Ti passed without him noticing, and he fully devoted himself to refining his body and skills.
He did not count the hours. The sun moved across the plain and told him enough.
Rest and experintation ca in cycles.
At the sa ti, he trained Parashift to switch between modes faster through constant use, until it beca semi usable in real combat.
By late afternoon, most modes were sitting just above five seconds.
He stopped and stood in the middle of the plain, arms at his sides.
’The only way past this mark is for my parashift skill to level up.’
He checked his status and sat down on a flat rock near the hill, watching the city lights begin to flicker in the distance.
Peace and quiet.
That was what he felt right now. If not for his goal to revive her daughter, he would have preferred to live like this.
While he watched the sunset, his thoughts drifted.
He imagined a small wooden house nestled on a distant mountain, surrounded by whispering trees.
No roaring city, no endless rush. Just slow, gentle days that demanded nothing from him.
Then their faces appeared.
His daughters, smiling, waiting for him in that tranquil place.
His hand tightened slightly against his knee, as if trying to hold onto the image before it slipped away.
Even as he buried the pain of losing them beneath an all-consuming obsession to grow stronger, shards of that grief still pierced him in the hollow hours of stillness, a curse he would bear until he succeed in reviving them.
’Just wait a little longer. I’ll revive you both, even if it ans burning this whole world to the ground.’
His eyes, once calm and peaceful just monts ago, changed.
The warmth drained away, replaced by a dark, endless abyss—cold, bottomless, and filled with unspoken rage and sorrow.
.
.
.
Inside the city, such peace did not exist.
It had not existed for several days, though most people moving through the streets had no way of knowing it yet.
In a conference room on the fourteenth floor of the Defense Force administrative building, four n and one woman sat at a long table.
George was at the head. His hands rested flat on the surface, but his fingers pressed down harder than necessary.
Across from him, the others kept their eyes low or fixed on the wall. No one wanted to be the first to say what they were all thinking.
The problem was simple to na and impossible to easily fix.
Samantha Liner was alive.
That single fact undid everything they worked for.
"We cannot release the story," one of them finally broke the silence.
He was the quietest one in the room, which was usually why people listened when he finally spoke.
"If we announce that she worked alongside Ryzen and she ends up talking, we’ll face severe backlash from the public. There’s already noise from those who think Lex was frad."
George said nothing yet. He already knew all of this. He had been turning it over since the mont the operation fell apart.
The original plan looked clean on paper, but no one expected multiple variables to co into play and foul the entire operation.
The silence stretched another few seconds before the woman at the table spoke.
Her na was Maddison. She handled intelligence.
"We have a more imdiate problem than the story," she said. "We believe the person responsible for her rescue is John Chord."
George stared at Maddison for a long second without blinking.
"John Chord," he repeated. He did not say it as a question. He said it the way people repeated a na when they needed to hear it out loud to accept it.
"If that man is moving, then she is as good as gone from this city by now." he added with a defeated sigh.
At the far end of the table, a younger mber raised his hand slightly.
His na was Bern. He was capable enough for his rank, but too young to know the old legends.
"May I ask who John Chord is?"
"John...," he said, dragging the na out slowly, "is a man you would want as an ally but never as an enemy."
His words opened more questions than answers.
"If he decides you need to disappear, no amount of preparation will change the outco. He does not fail. He does not leave trails. And he does not take jobs he cannot finish."
Bern kept his expression neutral, still unable to understand why they were making such a big deal out of one man.
Not even Lex Ryzen, the Giant Killer, made George act like this.
"Why did a big shot like that suddenly co into the picture?" Bern probed.
"That is the part that concerns most," Maddison answered.
"He went dark a long ti ago. The last confird record we have of him was when he separated from Dark Chain.
After that, nothing. No contracts tied to his na. No sightings. He simply stopped existing."
George leaned back and pressed two fingers against his temple.
Senator Erick Liner was still silent, which ant he was watching and calculating.
"The aftermath of this failure will bite us," George said. "If Liner decides to move against us publicly before we contain this—"
The screen on the far wall flickered.
No one touched anything. The image shifted on its own, the briefing feed cutting away and replacing itself with a single dark fra.
A figure sat inside it. The lighting was arranged so his face stayed in complete shadow.
Only his outline could be seen, along with the faint glow of a cigarette at the end of his fingers.
He was smiling. Even through the darkness, the shape of it was clear.
"Calm down, George." The voice ca through the speakers with no static. "Did you forget who you are working for?"
Everyone straightened in their chairs.
"Sir," George began carefully, "the situation has beco more complicated than anticipated.
John Chord’s involvent changes our available options. If he has already moved the girl out of the city, then recovering her becos—"
"I did not ask for an explanation," the figure said. The smile did not leave his voice. "I asked if you forgot."
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