The ash of the Citadel fell like a black, suffocating snow. The air, thick with pulverized concrete and the smell of ozone, was punctuated by the piercing shrieks of human terror and the high, alien ululations of the Void-borne.
Kwandezi stood on the lip of the crater, his Ultimate Transmuted blades gleaming dully in the hellish light of the burning city. The Capital Chapter's Clean Zone, once a sterile fortress of order, was now a feeding ground. He saw a massive, collapsed Void-Shield Generator tower, its energy core dark. Through that gap, a tide of low-tier monsters—Gorgers, Stalkers, and other pack hunters—was pouring into the streets.
"The protocols... they're broken," Akanni whispered, his voice raw with horror as he watched the VDC's perfect system collapse into bloody anarchy.
"Then we become the protocol," Kwandezi stated, his voice devoid of emotion. He pointed his sword toward the nearest, loudest scream.
Aisha's gaze followed his blade. Two blocks down, a small group of civilians—a family—was scrambling from a wrecked public transport capsule. They were pinned against a burning storefront by a pack of six Gorgers. These were low-tier threats, usually handled by a single VDC Aegis squad, but to unarmed civilians, they were a death sentence. The creatures were bipedal, reptilian, with serrated bone-blades for forearms and a gaping, tooth-filled maw.
"Akanni, can you fight?" Aisha's voice was sharp, all handler-protocol, cutting through the chaos.
Akanni grunted, pushing himself up. He swayed, his massive frame unstable. "My Geokinesis is... spent. I can't lift a car, let alone fight a pack." He looked at his hands, disgusted by his own weakness.
"You don't need to fight," Kwandezi said, his battle IQ already processing the terrain. "We need a chokepoint. The street is too wide." He looked at Akanni. "You're a Scion. You're weak, not useless. Can you break something?"
Akanni understood. He looked at the corner of the burning building they were near. It was a three-story structure, its foundation cracked by the shockwave. He placed his bloody hands on the remaining support column. He didn't try to lift it; he pushed his will into its existing fault lines.
"Do it!" Aisha yelled.
With a groan that mirrored the dying Citadel, Akanni forced the support column to buckle. The entire corner of the building collapsed, a roaring avalanche of concrete and steel that crashed into the street, completely blocking the road. It created a perfect, narrow bottleneck just ten meters from the trapped family.
The Gorgers, startled by the noise, shrieked and pulled back, momentarily confused.
"Aisha, get the civilians," Kwandezi commanded, not waiting for a reply. "I'll take the pack."
He moved. He was a black shadow against the orange flames, his Ultimate Transmuted blades held in a reverse grip. He didn't roar. He didn't charge. He simply flowed toward the monsters with a terrifying, economical grace.
Aisha and Akanni scrambled over the rubble. "VDC! We're VDC! Get behind us!" Aisha screamed at the terrified family. The father, shielding his two children, stared at her, then at Akanni's massive, bloodied form, his eyes wide with hope.
The Gorgers, their prey cut off, turned their malice on the new threat. They saw Kwandezi. They saw a lone, unarmored target. They charged as one.
The first Gorger leaped, its bone-blades slicing at Kwandezi's throat.
Kwandezi's battle IQ didn't see a monster; it saw flawed trajectories and exposed mass. He didn't dodge. He met the attack.
His left blade, now a molecule-perfect edge, came up. It didn't just block the Gorger's bone-blade; it severed it. The blade, designed to cut through VDC Aegis armor, passed through the monster's organic weapon with zero resistance.
The Gorger shrieked in shock. Kwandezi's right blade was already moving. It was a single, precise, upward thrust that slid beneath the creature's ribcage, piercing its primary energy core. He didn't just stab it; he used a subatomic whisper of Molecular Transmutation as the blade entered.
The monster didn't explode. It imploded. Its insides were instantly transmuted into a high-pressure liquid, and the creature collapsed, a deflated, steaming husk, dead before its own severed arm hit the pavement.
The remaining five skidded to a halt, their primitive instincts screaming that the prey was a predator.
"Your turn," Kwandezi whispered, the Void Host's cold logic merging with his survival instincts.
He didn't wait for them. He brought his hands together and slammed them onto the asphalt.
He wasn't Akanni. He wasn't moving the earth. He was changing it.
He transmuted the solid asphalt in a ten-meter radius around the pack. He didn't turn it to sand or dust. He unwove its molecular bonds, turning the solid pavement into a thick, grasping, tar-like quicksand.
The Gorgers shrieked as their feet sank, the ground itself becoming a trap. They were strong, but they were now bogged down, their primary advantage—speed—nullified.
Kwandezi walked toward them, his steps light on the solid ground he had left for himself. He was the master of this new, chaotic battlefield. He was an artist, and this was his canvas.
The fight was no longer a fight. It was an execution.
His blades were a blur of perfect, economical motion. He moved from one trapped monster to the next, his Ultimate Transmuted steel a whisper in the night.
Thrust. Transmute. Collapse. Slice. Transmute. Dissolve. Spin. Transmute. Implode.
He didn't waste a single movement. There was no rage, no fury. It was the raw, brutal, and terrifyingly efficient work of a master butcher. In less than thirty seconds, the entire pack was gone, reduced to steaming, deflated piles of organic sludge and liquefied tar.
He stood in the center of the kill zone, the purple in his eyes fading back to a dull, smoky glow. He was breathing easily. He turned.
Aisha had the family huddled behind the rubble wall. The father was staring at Kwandezi, his mouth open, his eyes filled not with gratitude, but with primal, abject terror. He was looking at Kwandezi the same way he had looked at the Gorgers.
To this man, Kwandezi—with his glowing eyes, his black blades, and his power to unmake flesh—was the bigger monster.
"We saved them," Kwandezi stated, his voice flat.
"You terrified them, Kwandezi," Aisha said softly, stepping between him and the civilians. "You look like the thing they fear most."
Kwandezi looked down at his blades, at the dark energy still faintly smoking from his skin. He was the protocol. But the protocol was a monster.
Before he could process this, Akanni, who had been scavenging a dead VDC guard's Aegis Suit, grunted. He had pulled the guard's long-range comms unit from its shattered housing. It was fried, but the core was intact.
"The network is down... a total collapse," Akanni muttered, his thick fingers working with surprising delicacy. "But the emergency frequencies... they're still open."
He activated the transmitter, keying in a command code that was decades old.
"What are you doing?" Aisha asked.
"The Citadel is gone. The Banishers are gone. Zaire is... gone," Akanni said, his voice heavy. "The VDC has no head. The Chapter Captains are blind. They're about to tear each other apart fighting for control while the city burns."
He raised the transmitter. "They need a protocol. They need an order."
He keyed the mic. His voice, amplified by the comms, boomed with the residual power of a Scion.
"To all remaining VDC Chapters. This is Captain Akanni, Scion of the Veil, broadcasting from the ruins of the Capital. The Citadel has fallen. The Council is gone. We are in a state of total system failure."
He paused, his red eyes sweeping over the burning city.
"There is no more Veil. There is no more political structure. There is only the line. I am invoking Protocol Zero. All Chapter jurisdictions are dissolved. All operatives are now autonomous. Your one and only directive is this: Protect the civilians. Hold the line."
He cut the transmission, the words echoing into the chaos. He looked at Aisha, then at Kwandezi.
"The old world just ended," Akanni said, dropping the useless comm. "We just gave the survivors a new mission. And we just painted a target on our backs for any Chapter Captain who thinks he should be the one giving the orders."
Kwandezi sheathed his blades. He looked at the terrified family Aisha was now trying to guide toward a sealed subway entrance.
He had just saved them, and they hated him for it. He had just helped declare a new war, and he was the only weapon capable of fighting it. The apathy was gone, replaced by a cold, heavy, and absolute purpose.
"Good," KwandeD said. "Let them come. We have a city to save."