Chapter 127: Potential Heroine #3

"Drop your weapons and surrender the asset! You have five seconds before we open fire!"

The megaphone’s metallic voice echoed off the stone walls.

Six-barrel heavy repeaters spun with a loud whine on the two armored patrol boats. Blinding searchlights pinned Evren, Amber, and Zephyra against the narrow catwalk while dozens of cartel riflemen aimed from behind the barricades.

Holding Calista securely against his chest, Evren turned his body, shielding her frail frame behind his broad back and heavy combat coat.

"Amber, behind me," Evren commanded in a low voice.

Amber gripped her twin dragon-bone sabers, her dark-brown eyes blazing. "They have the catwalk zeroed in," she said. "If both repeaters fire, the ricochets will tear this ledge apart."

Zephyra didn’t draw a blade.

Standing behind Evren, her left hand slipped into her dark tactical sleeve, her thumb finding the brass toggle of an acoustic detonator.

Her violet eyes locked onto the massive concrete archway sixty yards upstream, where the facility’s primary emergency floodgate valve was anchored into bedrock. "They think they trapped us," she whispered with a cold smirk. "They had no idea I had a backup plan when I mapped out this place earlier."

"Three!" the megaphone barked over the water. "Two..."

Zephyra pressed the toggle.

CLACK.

A dull thud rumbled from deep beneath the canal floor, vibrating through the soles of their boots. For half a second, the cartel gunners hesitated, glancing toward the dark upstream tunnel.

Then came the roar.

High in the archway, the pre-planted charge shattered the emergency release valve of the reservoir bypass. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of pressurized wastewater burst through the shattered floodgates in a wall of black water.

The tidal wave tore through the canal like an angry freight train.

"Hold on to me!" Evren shouted, planting his boots into the catwalk and locking his arm around Calista.

The roaring torrent slammed into the patrol boats first.

The lead vessel was thrown into the air, flipping upside down against the far wall in a deafening shower of crushed steel and sparks. The second boat was swept sideways, crashing headlong into the iron gates as its repeaters sheared clean off the deck.

Searchlights shattered, plunging the canal into darkness. Pressurized steam and white mist rose from ruptured hydraulics, blinding the remaining riflemen as screams echoed through the rushing flood.

The surging water crested over the catwalk, rising past Evren’s knees in a foaming swirl.

"The portcullis is blocked by wreckage!" Amber called out through the mist.

Evren looked through the steam. The three massive iron gates still barred the exit tunnel, but the impact of the patrol boat had warped the bottom frame, bending two central bars out of alignment.

Evren waded through the churning flood, carrying Calista high against his chest. When he reached the warped portcullis, he gripped the two-inch-thick solid iron bars.

He dug his heels into the submerged stone bed.

With a roar of SS-Rank physical strength, Evren exerted his full Sovereign might.

SCREEECH!

The solid iron groaned under immense pressure. Veins stood out on Evren’s forearm as he forced the heavy bars open, snapping the concrete base and bending them wide.

"Go!" Evren barked.

Zephyra slipped through the gap first, her whip-blade clearing any floating debris. Amber darted through right behind her.

Evren stepped through the widened breach, carrying Calista out of the flooded canal and into the city’s primary public storm conduit. They ran through the dry overflow tunnel, completely leaving the ruined black site and its sirens behind.

At the end of the conduit, Zephyra pushed open an iron street runoff grate. Cold midnight air rushed in as they scrambled into a deserted cobblestone alley under pouring rain.

Zephyra slid the heavy sewer grate back into place, concealing their exit.

Evren pulled his combat coat tighter around Calista, shielding her shivering body from the raindrops. "It’s over," he said quietly, looking down at her bruised face. "You’re out."

Calista stared up at the dark, open rainy sky, feeling the cold drops wash the sulfur grime from her cheeks. A single tear tracked through the dirt on her face, but she had no strength left to speak.

Twenty minutes later, their unmarked transport pulled up to the rear entrance of the Imperial Sanatorium. It was 1:40 in the morning... less than two hours since they had breached Aethelgard Tower.

They took the private lift straight to the leased fourth-floor recovery wing.

Guild Master Walter and Dr. Orson jumped to their feet from the trauma ward lobby.

Walter gasped in awe, recognizing the ragged young woman in Evren’s arms. "The Star Alchemist... you actually pulled her out."

"Get Dr. Orson into the sterile room," Evren commanded. "We have work to do."

They hurried into the trauma bay, where the fourteen wounded Iron-Thistle hunters were resting in hospital beds. Blackened sulfur rot covered their bandaged limbs.

Evren walked to the central medical table and tapped his Spatial Storage Ring.

With a soft hum of spatial mana, three reinforced crystalline crates materialized on the stainless-steel table. Radiant starlight bathed the room as Dr. Orson unclamped the latches.

Rows of crystalline vials sat in velvet slots, filled with shimmering silver liquid.

Dr. Orson gasped, his eyes widening behind his spectacles. "Undiluted Grade-5 Celestial Neutralizing Elixir! It’s pure star-lotus concentrate!"

"Will it save their limbs?" Evren asked.

"This is sovereign-grade medicine!" Dr. Orson’s voice shook with disbelief. "It will completely purge the necrosis from their bone marrow in minutes."

Without waiting another second, Dr. Orson and four trauma nurses loaded the silver elixirs into pneumatic injectors, moving rapidly from bed to bed.

The moment the silver fluid entered the hunters’ veins, a miracle unfolded.

A soft hiss filled the ward as plumes of dark sulfur steam vented from their blackened wounds.

The dark rot dissolved before their eyes, peeling away to reveal fresh pink flesh beneath. The agonized groans of the hunters ceased, replaced by peaceful breathing as their vital signs stabilized.

Not a single limb needed to be amputated. Every single hunter was saved.

Guild Master Walter stared at his breathing men, his vision blurring with hot tears.

Walter turned toward Evren, his knees buckling as the veteran warrior dropped to the floor, bowing his head to Evren’s boots.

"Lord Evren..." Walter wept openly, his broad shoulders shaking. "You saved fourteen families tonight. You saved my guild." His voice broke as he continued. "From this night forward, every blade in Iron-Thistle belongs to Apex."

"Stand up, Walter," Evren said, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Apex takes care of its own."

While Walter tended to his men, Dr. Orson led Evren, Amber, and Zephyra into a private room where Calista lay resting.

The doctor gently placed two diagnostic mana probes along Calista’s forearms and collarbones. A soft blue resonance wave scanned her torso.

As the diagnostic runes flashed across the monitor, Dr. Orson’s face grew pale and grim. He lowered the probes and let out a heavy sigh.

"Her malnutrition can be treated with nutrient fluids," Dr. Orson said quietly. "But the neck collar... the continuous Deep-Iron suppression crushed her cervical spinal nerves with necrotic rot. She is completely paralyzed from the neck down."

"And her mana channels?" Amber asked with concern.

Dr. Orson gently turned Calista’s wrists, inspecting the concentric, blackened scars etched to the bone. "These agony rune burns..." he murmured in disbelief. "Child, how long were you chained?"

"Two years," Calista rasped, shivering at the memory. "Twenty-four months in Vane’s forge."

Dr. Orson closed his eyes in horror.

"Twenty-four months..." he said grimly. "The suppressive mana burned through her pathways. Her star-weaving channels are ninety-two percent shattered and calcified."

He looked down at Calista with deep pity.

"In modern imperial medicine, shattered channels cannot be repaired," Dr. Orson murmured. "She will never be able to weave celestial starlight again. Her days as an alchemist are over."

Silence descended over the room.

Calista turned her face toward the pillow, tears silently soaking the linen.

"A Star Alchemist who cannot brew..." Calista whispered, her voice breaking with heartbreak. "I survived two years of torture just to become a useless cripple."

Evren walked to the edge of the bed. Reaching down, he placed a warm, steady hand over her trembling fingers.

Calista looked up, her tear-filled silver eyes meeting Evren’s calm gaze.

"Don’t listen to him," Evren said, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "They might have broken you, but they don’t get to decide when your story ends. If I say you will brew again, you will."

Calista froze, feeling the warmth of his hand. For two years, everyone had looked at her with greed, cruelty, or pity. Yet this man looked at her with a conviction that made her dormant soul-core flicker with the first spark of hope she had felt in years.

At that exact moment, a golden electronic chime rang directly inside Evren’s mind:

[DING! POTENTIAL HEROINE #3 DETECTED: CALISTA VESPER (THE CRIPPLED STAR ALCHEMIST)!]

[BODY: CERVICAL NECROSIS (PARALYZED FROM NECK DOWN)]

[MANA CHANNELS: 92% SHATTERED & CALCIFIED | CORE: DORMANT]

[ELIGIBLE FOR 1,000x CASHBACK & REBATE INVESTMENT!]