A crash shattered the quiet.
Kael's eyes flew open. The unfinished floors below rattled, steel beams groaning under stress. The sound was followed by screams, female, human, raw, and terrified.
He froze for a heartbeat, then ran. Down the metal staircase, past half-built walls, and exposed girders. Something in his gut screamed that this wasn't random. Something… deliberate.
At the bottom, he saw it. Blood pooling across the concrete, a young woman's body crumpled, lifeless it was the same person he saw not even a couple hours before from his TV. The reporter of earlier. Kael's stomach turned to ice. And there, above her, stood Asher Veylan. Calm. Composed. Smiling like he was greeting an old friend. Casually wiping blood off his hand.
Kael's breath hitched. This was no act. The man on TV, the supposed hero, had killed someone, and he had seen him do it. The reporter was probably on to him… and he ended her life for it.
Asher turned slowly toward him. His eyes were cold, assessing, and unnervingly steady. "You shouldn't be here," he said, voice low, casual. "This was supposed to be an empty construction site…Well, what's one more corpse?"
Kael tried to speak, but his throat locked. Fear rooted him in place. Every instinct screamed to run, yet every movement felt sluggish, as if the city itself were holding him down.
Asher's smile widened, subtle, almost polite. "She should have minded her business, so should you. What a shame, what a shame, so young... Still it's I'm thankful, at least I can easily put this on you."
Kael stumbled backward. He searched the floor for something, anything, that could help. His gloves, a loose pipe, a steel beam. But nothing could compete with the power radiating from Asher.
Then the attacks began.
The first strike wasn't violent; it was deliberate, psychological. A swirl of light flashed past Kael's face, scorching the air beside him.
That made Kael's feet grow numb, he was a hair breath away from death.
Asher then flicked a steel beam that would require four men strong to even hoist and carry with his index finger. It flicked up and he caught the beam with one hand then swung it at Kael, not to kill, but to scare, to demonstrate his weakness. Kael barely ducked, the steel grazing his arm and burning through his sleeve. Pain lanced through him, and he stumbled over rubble.
"Come on," Asher said. Not taunting. Not cruel. But every word, every movement was a statement of dominion. "You should know there is no escaping this? I'm Inevitable you know."
Kael's heart pounded. Each step brought new hazards: collapsing scaffolds, suspended beams dropping like guillotines, shards of concrete hurled with precise timing. His lungs burned, his vision blurred, and yet the worst was the calm in Asher's demeanor, the way he moved as if playing a game with a mouse.
Where Kael ran, Asher simply walked. Further increasing the terror Kael felt.
'I'm gonna die!' and that wasn't even a hypothesis. It felt far too real. What if this was just a dream? Just a nightmare?
But the burning sensation of his injured arm and his heaving lungs was enough to shatter that hope to bits.
Kael tried to run. Tried to hide. Tried to think. He couldn't. Every calculation ended in the same conclusion: death was inevitable. He turned a corner, and Asher's magic caught him mid-step, lifting him slightly before slamming him into a support beam. Pain exploded through Kael's ribs. A groan escaped him, raw and human, a sound that echoed across the empty floors.
"You're resilient… for a human," Asher said, almost admiringly. Then he struck again, and Kael realized the compliment was nothing but a prelude to cruelty.
He could have killed him any moment, but the sadistic smile on the bastard's face was all Kael needed to realize, the fucker was enjoying it. And he would be damned to hell and back if he were to even beg or scream, these type of people get off on seeing people in that state. Meaning that a merciful death would be nothing but a forlorn hope. Kael wasn't going to allow himself that humiliation. Even as an Unweakened, deep down he was still human, still a man.
The dance continued. Kael fell, rolled, crawled, tried to leverage his body as he had hundreds of times in construction, but each move was countered, each instinct anticipated. Beams crashed, sparks flew, concrete crumbled. He grunted once, a sound swallowed by the city, a sound that would not be heard.
Finally, Kael found himself at the edge of the building, looking down at the Hudson. His body was broken, bleeding, and his lungs screamed for air. Asher approached, slow and deliberate. Kael's eyes locked with his, and for a moment, he thought of his mother, trapped in a hospital bed, waiting for something he could not give her.
"You…'re fucking… messed up…" Kael said as he grit his teeth.
"You're no fun either, should have given me a scream at least."
Then Asher struck the final blow.
He opened his palm and what looked like a torrent of pure kinetic energy blasted through kael, tearing most of his construction clothes. Bursting one of his eyes, breaking almost every bone in his body and finally sending Kael tumbling over the edge. He fell for what felt like a long period of time. seeing the night sky for what felt like the last time. And all he could think of. What kind of fucked up life did he just live through to die so meaninglessly here.
He plunged into the cold water below, the steel and concrete of the building followed slicing at him as he fell. Each impact knocked the wind from his lungs. Each moment felt like eternity.
Kael felt the end, the finality of death, pressing against him like a wall. His last coherent thought was regret: 'I'mSorry mom…'
For a moment, the darkness of the river clouded his blurry vision. The warmth of his body was rapidly seeping out. Death had encroached on him, and was about to take him.
Under the low light of the moon, and following to deeper darkness, the last thing he was able to see was the tower from deep inside the depth of the cold river. He realized it too later. If it wasn't for the tower, he wouldn't have been in this situation.
He could have finished his schooling and graduated, mechanical engineering was profitable in the old world. His mother wouldn't have had to be sick, his girlfriend wouldn't have left him, and his life would have been much easier and better than it is right now. And most importantly, people who mimic gods wouldn't simply think of him as a mere plaything to be killed for their leisure.
Kael closed his eyes to embrace the eternal darkness…
But then, there was light.
Not warm. Not comforting. Not natural. It was alien, commanding, impossible. A sigil hovered above him, shimmering with cold brilliance, words forming directly in his mind:
"You are invited to the Tower."
Something in Kael, a spark he didn't know existed, refused to die. His fingers reached toward the light, and the world snapped.