Darkness. Thick, laden with the smells of gunpowder, ash, and a hint of... cheap tobacco.
Then, sound. First, a muffled, buzzing clamor, as if from behind heavy curtains. Gradually sharpening—a convergence of countless voices. Not conversation, not prayer, but a clamor of agitation, fanaticism, brimming with primal excitement and malice.
"...Where... am I...?"
Consciousness surfaced like a salvaged wreck.
His vision swayed, crowded. Before him were dense, surging heads and waving arms. The air reeked of sweat, dust, the char of burning fat, and that uniquely nauseating, cloying sweetness of collective frenzy.
He shoved through the crowd. His movements were desperate, panicked. Elbows knocked obstacles aside, shoulders barged past blockers. He ignored the angry looks and shouts. His hands clawed almost brutally through ring after ring of feverishly cheering people, like a fish fighting upstream, straining toward the epicenter of noise and light.
His palms met damp cloth, greasy skin, hard bone. In his ears, a growing, rhythmic chant repeating some name or accusation, but he couldn't make it out.
Finally, he breached the last wall of bodies.
His vision abruptly opened. Blinding light and a wave of heat struck him.
At the center of the clearing stood a massive, makeshift cross structure of thick logs and kindling, its base piled high with dry faggots and tinder. Orange-red flames greedily licked and spread at the bottom, crackling, black smoke coiling upward.
Bound tightly to the cross with coarse ropes was a woman.
The firelight danced over her, outlining her slender, faintly trembling frame. Her long hair was somewhat disheveled, partly obscuring her face. Her clothes were plain, even ragged, stained with dust.
A man in a spotless, gold-embroidered priestly robe stood before the pyre, holding a blazing torch. Facing the crowd, he proclaimed something in a solemn, icy tone. His voice boomed, cutting through the din, each word an ice pick:
"...Turned from our Lord's glory! Mired in heretical knowledge! Seducing minds with foul arts! Her sin demands the flame! To cleanse this world!"
The crowd erupted into even wilder cheers.
His blood seemed to freeze. He wanted to charge forward, to scream, to halt the sentence, but his body felt chained by invisible bonds, his throat blocked by a cold stone. No sound came. He could only watch as the flames climbed higher, the smoke grew thicker.
He couldn't see the woman's face clearly. The firelight and rising heat warped the air, blurring her features into a vague, sorrowful outline.
But something deep in his memory churned and slammed violently!
A voice... a gaze... a warmth so familiar it made his soul tremble... Even through the flames and smoke, even nearing annihilation, that presence reached him, faint yet stubborn...
Remember...
What was he remembering? A smile? A whisper? Companionship in the deep night? A profile under dim lamplight?
...Remember...
The flames had reached the base of the cross, beginning to scorch the hem of her skirt. She didn't scream, only turned her head slightly toward the direction he had forced his way from.
For an instant, through leaping flames and rippling heat, their gazes seemed to meet.
Those eyes held no fear, no hatred. Only a deep, drowning sadness and... a resolute tenderness.
Then, he clearly "heard"—not through his ears, but echoing directly in the depths of his soul—a voice, soft, yet carrying a force that severed everything:
"Forget me."
The flames surged, engulfing her lower body. A wave of scorching heat washed over him.
"Quinn."
As the final syllable fell, the flames, as if commanded, roared and swallowed her whole! Orange and gold tongues of fire danced madly, completely enveloping, consuming the slender form. Her silhouette twisted and distorted violently within the inferno, finally merging with the leaping flames, inseparable.
Tears? He felt a cold wetness on his cheeks. Was it spattered, icy raindrops? Or... his own tears, evaporating in the searing air?
The woman's form, along with that final call, vanished completely with the continually leaping, cracking flames, evaporated in the blinding light and destructive heat.
Only the deafening, frenzied cheers remained, the priest's cold, rigid figure, and that towering pyre burning an innocent life—branded onto his retinas, branded into his soul, never to fade.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each heavy impact was like a blunt hammer, striking precisely at the nodes of Quinn's consciousness, pounding him back from the embers of fire and the hum of the crowd, layer by layer, into reality.
Not applause. Not footsteps.
Fists. Physical, brute, unreasonable fists.
The scene before him overlapped with memory fragments, then rapidly peeled away. No cross, no pyre, no silhouette of a woman consumed by flames. Only the semi-transparent energy barrier, its surface rippling with rapidly spreading, then smoothing, concentric waves from the blows. Beyond the barrier, two faces obscured by the shadows of grey hoods, and four fists wrapped in dim golden light, rising and falling in tireless alternation.
"Awake? Hah."
One of the Grey Cloaks spoke, his voice metallic and grating through the barrier, laced with undisguised mockery. His fists didn't pause, striking even faster, harder.
"Held out quite a while," the other added, his tone almost approving, yet cold as ice.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The barrier shuddered violently, groaning under the strain. On the ground, delineated by the barrier's edge, a perfectly circular pit had already been hammered down. Quinn and the small patch of ground under him were at its bottom. The earth and stone were compacted smooth as glass by pure force.
Quinn didn't move.
The unlit cigarette was still between his lips, the filter slightly damp with saliva, emitting that faint, cheap tobacco smell. Familiar, yet alien, it pricked the membrane between dream and reality like a fine needle.
Tears had long dried on his cheeks, leaving cold, tight trails.
The figure vanishing in the flames, the whisper of "Forget me, Quinn"... Were these real memories, nightmares bred during long exile, or... some deep consciousness disturbance triggered by the barrier itself, by this relentless pounding?
It didn't matter.
The present reality was two Grey Cloaks executing a mission. Their movements were simple, efficient—purely physical destruction. The most primitive, most stamina-consuming, but also the hardest to shield against or interfere with using energy.
They were using the clumsiest, yet most effective, method to carry out their orders: smash the turtle shell, drag out the 'anomaly' inside.
Quinn's tongue pressed against the cigarette filter. His gaze passed over the shuddering barrier, settling on the two Grey Cloaks. Their robes were of a special make, remaining intact under such high-frequency, violent physical recoil, only the cuffs and knuckles soiled with dirt and faint energy scorch marks. Within the hood-shadows, the tense lines of jaws and eyes focused to the point of emptiness were just visible.
Standard 'Cleaner' configuration.
"Don't stop! Break his focus!" the Grey Cloak on the left snarled, all mockery gone, replaced by icy urgency. The dim gold light on his fists flared violently, almost solidifying into gauntlets. He abandoned deep strikes for a storm of high-frequency concussive blows! Each punch exploded against the barrier with a burst of blinding gold light and a ring of distorted air, accompanied by BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! like muffled thunder, trying to disrupt the barrier's energy stability and the caster's concentration with pure force and noise.
SCREEEEEEE—!!!
The sound pierced the barrier, stirring visible, chaotic ripples in the pale space around Quinn.
Quinn's closed eyelids trembled faintly.
His weaving hands froze completely, fingers still held in that stiff, virtual clasp. The madly flipping great book before him seemed to have all its motive force sucked away. The pages stopped dead, frozen on one filled with complex geometric patterns and writhing shadows.
The semi-transparent energy barrier abruptly thickened, instantly solidifying into a murky, plaster-like substance. The external bombardment, the maddening shriek, were suddenly filtered, absorbed, pushed into the distance, becoming blurred and remote.
Outside, the two Grey Cloaks attacked with undiminished fury.
The corner of the left Grey Cloak's mouth seemed to twitch—a curl somewhere between a triumphant sneer and mechanical confirmation of orders. Was the disruption working? Or was the opponent gathering something worse? Regardless, they couldn't stop.
At this peak of eerie对峙 between external clamor and internal silence—
Beneath Quinn's closed lids, his eyeballs shifted, almost imperceptibly, like a deep sleeper struggling at the edge of a nightmare.
Then.
He opened his eyes.
BOOOOOOM—!!!!!!!!
No light.
Preceding the sound was an absolute, domineering sense of "annihilation."
A sphere of perfect darkness materialized, instantly expanding and swallowing both men whole. Its edges were anything but smooth—boiling, seething, spewing thick, tar-like streams of black-red energy. The viscous flows writhed violently, radiating heat, decay, and a forcibly twisted sense of agony.
No screams followed.
Because sound itself was devoured by the sphere.
All that remained were low, gut-resonant, muffled detonations from within, and the shrill hiss-screech of the black-red streams tearing through the air.
The expansion lasted less than a heartbeat.
The dark sphere abruptly imploded.
On the spot.
Only two piles of charcoal, barely human-shaped, remained.
Inside the barrier, the murky plaster-like quality receded like a tide, returning to its original semi-transparent milkiness.
Quinn gazed quietly at the two charcoal piles for a while.
No expression on his face. No pleasure of victory, no disgust at killing, not even exhaustion from exertion. Only a profound, nearly void calm.
Slowly, he raised a hand and took the cigarette that had been, but never lit, between his lips. The filter was slightly flattened by his teeth, soaked with saliva.
He extended two fingers, pinched the damp cigarette, and gently pressed the filtered end against the exact center of the thin spot on the barrier's inner wall.
Ssss.
Tobacco ignited.
A wisp of bluish smoke, carrying the distinctive pungency of cheap tobacco, curled upward.
The burning ember of the cigarette cast its glow in the dim pit, illuminating his expressionless profile and the two piles of charcoal beyond the barrier, still flickering with black-red embers.
He took a deep drag, letting the harsh smoke swirl in his lungs before exhaling slowly.
The smoke blurred his vision for a moment.
Through the smoke and the barrier, he looked at the charcoal piles, at the flickering embers, as if assessing, or perhaps just staring meaninglessly.
A long moment passed.
He lowered his gaze to the still-burning, leaping pale ember on the cigarette in his hand, then looked back outside the barrier.
"A pity."
"Wasted one... core."
The ember flickered, reflecting the unfathomable silence of the solitary tower in his eyes.
His face held no expression. No anger, no mockery, no sorrow from memory. Only a fathomless weariness, and beneath it, a sliver of icy, utter comprehension.
He extended two fingers, took the cigarette from his mouth. Looked at the shallow indent left by his teeth.
Then, he shook the cigarette slightly toward the "Grey Cloaks" beyond the barrier.