Without hesitation, she grabbed Drayke and hurried upstairs, her voice calm but urgent as she spoke to the crowd.
“We need to evacuate the area. Now. Axel’s orders.”
“What the hell? Evacuate?” soone scoffed. “Are we allowed to do that?”
“What’s going on?” another asked, frowning.
“Cassia, seriously, unless you explain, how do you expect us to—”
Cassia raised her voice, eyes hard. “I believe Axel. So should you. Move—now.”
Still, the room buzzed with doubt and confusion.
Just then, the door swung open again, and Blake walked in. “What’s happening?”
Cassia filled him in quickly, including Axel’s ssage and behavior.
But Blake’s expression had changed.
“Start moving now,” he ordered. “Axel doesn’t react like this for nothing. I’ll notify the mayor and request full cooperation.”
The danger Axel sensed was sothing none of them could handle.
His commanding tone snapped the room into order. “Evacuate from the outer periter inward. Don’t panic anyone—use your Awakened IDs and move fast.”
People began rushing into action.
Back outside, Axel slipped through the streets in silence, keeping his breath hidden and every trace of his presence suppressed. His footsteps didn’t echo. His heartbeat barely registered.
In the reflection of a restaurant window, he watched as the pack of wild dogs slinked further into the alleyways.
Sa dog, he realized. The one from the slums.
Axel narrowed his eyes. This thing… it’s not a dog. It might be the thing they've been chasing… the level five chromatic dragon.
He moved like a shadow, following it deeper into the dark.
A soft chi echoed from Axel’s phone. It was a ssage from Luke.
> “Hold on—we’ll be there in fifteen minutes!”
Axel exhaled slowly, eyes still locked on the shadowed street ahead. Fifteen minutes. He just had to keep it together for fifteen minutes.
He could only hope things were going smoothly on Cassia’s end.
.......
Far outside the Dune, Luke, Lilith, Zara, and six other Syndicate elites raced forward at breakneck speed, their boots cutting through snow and gravel like thunder in the silence.
Nine of them in total.
All top-tier.
But even so, the tension in the group was thick.
“This is bad,” Luke muttered. “Really bad. If that thing breaks loose in the city, we’re looking at a fucking disaster.”
Lilith, running at his flank, arched a perfectly shaped brow, her long legs gliding effortlessly over broken terrain.
“If that beast gets to Axel first,” she said flatly, “he’ll be died..”
Luke didn’t reply. His jaw clenched.
He turned to one of the n beside him. “Christian—put up the psychic barrier. We’re not letting that bastard escape this ti.”
.......
One minute.
Two.
Five.
Axel was still tailing the pack of stray dogs at a slow, deliberate pace.
Then it happened.
The dogs stopped. A few of them let out low, guttural howls—uneasy, ears twitching, tails dropping. Without warning, they scattered into the shadows like cowards sensing a coming storm.
All except one.
The skinny, bald stray. The sa one he’d seen back in the slums.
It didn’t run.
It turned. And locked eyes with him.
The disguise had failed. It realized it had been made. The dog bared its yellowed teeth, its stare going from cautious to cruel in an instant.
Two kiloters away, dozens of students, Cassia among them, stood on the rooftop of a sixteen-story building, watching it all unfold.
The evacuation had gone surprisingly smoothly—residents clearing out block by block under the guidance of the Awakened.
Now, only silence remained.
They all stared down at the street below, where Axel stood alone in front of what still looked like just a stray mutt.
A few students broke the tension with laughter.
Soone scoffed. “We evacuated an entire sector because of a damn dog?”
Knight let out a snide chuckle. “Genius or not, if Axel called this wrong, that’s gonna be one hell of a screwup.”
But the laughter was short-lived.
Because just then, Mayor Silas and Barrett stepped onto the rooftop.
“What’s the situation?” Silas asked tightly.
Blake’s face was pale. “Axel’s still down there. I think he’s waiting for support. But that thing…” He trailed off.
And then the sky ripped open with a sound like death.
A monstrous roar echoed across the district—low, guttural, ancient. A sound too deep for human lungs, too wild for any animal.
Glass shattered up and down the block. Students cried out as their ears bled. Two collapsed, blood leaking from their noses and mouths.
Cassia’s heart froze. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ NovᴇlFire(.)nᴇt
And then—right there, on the street below—it happened.
The stray dog twisted, warped, and exploded outward.
A monstrous figure, over nine ters tall, slamd into the pavent with earth-cracking force. Jagged scales shimred in shifting hues, its eyes burning like hellfire. Its claws scraped furrows into the asphalt.
The chromatic dragon had revealed itself.
Screams erupted from the rooftop.
“Holy shit, what is that?!”
“Is that a chromatic dragon?!”
“It’s huge—what level is that thing?!”
Cassia didn’t hear them. Her gaze was fixed on a single point. On Axel. Still standing there.
As the beast stared down at him, the city silent and empty, it was as if ti froze. A god staring at a mortal.
.......
Silas stood frozen on the rooftop, his face drained of all color.
He had known threats existed in the city’s protective wall. But this—a towering chromatic dragon. Right in the heart of Dune.
“Mayor Silas,” Blake said urgently, “expand the evacuation zone. Push it to ten kiloters.”
Everyone around him sucked in a breath.
Silas hesitated. “We haven’t even cleared out the five-kiloter radius yet. There are still hundreds of people out there—”
“I know.” Blake cut him off grimly. “But if that thing gets serious, they won’t stand a chance..”
Silas turned sharply, eyes narrowed. “Can’t the two of you take it down together?”
Cassia’s eyes imdiately locked onto Blake, hope blooming in her expression.
But Blake only gave a tired smile. “Mayor… that thing’s at least Level 5. If I go out there, I’ll die before I even touch it.”
Silas's lips moved, struggling to find words.
Down on the street, the chromatic dragon had finally decided it was done waiting.
With a roar that shook windows across the block, the beast charged.
Its claws ripped through the pavent as it thundered forward, fast—unnaturally fast for sothing that massive. The ground trembled under its weight, asphalt cracking like glass.
Axel didn’t run. He sprinted straight at it.
And then—
BOOM!
Like a wrecking ball into tissue paper.
Axel’s body shot backward like a missile, colliding with a three-story building. Glass exploded outward in a glittering storm. Concrete cracked and buckled. Smoke and dust flooded the air.
“Axel!” Cassia’s voice tore through the rooftop crowd, her eyes wide with horror. Her fists clenched. Her whole body trembling.
Drayke collapsed to his knees, too stunned to speak.
The dust swirled in the air like a curtain. Sowhere in the middle of it, rubble shifted.
A figure moved.
Axel sat up slowly, one eye half-closed, his chest heaving. Blood stained the corner of his mouth, and he blinked through the grit in his eyes to watch the chromatic dragon pushing through the wreckage toward him.
“I can’t beat it,” he muttered. “But it’s weaker than I expected.”
He watched the flicker of fla dancing along its scaled chest. His eyes narrowed.
“Maybe… it’s ti to switch tactics.”
Shoving off the debris, Axel pulled himself free of the shattered concrete and steel.
“Wait—he’s alive?!”
Soone gasped.
Heads turned. Eyes widened.
The figure in the dust was unmistakable. Torn clothes. Scorched skin. But walking.
“Axel?” soone whispered in disbelief.
“I thought he was fucking dead!”
Blake stared from the rooftop, eyes solemn. “Compared to Axel… I’ve got a long way to go.”
Knight turned to him in shock. “Wait—you’re saying you’re not as good as him?”
Blake didn’t look away from the battlefield. “If it had been out there, I’d already be dead.”
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