Chapter 229: Blood-Red Words

The red crack in the sky spread all the way down to the surface of the canal. The river water began to boil violently, sending thick clouds of hot steam into the evening air.

Alarms went off all across the district. People on the stone promenade began screaming and running toward the avenue to get away from the water.

Evren did not look at the rift. His first thought was protecting Calista and getting her to safety. Calista was just an alchemist, and unlike Amber who was an S-Rank or Zephyra who was an assassin and had combat experience, Calista had none.

He put an arm around her shoulders and put up a protective mana shield around her. "Calista, stay with me. I’m getting you to safety."

"I’m right behind you, Evren," Calista said, keeping up with him as they moved quickly away from the water. She smelled the hot steam and frowned. "It smells like sulfur and iron."

"We’ll worry about that after you’re safe," Evren said.

He brought her to the front entrance of the restaurant. Inside the dining room, terrified customers and waiters were crowding around a set of heavy steel doors that led down into the basement.

The restaurant manager was an older man with trembling hands who was struggling to punch the access code into the wall panel. Evren walked up, grabbed the heavy lever, and helped the man pull the reinforced door open.

"Get everyone down the stairs," Evren told the manager in a calm, firm voice. "The shelter walls are thick enough to hold."

"Thank you, sir! Thank you!" the manager gasped, waving the frightened patrons down into the brightly lit underground bunker.

Evren guided Calista through the doorway into the shelter lobby. The basement had reinforced concrete walls and its own backup power system, built to keep people safe during major monster attacks.

"Stay down here until I come back for you," Evren told her, placing his hands on her shoulders. "Keep your mana shield up, and don’t open these doors for anyone."

Calista reached into her coat pocket and touched a small pouch of healing salves. "I have my emergency medicines with me in case anyone down here gets hurt. Please be careful out there, Evren."

"I will," Evren smiled. "Just rest and wait for me."

He stepped back outside and pulled the steel hatch shut, locking the exterior magnetic bolt with a solid click.

Turning back toward the river, Evren jogged over to Amber and Zephyra. Both women were already holding the walkway, their weapons drawn and ready as steam rolled across the stone balustrade.

Amber held her twin sabers low, the dark star-metal humming with a faint golden glow. Beside her, Zephyra kept her whip-blade coiled loosely in her right hand, her violet eyes scanning the churning water.

"More of them are coming up," Zephyra warned, pointing through the thick steam.

A dozen red, scaly monsters crawled out of the boiling river. They looked like giant lizards with thick claws and long teeth, and the system identified them as Level 76 Blood Stalkers.

The beasts hissed loudly, green acidic spit dripping from their jaws and burning small holes into the stone walkway.

Two of the monsters jumped over the stone railing toward an older couple who had tripped on the ground. Amber dashed forward like a flash of golden light.

Her twin sabers cut through the air cleanly. The star-metal blades sliced both monsters in half before they could reach the couple, dropping the dead beasts into the boiling canal with a heavy splash.

"Get to the street, fast!" Amber shouted to the couple, pointing them toward the stairs.

Three more monsters tried to jump Amber from the side. Zephyra swung her whip-blade through the steam, wrapping the steel links tightly around the first monster’s neck and snapping it clean.

Evren stepped forward and used his Gravity Domain across the river wall.

A heavy wave of downward pressure slammed into the pavement. The other two monsters were smashed flat against the stone, their bodies crushed instantly under ten times normal gravity.

Sirens echoed down the avenue as four large armored transport trucks pulled up and blocked the road. The trucks were painted in white and gold, with the bright sun logo of the Solar Crown guild on their doors.

Dozens of high-level guild hunters jumped out carrying heavy shields and rifles. They began shouting through megaphones, setting up metal barricades across the intersection to keep regular people away from the waterfront.

Silas Drake was not with them, having left the district defense to his senior squad captains.

The Solar Crown captain ran toward the edge of the promenade, holding a riot shield. He stopped in his tracks, staring in shock at Evren, Amber, and Zephyra standing over the pile of dead monsters.

"Hold the street perimeter!" Evren shouted up to the captain. "Don’t let anyone come down to the water!"

"Got it!" the captain shouted back, quickly turning to his men to reinforce the road barricades.

Evren turned back to look at the canal. The red crack in the river was growing wider, pulsing with a deep beat that shook the water around it.

Suddenly, a sharp, terrible pain shot straight through Evren’s head. It felt like someone had driven a red-hot iron nail right into his brain.

Evren gasped, his vision blurring as the normal gold interface of his system appeared briefly in his eyes, then suddenly twisted out of shape.

The golden interface changed and bright blood-red words flashed across his eyes, the exact same color as the rift in the river:

[CRITICAL SYSTEM CORRUPTION DETECTED]

[WARNING: CALAMITY FREQUENCY DETECTED — COMPATIBILITY MATCH WITH ARCHIVE FILE #4409-C: 99.8%]

[CONSCIOUSNESS OVERWRITE ATTEMPT DETECTED — FAILED]

The headache hit him so hard that Evren dropped to one knee on the cold stone. He pressed his hands against his temples, clenching his jaw as the pain tore through his head.

Because of their soul-bond, Amber and Zephyra felt a sudden jolt in their own minds. Amber grabbed her head with a soft gasp, while Zephyra stumbled back, shaking her head as her shadow aura flickered.

"Evren!" Amber shouted, dropping down beside him on the ground as her dark-brown eyes filled with fear. "What happened... did you get hit?"

Zephyra stood over them with her whip-blade ready, watching the river. "Was it a mental attack from a monster? I didn’t see anything."

Evren took three slow, deep breaths, waiting for the red text to fade away. The sharp spike of pain slowly settled into a dull ache behind his temples.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and looked up at the two women. "I’m fine. Nobody hit me, and it wasn’t poison."

"Then what was that?" Amber asked, holding his shoulder tightly. "I felt a shock through our bond, like something was attacking your mind."

Evren stood up slowly and looked out at the red crack in the boiling river. "It felt like the rift was trying to talk to me."

Amber and Zephyra stared at him in stunned silence. In all their years of fighting monsters, they had never heard of a rift trying to speak to a person.

Evren rolled his shoulders and summoned his weapon from his spatial ring. "Don’t worry about it right now. Whatever is down there, we need to go in and close it."