The doors shut behind them, and Selindra spun on him immediately. "What the hell was that?"
Lucen blinked. "What part? My stunning smile? My charming wit?"
"You shouldn't have said fourty."
He tilted his head. "You wanted me to lie?"
"That would've been smarter."
Varik kept walking. "Enough."
Selindra's eyes narrowed, but she fell back into step.
Lucen smirked to himself. 'Not lying was smarter. Watching her squirm about it is way more fun.'
—
The FHA office windows rattled first.
Lucen noticed it before the others, half a second of vibration through the soles of his boots, like the whole building had been nudged by something vast. He leaned back in the hallway chair outside Elira's office, balancing on two legs, watching Selindra frown toward the glass.
Then the alarms hit.
Not the usual shrill sirens meant to clear traffic for mid-tier gates. No, this was deeper. A rolling bass tone that shuddered through walls, followed by a shriek of klaxons that dropped every hunter in the lobby to silence. Red strips of mana light lit the ceiling, pulsing in steady rhythm.
[Emergency Protocol: Dungeon Break Detected]
[Classification: Gigantic]
[Location: Central Quadrant, Tier-Alpha City Core]
Hunters froze mid-step. Conversations cut off like knives.
Lucen whistled low. "Well, that sounds bad."
Selindra was already moving, coat snapping behind her as she strode back into Elira's office. Varik didn't say a word, just followed.
Lucen sighed, rocked his chair back onto four legs, and pushed himself up. "Always when I've just finished paperwork."
Elira's jaw tightened. "Gigantic. Thirty-kilometer radius collapse zone. We estimate creature output in the hundreds within the first hour."
"Hundreds?" Lucen leaned in, hands in his pockets. "That's less a break and more a street festival. With fangs."
Neither woman dignified that.
Varik's voice cut steady. "Command assignment?"
Elira's gaze lifted from the map to the three of them. She didn't waste words. "Containment. Evacuation. Elimination."
"Priority order?" Selindra asked.
"Containment."
Lucen cocked his head. "Containment as in—keep the monsters in? Or keep the people out?"
Elira's eyes flicked to him. "Both."
Selindra nodded once. "Understood."
Varik asked the question next, voice like iron hammered flat. "Authority tier?"
Elira's gaze didn't waver. "Prime."
That landed. Even Lucen felt it, the weight of it pressing in his chest. Prime Authority, authorization for lethal discretion, collateral allowed, no limits on mana expenditure. In plain words: do whatever it takes.
Selindra's jaw set. "We'll deploy immediately."
Lucen raised a hand lazily. "Hold on. I just finished saving your relic, and you want me to play exterminator for free? Do I at least get a badge, maybe a coupon book?"
"Lucen," Varik said flatly.
Lucen dropped his hand. "Fine. But if I step on one civilian by accident, that's on Elira's paperwork, not mine."
Elira didn't smile. She never did. "Move. Now."
—
The city was already unraveling when they stepped out of the tower.
Sirens wailed across the skyline. Transports screamed overhead, their contrails slicing the smog. Civilians clogged the streets, some running, some frozen, some simply staring up at the sky where the rupture pulsed like a wound.
It wasn't subtle.
At the heart of the city, above glass towers and concrete streets, a rift tore the air itself apart. Dark light poured through in jagged waves, bending the skyline, distorting the sunlight until the horizon looked like melted glass.
And from it, things crawled.
Shapes not yet clear, half-formed, their outlines writhing as if reality couldn't decide what they were. Each pulse of the rift spat more of them onto rooftops and boulevards, where they straightened and screamed.
Selindra was already issuing orders into her comm, clipped and sharp. "Evacuation grid to Sector Twelve. Civilian corridors on west and south. Deploy squads Alpha through Gamma to perimeter three."
Varik unsheathed his blade. No flourish. No sound but the steel leaving the scabbard. The mana around him flexed—sharp, heavy, undeniable. Civilians nearest froze, then stumbled back as though they'd been shoved by wind.
Lucen cracked his neck. His system interface flicked into view.
[Level: 40]
[Mana Pool: 350/350]
[Spells Available: Shockweave Bolt, Ignition Burst, Soundlash, Piercing Flare, Crater Bloom, Cataclysm Vector, Frost Spire]
The numbers looked neat. Clean.
He grinned. "Guess it's showtime."
—
They didn't have to reach the rift before it reached them.
A screech ripped through the avenue ahead as one of the forming things resolved fully, seven feet of chitin and talons, its eyes glowing abyssal white. It leapt from a building and landed hard enough to crater asphalt.
Civilians screamed, scattering.
Lucen lifted a hand.[Shockweave Bolt.]
Blue-white arcs spat from his fingers, splitting midair into three lines that hammered into the creature's chest. The impact flared electric, hurling it backward through a storefront window. Glass exploded outward.
Selindra was already moving. Her blade cut through two more as they spilled from an alley, her strikes clean, efficient, leaving nothing but split carcasses twitching on pavement.
Varik didn't move fast. He didn't need to. One creature lunged, and he met it with a single swing that didn't just sever, it erased. The body was gone before it hit the ground.
Lucen let out a low whistle. "And I'm supposed to keep up with that?"
Another two crawled from the rift ahead, spines twitching.
Lucen smiled wider. "Guess I'll try anyway."
—
The rift above pulsed again, and this time a wave of creatures spilled outward, dozens, maybe more, shrieking as gravity pulled them down like rain made of blades.
The city square was about to drown.
Selindra's voice snapped sharp. "Lucen—barrier! Now!"
His grin didn't falter. [Cataclysm Vector.]
Lines of crimson light burst from his palms, jagging upward into the sky before collapsing in on themselves. The vectors twisted, warping space into a funnel that dragged half the falling monsters inward. They smashed against each other midair, crushed into a spiral of shrieking limbs before the spell detonated in a thunderclap, vaporizing them.
The rest slammed into rooftops and pavement, scattering into alleys.
Selindra was already carving a path through them, efficient as ever. Varik followed, slower, each strike ending three at once.
Lucen stood in the middle of it all, laughter curling low in his throat as his mana thrummed.
This wasn't a fight. This was a collapse.
And it was only the beginning.
—
The air was already sour with smoke. Glass rained from a dozen buildings, the sound sharp as rainfall against the pavement. Every pulse of the rift overhead deepened the distortion, the skyline bent wrong, warped like a reflection on water, skyscrapers seeming to lean where they shouldn't.
Lucen snapped his wrist and let a thin crackle of mana arc across his fingers. [Shockweave Bolt.] The creature that had crawled too close convulsed, its limbs spasming before it collapsed in a twitching heap. He stepped over it without breaking stride.
'Barely level-fodder,' he thought, smirking faintly. 'And this is supposed to be a gigantic break?'
Another shriek rattled the street. This one heavier. Louder.
Varik turned his head toward the avenue ahead, his blade still low at his side. His voice was calm. "They're clustering."
Selindra's eyes flicked to rooftops, then down alleys, calculating angles. "Perimeter collapse in under three minutes if we don't block south."
Lucen kicked a severed claw out of his path, grinning. "Then let's block south."
He didn't wait for orders. He swung into the next street, mana already surging up through his veins. The creatures were pouring down from a tilted skyscraper, glass glittering around their bodies as they tore free of the higher floors and dropped like stones.
Lucen raised his hand. [Crater Bloom.]
The spell blossomed outward, a circle of compressed force exploding up from the asphalt in a vertical shockwave. The collapsing creatures slammed into it mid-fall, the shock shattering chitin, snapping limbs, scattering them into broken husks before they could even land. The ground below buckled, asphalt curling in a perfect ring crater where he stood.
Smoke rose.
Lucen dusted his gloves off. "South blocked."
Selindra shot him a look sharp enough to cut. "Don't overextend. You're not—"
"I'm not you," Lucen interrupted with a smirk. "I know."
Varik didn't look at either of them. He moved.
The ground shook with his steps, each swing of his blade not just cutting but silencing the battlefield. A cluster of four creatures lunged at once, his blade carved one in half, the arc of force extending, erasing the other three before their screams finished.
Lucen watched, lips quirking. "Show-off."
Selindra's voice snapped over the noise: "Evacuation corridor open. Push civilians north-west."
Hunters in Association uniforms were already rushing to assist, emboldened by the presence of two SS-ranks and whatever-the-hell Lucen was. They funneled civilians through broken streets, pulling them past wreckage, while Selindra cut down anything that slipped too close. Her strikes weren't showy, they were exact, as if she already knew where each creature's weakest joint would be before it lunged.
Lucen leaned against a half-collapsed signpost, watching her for a moment.
'Efficient. Cold. She's measuring everything, including me.'
A shriek tore the thought apart. This one deeper, layered, wrong.
The rift pulsed, not outward this time, but down.
The ground shuddered. Asphalt cracked in jagged lines. From beneath, a new creature dragged itself free, taller than a transport, plated in abyssal crystal that shimmered with light. Its head scraped the underside of a walkway as it rose, eyes opening in a fan of white fire.
Selindra's jaw tightened. "Secondary entity confirmed."
Varik shifted his stance, blade angled low. "Containment."
Lucen tilted his head. "Containment? That thing looks like it wants to redecorate the skyline."
Varik didn't answer. He was already moving, each step sinking slightly into broken pavement as his aura flared.
Selindra turned sharply. "Lucen. Support fire only."
Lucen grinned. "Oh, you're adorable."