The transition from the Grey Wastes to the Dead Zone was not marked by a fence or a wall, but by the sudden, suffocating shift in the air itself. In the Wastes, the wind at least moved. In the Dead Zone, the world felt like it had been caught in a snapshot of a nightmare and frozen forever.
The sky above was no longer bruised purple; it was a swirling, toxic sludge of charcoal clouds that never rained. Giant, skeletal remains of pre-war skyscrapers loomed out of the fog like the ribs of a long-dead god. Here, the "Aether" that powered the floating city of Zenith was thin and corrupted. It didn't provide life; it rotted it.
Reed Blackwell trudged through a knee-deep drift of white ash, his breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps through his makeshift filter mask. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been shredded by his use of the "Void Step." It wasn't just physical fatigue; it felt as if his very molecules had been stretched and snapped back together slightly out of alignment.
Beside him, Nyx was faring worse. She had been hiding her injury since they leaped from the trash-chute, but now, miles away from the mountain, the adrenaline was failing her. She stumbled, her boots catching on a rusted rebar spike protruding from the ash.
"Nyx!" Reed reached out, catching her before she face-planted into the caustic dust.
As he grabbed her arm, he felt the heat radiating through her sleeve. He pulled back the scorched fabric of her shoulder, and his stomach turned. The Inquisitor's Sun-Burst hadn't just burned her; the light-magic was still active, a jagged, glowing golden cauterization that was eating into her healthy tissue.
"I'm... I'm fine," she hissed, her teeth gritted so hard her jaw muscles stood out. She tried to push him away, but her legs gave out, and she slumped against the rusted remains of a hollowed-out ground-transport. "Just... give me a minute. The light-toxin just needs to settle."
"It's not settling, Nyx. It's spreading," Reed said, his eyes narrowing. He could see the golden veins of light-energy crawling up her neck. It was the "Holy" version of the corruption he carried—pure, uncompromising, and lethal to anyone who didn't possess a Light-Core.
[SYSTEM SCANNED: ALLIED UNIT CRITICAL]
[THREAT: SUN-BURN RADIANCE (TIER 2)]
[ADVISORY: VOID SUBTRACTION CAN NEUTRALIZE RADIANCE, BUT RISK OF HOST CORRUPTION IS HIGH.]
Reed looked at his hands. "The system says I can take it out of you. I can 'subtract' the light."
Nyx looked up at him, her eyes clouded with pain. For a moment, a flash of genuine fear crossed her face—not of the wound, but of him. She knew what his "Subtraction" did. She had seen him erase men from history. "Reed, if you touch a Light-poison with your Void... the reaction could blow your arm off. Or worse, it could let him in."
She didn't have to name "him." They both felt the Ancient Evil scratching at the floorboards of Reed's mind, waiting for any excuse to bridge the gap.
"If I don't, you're dead before we reach the outpost," Reed said firmly.
He didn't wait for her permission. He knelt in the ash and placed his hand hovering just inches above her shattered shoulder. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the hungry roar of the voice in his head. Eat the light, the voice whispered. Devour the sun and grow fat on its marrow.
"Shut up," Reed muttered under his breath.
He focused on the feeling of the "whirlpool" in his chest. Usually, he let it spin out of control to destroy things. This time, he tried to narrow it. He imagined the Void not as a tidal wave, but as a needle. He reached out with his mind, snagging the jagged edges of the golden light-energy in Nyx's wound.
[INITIATING PRECISE SUBTRACTION...]
[CORRUPTION: 26%... 27%...]
The moment the Void touched the Light, a sharp, metallic crack echoed through the ruins. A spark of violet and gold exploded between them, singing Reed's eyebrows. He groaned, his vision turning white, but he didn't pull away. He felt the Sun-Burst energy resisting him—it was stubborn, arrogant, and hot.
He pulled harder. He imagined himself as a vacuum, sucking the poison out of her marrow. The golden veins on Nyx's neck began to recede, flowing backward like a film in reverse, disappearing into Reed's palm.
Nyx let out a long, shuddering scream that died into a gasp of relief as the burning heat vanished. She slumped against the transport, her breathing finally leveling out.
Reed, however, slammed backward into the ash. He clutched his chest, his heart hammering in a frantic, uneven rhythm. His skin was pale, and for a second, his veins glowed a brilliant, sickly gold before turning black.
[SUBTRACTION SUCCESSFUL]
[VOID ESSENCE REPLENISHED: 100/100]
[WARNING: VOID CORRUPTION IS STABLE BUT VOLATILE]
"You... you actually did it," Nyx whispered, looking at her shoulder. The wound was still there, raw and bloody, but the lethal glow was gone. She looked at Reed, and for the first time, the "loyal soldier" mask wasn't there. There was something else in her eyes—a flicker of something soft, something human.
She reached out, as if to touch his face, but stopped herself. She remembered her orders. She remembered the man in the black-plated armor and the secret mission she was supposed to be executing. The Shadow Faction didn't reward emotional connections. They rewarded results.
"Why would you risk that?" she asked, her voice returning to its usual guarded tone. "You could have just left me. I was slowing you down."
Reed sat up, spitting out a mouthful of grey dust. "Back in the Wastes, we don't leave people behind. Not if they're the only ones who know where the food is."
Nyx let out a short, dry laugh. "Fair enough."
She stood up, testing her shoulder. She was weak, but she could move. She looked toward a jagged mountain range in the distance, where a faint, pulsing violet beacon was cutting through the fog. "That's the outpost. If we can reach it by nightfall, we'll be under the protection of the Shadow Aegis. Not even the Inquisitors will find us there."
As they began to walk again, the silence of the Dead Zone was broken by a new sound. It wasn't the wind, and it wasn't the sirens. It was a low, guttural clicking sound—like thousands of dry bones being snapped together.
Reed froze. He looked toward the ruins of a collapsed subway entrance. From the darkness, dozens of glowing, multi-faceted eyes began to emerge.
"Scav-Hounds," Nyx hissed, drawing her one remaining glass dagger. "The Light-surge from earlier... it must have rung the dinner bell for every mutation in the sector."
The creatures were horrific—six-legged monstrosities with skin like rusted iron and jaws that could snap through reinforced steel. They were the apex predators of the Dead Zone, fueled by the very corruption that Reed was trying to control.
[THREAT DETECTED: SCAV-HOUND PACK (RANK 3)]
[BATTLE PROTOCOL ENGAGED]
"Can you fight?" Reed asked, his hand going to the black coin in his pocket.
"I can distract them," Nyx said, her face hardening. "You... you do that thing you do. But Reed? Try not to erase the whole block. I'd like to have a ground to stand on when this is over."
Reed stepped forward, the Void Essence in his veins feeling like liquid nitrogen. He didn't feel tired anymore. The "Evil" was laughing, delighted at the prospect of a feast.
"I'll try," Reed said, his eyes beginning to swirl with ink. "But I think the Void is hungry."
The lead Scav-Hound lunged, a blur of rusted claws and snapping teeth. Reed didn't dodge. He didn't use the Step. He simply reached out, and as the creature entered his reach, he felt the System click into a new mode.
[LEVEL 10 REACHED]
[CORE WEAPON MANIFESTATION: UNLOCKED]
A blade of pure, solidified shadow erupted from Reed's palm, six feet of jagged, black-glass light that seemed to drink the very air around it. He swung, and the world went silent.