Liam shook his head, slowly, the disbelief hardening across his face like stone. "What have I done?" The words echoed in his skull, louder than they had been spoken. For a few seconds, he said nothing. He just stood there looking at the woman who had said them—Lilith, his so-called leader.
Was she being serious?
He had risked everything. Again and again. Fought their enemies, shielded her people, bled for the Black Lotus more tis than he could count—and this is what he got? A question like that?
His lips parted slightly like he wanted to say sothing, but nothing ca. He didn’t even feel angry anymore. Not really. What he felt now was sothing colder. He shook his head again, letting out a short, bitter exhale as he turned away from her.
"Forget it," he said quietly, voice stripped of emotion. "I’ll do my job."
Lilith stood still, watching his back as he walked away. Sothing in her throat moved as though she wanted to call out to him, to take the words back—but no sound left her lips. She just stood there, silent, and then followed.
The woods around them were dense, the morning sun hanging low above the treetops as they moved through the broken branches. The morning was silent, save for the occasional distant rustle of wind through leaves. Liam’s boots moved with heavy steps. He didn’t speak. Lilith didn’t either.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the site.
Tucked deep in the forest, hidden by thick brush and vines, was a small building—single story, boxy, and unremarkable in every way. If soone had walked past, they might have mistaken it for an old shed or a hunting outpost. But sothing about the quiet intensity in the air made it feel more than that.
Ten n stood around the building. All of them were mbers of the Black Lotus, decked in dark tactical gear with rifles slung across their chests and eyes sharp as razors. They were on edge. The mont they heard rustling from the woods, all ten of them snapped their weapons toward the sound, fingers ready on triggers.
"Hold!" one of them called out.
But then they saw who it was.
"Liam... Lilith..."
Instant relief fell across the group like a dropped weight. Guns were lowered. Heads nodded with respect.
"Boss," a few of them greeted as Lilith passed, but she didn’t acknowledge them. She didn’t even glance in their direction. Her boots crunched softly against the earth as she walked straight past everyone and entered the small structure without a single word.
Liam stopped just short of the doorway and turned his gaze on one of the guards closest to him—a sharp-eyed young man in his late twenties, with a silver earpiece clipped into his ear and a scar that cut just beneath his right eye.
"What’s the update?" Liam asked, voice low but firm.
The man stood straighter imdiately. "Sir. We just received new intel not more than fifteen minutes ago. The Crimson Hand—they’re coming. This location specifically."
Liam’s eyes narrowed. "ETA?"
"They’re about forty minutes out, tops. Could be sooner if they use off-road bikes. We have scouts monitoring their position, but..." He hesitated. "We don’t know how many are coming yet."
Liam gave a silent nod, then turned his head to the small, gray-painted building in front of him.
The door Lilith had disappeared into.
"What the hell is in there that’s so important she ca herself?" he asked, half to the soldier, half to himself.
The soldier frowned and shook his head slowly. "We don’t know, sir. We were just told it was high priority. Boss didn’t give us details."
Liam furrowed his brows and stared at the building again. It didn’t make sense.
There was nothing unique about the place. No tech installations. No weapons cache big enough to turn the tide of a war. It wasn’t even fortified—no tal doors, no biotric locks. Just wooden walls, a single steel door, and a couple of caras mounted under the eaves. A place like this... if it truly held sothing valuable, it could’ve been relocated. Secured sowhere better.
Sowhere safe.
Why did she have to co here personally?
Liam’s mind raced through the possibilities, but nothing concrete ca. And the silence coming from inside the house only made it worse. He didn’t like being left in the dark—not now, not with everything crumbling.
He stepped a little closer, folding his arms, eyes narrowed at the structure.
There was sothing going on here. Sothing she wasn’t saying.
Behind him, the guards kept quiet, watching the treeline with tense shoulders and tight grips on their weapons. The wind blew softly again, brushing leaves in soft swirls. Even the forest seed to hold its breath.
Liam knew one thing for sure: whatever was in that building... it wasn’t just "valuables."
Not to make her look like that.
Not to make her ask him of all people, "What have you done?"
He clenched his jaw, exhaled slowly, and waited.
——
Liam stood outside the small safe house, surrounded by ten ard Black Lotus mbers, their rifles angled at the treeline. They all waited, tense and alert. The wind had changed. It no longer felt like the usual forest breeze. There was sothing off. The silence wasn’t calm—it was heavy, unnatural, like a storm gathering just beyond the leaves.
He could feel it in his gut. Sothing was coming.
Each second dragged out like a stretched heartbeat. No birds, no chirping. Just that eerie quietness and the soft shuffle of boots on damp soil. Every man there had their eyes on the shadows between trees, breathing slow, guns steady.
Then, it ca.
A sharp sound—like thunder compressed into a single note—snapped across the air.
Liam’s head whipped to the left.
A dark object tore through the trees at impossible speed, splitting branches like twigs as it burst into view. It wasn’t a bullet. It was larger. Thicker. Shaped like a long, black tal spear, glinting under the moonlight with a sharp, almost alien gleam.
It was moving too fast.
Too fast.
"DOWN!!" soone shouted, but the voice ca too late.
One of the Black Lotus n—young, frozen, standing just slightly ahead of the others—could only stare as the projectile scread toward him. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. His legs were locked. His eyes wide, breath caught in his throat.
It was like his mind shut down from sheer terror.
He was going to die.
But just as the spear was a heartbeat away from tearing through his body—
Liam moved.
In a blink, a gust of wind exploded from where he stood. His body blurred into a streak of motion, faster than the eye could follow. Dirt flew, leaves scattered, and the world seed to freeze for a split second.
The young soldier barely had ti to blink before Liam was in front of him—one hand gripping the front of his vest, the other already pulling them both sideways with blinding force.
The spear ripped through the space they’d just been, slamming into the tree behind them with a sickening thud. Bark exploded. The thick tree cracked, split down the middle as the spear embedded deep into it with a violent hum.
The soldier hit the ground hard, eyes wide, breathing fast.
Liam landed beside him, crouched low, his arm still outstretched in a protective arc.
For a second, no one spoke.
The rest of the Black Lotus guards stood frozen, processing what had just happened. One mont there was silence—then an ambush—then Liam moved like lightning. Not even enhanced n could move that fast. It wasn’t speed. It was beyond it. It was like he warped reality for a mont.
The young man on the ground gasped. "I... I didn’t even—"
"You froze," Liam cut in, not unkindly, but firm. "Don’t do it again."
The man nodded quickly, still trying to catch his breath.
Liam stood up, slowly turning his head toward the tree that had taken the impact. His eyes locked on the weapon still humming with dark energy—its shaft made of reinforced carbon tal, the tip designed to pierce armor, flesh, and bone like paper. It wasn’t just a warning shot. It was ant to kill.
And it nearly did.
Liam clenched his fists.
The Crimson Hand had arrived.
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