Chapter 40: This Was the Mark of an Awakener
The door to Yves’s office swung open. A city guard in a black uniform led a young woman inside.
She appeared to be in her early twenties, her facial features sharp and fierce. She was dressed in snug combat leathers, reinforced with flexible armor at the knees and elbows.
Judging by the grime and filth caked across her gear, she had just emerged from a vicious, desperate fight.
Freshly dried blood stained her chest and arms.
A ghastly tapestry of blackened crimson and sickening green.
Had any other resident of Seed City been present, they would have been stunned to find that, unlike the ordinary populace, her exposed skin bore not the slightest trace of emerald discoloration—the venomous green was concentrated entirely within her pupils.
This was the mark of an Awakener.
Clatter.
Stepping into the room, Zhou Xue hurled a bloodstained pouch onto Yves’s desk.
“Beast cores,” she said, keeping it curt.
Faced with her abrasive attitude, Yves showed no sign of anger. Instead, he picked up the pouch and peered inside.
Three blue-violet beast cores rested quietly within, signifying that three C-rank mutated beasts threatening the northern perimeter had been eliminated.
He looked up and said, “I’ve already heard about Hall. I’ll instruct Heixi’s squad to keep an eye out for any sign of him as well.”
Zhou Xue let out a cold sneer. “Keep an eye out? What happens to someone dragged off by a mutated beast is something you and I know all too well. There’s no need for your hypocritical sympathy, Commander.”
Yves let out a heavy sigh. “I will see to Hall’s funerary arrangements and have a memorial stone raised in his honor. Does he have any surviving family in Seed City?”
“All alone in this world. You can drop the act,” Zhou Xue countered sharply. “Where are the goods?”
“Sir.”
The guard bearing the two silver stars stepped back into the office, carrying several containers.
“Hand them over,” Yves instructed.
“Yes, sir.”
The guard set two large cases alongside a smaller container before Zhou Xue. She merely cast them a sidelong glance, making no move to take them.
“Leave them there,” Yves said upon seeing her reaction.
“Understood.” Setting the cases down, the guard smartly took his leave, gently pulling the dark brown wooden door shut behind him.
“Two crates of medium-grade energy crystals and one dose of detox serum. Exactly as I promised your squad,” Yves said.
“Church and Xia Dong haven’t awakened yet. A single dose of detox serum is nowhere near enough.” Zhou Xue fixed Yves with an unblinking stare. “The danger of force-feeding crystals to induce an awakening is something you understand better than anyone, Commander.”
“That is the absolute limit of our current quota. The only other dose I have is reserved for Heixi’s unit—half of their members have yet to awaken.”
“How touching that you suddenly care about fairness.”
“There is no such thing as fair or unfair in this,” Yves said. Leaning back against his chair, his voice dropped to a gravelly rasp. “If we’re talking about fairness, the moment your abilities awakened, I should have forwarded your names straight to the central administration.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Hardly.” Yves shook his head. “It’s a realistic assessment of where we stand, meant to clear the blinding rage of losing a comrade from your head. The perils you face out there pale in comparison to what awaits you if you’re dragged into the Three Great Cities.”
Zhou Xue’s fists clenched tightly at her sides.
“High-minded, sanctimonious drivel.”
“It is sanctimonious; I won’t deny it,” Yves replied. “Yet were it not for my own selfish motives, you wouldn’t even be standing here alive today.”
“…”
Furious as she was, Zhou Xue knew in her bones that Yves was speaking the cold, unvarnished truth.
“Seed City has already been written off by the Three Great Cities. If we want to survive, we need mutual trust—even if you’re loath to grant me yours right now.”
With a disdainful snort, Zhou Xue scooped up the cases from the floor.
“In a world like this, maybe dying is the only real mercy.”
Leaving those words hanging in the air, she pulled the door open and strode out of the Commander’s office without looking back.
As she rounded the corridor corner, an agonizing flicker of grief finally surfaced in her eyes.
“Commander.”
Once Zhou Xue was gone, the two-star guard re-entered the room.
“How should we fill out this report? You asked to hold off on it before, and we’ve stalled for a month already. Today is the final deadline.”
“Bring it here.”
The document was laid across the desk. Looking at the form stamped with the crimson seal of Top Secret—titled Seed City Awakener Emergence Report (First Half, Year 10 Post-Cataclysm)—Yves picked up his fountain pen and penned four resolute, forceful characters across the blank field.
—None identified to date.
“Dispatch via Black Hawk courier.”
“Understood. Commander, scavengers outside the North Wall may have noticed the disturbances. Should we issue a warning or gag order?”
“No.” Yves fixed him with a stern, cautionary look. “As long as we keep our mouths shut, whatever the residents stumble upon remains mere speculation. Do you understand?”
An official warning would only validate their worst fears.
“Understood!”
He knew Keith’s concerns.
Concealing awakened individuals without reporting them was treasonous; if the Three Great Cities ever caught wind of it, his arrest as Commander would be swift, carrying the gravest penalties.
Harboring an unsanctioned private militia?
As if anomalous incidents around Seed City this past year weren’t already piling up.
The crisis in the Black Fields, the pollution readings at the gates inching toward the red line, the emergence of mutated flora and fauna far exceeding authorized danger ratings in the designated safe zones… The urgent dispatches sent through the Black Hawk and carrier pigeons had yielded nothing but the exact same scripted reply time and time again:
—Acknowledged. Noted. Continue monitoring.
Those sterile, cold receipts never contained orders for reinforcements; they merely demanded explanations as to why the casualty rates exceeded acceptable margins.
No Awakener support. No increase in detox serum allowances.
Only unrelenting directives mandating higher grain quotas squeezed from the Black Fields.
Heh.
If he didn’t take matters into his own hands, was he supposed to sit back and watch Seed City bleed out and be dissolved, just like the other frontier settlements that had vanished before it?
“Transmit it.”
Yves stamped his personal seal onto the document and handed it back to Keith.
Once the officer vacated the room, the Commander of Seed City slumped against the back of his chair, letting out a long, ragged exhale.
Within the silent room, a crushing sense of powerlessness settled over him, bleak enough to drive a man mad.
After running this frontier city for so many years, his once-unyielding resolve and dedication could barely withstand the relentless, grinding erosion of days turning into nights.
Zhou Xue wasn’t wrong.
In a world like this, maybe dying truly was the only real mercy.
They were all forsaken souls, abandoned by whatever gods once watched over them.
Only the ingrained tenacity of an old soldier kept him from surrendering completely, dragging his battered spirit through one last, desperate stand.
Waiting for a glimmer of hope from who knew where.
Ten whole years.
Even Yves himself no longer knew whether that hope truly existed.
Thud.
Beyond the West Wall.
A battered figure clutching his abdomen, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, stumbled forward through the gloom.
With every ragged step, he glanced back into the encroaching darkness. The distant, chilling roars of mutated beasts echoed around him.
His strength finally gave out. With a violent stagger, he collapsed into the dirt, his eyes fluttering shut.
He never realized that as he lost consciousness, he had tumbled straight into a protective dome of soft white light.
And into the dark, the mutated predators hunting his trail turned away, pursuing him no further.
