Then why are you here?" Kd asked, stepping forward, his Pandemonium Sight trying to trace her energy—only to hit a bizarre, invisible web of threads wrapping around the entire yard.
Katina's smile remained sweet, but in a fraction of a second, the entire vibe of the courtyard did a complete 180.
The warm air turned heavy. Her eyes flashed with an terrifying, underlying sharpness—the kind of look that reminded everyone present that despite her easygoing personality, she was a predator through and through.
"I came to deliver a message," Katina said softly, her voice dropping its playful edge into something cold and crystalline. She casually twirled a single, shimmering invisible thread between her thumb and index finger. "Nox is getting impatient. Karai wants your heads. And me? I just wanted to see what kind of threads hold you boys together."
She looked directly into Tae's eyes, her smile returning—sweet, friendly, and utterly chilling.
"Keep practicing that golden form, Tae," Katina whispered, stepping backward into her space-rift. "You're gonna need every bit of it real soon."
Before Diego's arrow or Ayden's blitz could reach her, the thread snapped, and Katina vanished completely, leaving the Prodigies standing in the quiet yard, their hearts pounding in the heavy silence.
Ethan and Walker strode through the front gates, their tactical boots kicking up dust as they finished sweeping the surrounding perimeter. They had been out patrolling the city for hours, keeping tabs on any anomalous energy signatures before making their way back to the orphanage.
The moment Ethan crossed the threshold into the yard, he could feel the residual ozone hanging thick in the air. His eyes narrowed instantly as he locked onto Tae and Kd.
"What happened here?" Ethan asked, his voice low and sharp. "The mana signature out front is completely warped."
Tae took a breath, running a hand through his hair. "Katina was here. She popped up through a spatial tear, dropped a message, and dipped before we could lock her down."
"She was right in front of us," Diego added, unnotching his bow string. "She wasn't trying to engage. She just came to scope us out and stir the pot."
Before Ethan could even drop his gear, a sudden, searing surge of heat radiated through Tae's sternum. Tae gasped, clutching his chest as the black mark beneath his shirt flared with a violent, shadowy light. At the exact same microsecond, Kd dropped to one knee on the porch steps, his jaw clenching tightly as the dark Underworld veins along his neck and forearms pulsed in a rapid, synchronized rhythm.
"Kd!" Ayden took a step forward, but Kd held up a tight, trembling hand.
"Hold on..." Kd grunted through gritted teeth, closing his eyes tight. He activated his Pandemonium Sight internally, forcing his own soul's domain to exert pressure over his energy pathways. At the same time, Tae channeled a steady stream of pure, golden aura through his central core, manually clamping down on the mark's dark resonance.
For five agonizing seconds, the two energies fought against each other before settling down, the black veins receding back into Kd's skin as Tae's mark dimmed.
"We can control it," Tae said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. "For now. But we need to map out what we're actually up against."
"Inside. Now," Walker said, his sharp eyes lingering on the space where Katina had disappeared. "We need a full breakdown."
Ten minutes later, the entire team was assembled inside the main briefing chamber. The large central holo-table cast a cool, blue light across the faces of the brothers and their allies as Joseph initialized the main tactical display.
"Alright," Joseph began, bringing up three-dimensional wireframe models of their high-priority threats. "If Genesis is planning a coordinated assault, we need to stop operating on guesswork. Ethan, Diego, Walker, and I have been aggregating data from recent skirmishes and spatial scans. Let's lay out what we actually know."
Joseph tapped the console, bringing up a detailed schematic of the Prime Clone.
"First, the Prime Clone," Ethan said, stepping forward to point at the glowing physical readouts. "Physically, he's a tank. He possesses high-density kinetic absorption and a synthesized power core that mimics raw spatial pressure. If you engage him in close-quarters combat, do not try to overpower him head-on. You have to bypass his armor using concentrated energy piercing or phase-shifting."
"Next is Karai," Walker chimed in, his deep voice cutting through the room with calm, experienced precision. "I've analyzed her combat movements from the previous sector clash. Her primary weapon—that scythe—isn't just a physical blade. It carries a heavy spatial-cleaving property. Every swing distorts the localized gravity around her targets. If you try to parry her without reinforcing your weapon with dense aura, she will shear straight through your defenses."
Tae leaned over the table, his arms folded. "What about Nox and Katina?"
"I don't think Nox is manipulating time itself," Joseph said, bringing up a cluster of irregular, broken energy frequency spikes on the main screen. "His ability seems to interfere with the order in which events occur."
Walker frowned, leaning in closer. "You mean cause and effect?"
Joseph nodded. "That's my current theory. But I don't have enough data to prove it."
"Nox isn't all-powerful, Tae," Diego said, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed. "He wants you to think he is."
"So we don't actually know how to beat him," Diego added, his eyes fixing on Joseph.
"Not yet," Joseph admitted quietly. "There are limits, but we need more data to map them precisely."
Diego adjusted his posture, his expression remaining steady. "Limits are all we need to know for now."
Joseph swiped his hand across the screen, switching to the spatial footprint left in the yard. "As for Katina, we've confirmed she can attach her threads to pre-existing connections—like the resonance link between Tae and Kd. We don't know the full range of what she can manipulate yet, but she uses existing bonds as her vector."
"Which leaves one complete unknown," Walker noted, bringing up a shadowed silhouette on the edge of the screen. "The second hooded figure standing behind Karai. We've only caught a single visual trace during the sector retreat."
"Energy signature?" Ayden asked.
"Zero," Joseph answered flatly. "I ran every sensor array we have. Total dead zone. I couldn't pull a single reading."
Silence settled over the briefing room as everyone digested the reality of the situation.
Nox was still an unproven, dangerous theory. Katina's full reach remained unknown. The second hooded figure was a complete ghost. And hovering above it all were the unresolved mysteries—the true purpose of the Beacon, the dark pulse of Tae's mark, and the Underworld veins bound to Kd.
Tae stared at the four enemy profiles hovering above the holo-table.
Nox.
Karai.
Katina.
The hooded figure.
His hand instinctively moved up, resting over the mark beneath his collar.
"We've spent the last few days reacting to them," Tae said, his voice ringing solid and clear across the room.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"What's the plan?" Joseph asked.
Tae turned his gaze toward the window, looking out over the courtyard and the orphanage below, where the younger kids were safe inside.
"We protect our home first," Tae said, his jaw setting firm as he looked back around the table at his brothers. "We stop chasing shadows. We tighten our perimeter, secure this house... and we make them come to us."