The glass walls of Directorate Command flickered with alarms.
Red lights bathed the entire command tower in a harsh glow.
Dozens of holographic screens floated in the air—
each one streaming battlefield reports, squad vitals, and the collapsed tunnel map.
Officers moved in frantic lines across the room.
Technicians shouted data to each other.
"Tunnel sector 3 is completely destroyed!"
"We lost communication with Unit Seven!"
"Containment squad reinforcement is unresponsive—!"
"Sir—Commander Chen's monitoring tower is offline!"
The whole room buzzed with tense noise—
Until a door opened.
And silence spread like ice.
Director Ji Xuan walked in.
Her footsteps were soft, elegant, almost soundless.
But the air around her changed temperature.
Everyone straightened immediately.
"Director on deck!"
Ji Xuan's expression was calm.
Too calm.
Her black uniform fit perfectly, not a crease out of place.
Her gloves were immaculate.
Her eyes, cold and sharp, scanned the room until they landed on the largest screen—
showing the collapsed tunnel map
and the lost squad IDs blinking red.
She raised one eyebrow.
"All dead?"
The chief analyst swallowed hard.
"W-we haven't confirmed fatalities yet, but… all squads in that sector are unresponsive. Zero vitals."
Ji Xuan didn't blink.
"So," she said softly, "my best unit was destroyed by one unconscious boy."
A quiet ripple of fear ran across the room.
One younger officer tried to explain:
"Director, according to limited data…
Subject Yin Lie fought with an unidentified hybrid ability combination. Possibly a triple-source mutation—"
Ji Xuan's head turned very slowly toward him.
He went silent instantly.
Her voice dropped to a soft whisper.
"Are you telling me Yin Lie has grown stronger than our projections?"
"N-no, Director. I'm only saying—"
She cut him off.
"I do not care what your projections say.
Projections do not kill my soldiers.
People do."
She stepped closer to the projection map.
"Show me the escape route."
A technician flinched.
"Director… they reached sector nine. The only way out is—"
"The wasteland," the chief analyst finished grimly.
Ji Xuan exhaled one cold breath.
For the first time, she looked angry.
Not loud angry.
Quiet angry.
The kind that melts steel.
"So they fled beyond the city walls," she murmured.
"Out where we can't legally hunt them."
Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled.
"Fortunately, I do not care about legal."
She turned to her officers.
"Prepare a kill order."
Gasps echoed.
One man stammered:
"D-Director… you want a kill order on who?"
She looked him directly in the eye.
"On Yin Lie."
The entire command room froze.
A woman officer trembled.
"Director… that's… extreme."
Ji Xuan's tone sharpened like a knife.
"He has killed dozens of my trained elites.
He has unlocked an unstable tri-source mutation.
And he has become emotionally bonded to Subject Zero."
Her eyes turned colder than winter.
"That makes him unpredictable."
The officer swallowed.
"Should we… capture Qin Mian first then?"
Ji Xuan slowly unbuttoned her glove.
Everyone watched.
She touched the screen showing Qin Mian's face.
A small girl.
Terrified.
Crying.
Holding Yin Lie's unconscious body.
Ji Xuan's voice lowered until it felt like frost crawling over the skin.
"Qin Mian is not to be harmed."
"She is the key to the First Wave."
"She is the Dream Anchor."
"And she is our only path to controlling the resonance."
Ji Xuan paused.
Then said the words that sealed Yin Lie's fate:
"Bring Qin Mian back alive."
"And if Yin Lie resists…"
Her eyes turned to the squad commanders standing at attention.
"…kill him."
Inside the Command: A Conflicted Officer
Near the back of the room, one officer's hands trembled.
Commander Yan Rui—
the youngest executive-level officer in the Directorate.
She had seen Yin Lie before.
Not in battle reports—
but in person.
She remembered the boy with cold eyes
and a quiet sadness
walking through the corridors
years ago
when the Directorate first acquired him.
She remembered thinking:
He looks like someone who never got to choose his own life.
Now the Director wanted him dead.
Yan Rui swallowed the tight knot in her throat.
Something felt wrong.
Terribly wrong.
She stepped forward.
"Director… may I speak?"
Ji Xuan turned.
"Careful, Commander Rui."
Yan Rui took a breath.
"Yin Lie is not a threat.
His file says—"
Ji Xuan stepped closer.
"His file," she repeated, voice dangerously soft,
"was written by his mentor Chen Gu."
Yan Rui froze.
"Chen Gu is a traitor," Ji Xuan continued.
"And Yin Lie now helps Subject Zero escape custody."
Yan Rui opened her mouth, but Ji Xuan cut her off instantly.
"You hesitate because you are young," she said coldly.
"You think sentiment protects you. It does not."
Yan Rui lowered her eyes.
Ji Xuan turned back to the room.
"Deploy the Crawlers.
Send the Psi-Snipers to wall sector nine.
Prepare aerial surveillance drones.
Activate the Ghost Tracking System."
Her voice filled the entire command center.
"Find them."
"And this time—"
She looked at Yin Lie's image again.
"He does not walk out alive."
The Final Command
Ji Xuan lifted her hand.
A red holographic sigil lit the room.
The official Directorate High-Priority Order.
"Priority Black.
Subject Zero: Recover Alive.
Subject Yin Lie: Terminate."
The officers saluted immediately.
"Yes, Director!"
Ji Xuan turned away from the screens.
"Send the hunters."
She walked toward the exit in silence.
But just before the door closed, she murmured:
"Qin Mian… little dream anchor…
you belong to me."
The door shut.
The command tower erupted into motion.
And far beyond the city walls—
Yin Lie, unconscious and bleeding,
and Qin Mian holding onto him with shaking hands,
had no idea that the entire world had just been ordered
to capture one of them—
And kill the other.
Chapter 84 Completed