Chapter 57: The Place Beneath the Floor

The moment Kai shouted, Sarah jumped.

Kael followed without hesitation. Jax cursed once and threw himself after them.

Kai was the last to leave the bridge.

The four crimson Executioners stood across from him, their weeping-eye masks glowing beneath the red light that had swallowed the Slaughterhouse. The lead Executioner raised one hand. Invisible pressure slammed into Kai’s chest and stopped him in midair.

His ribs screamed.

"Kai!" Sarah shouted from below.

Kai looked down.

The pit was not filled with molten metal anymore. The moment they crossed its edge, the blazing scrap vanished, replaced by a bottomless shaft filled with black wind. Far beneath him, faint blue lights moved like stars beneath a frozen sea.

The three others were falling fast.

Kai gritted his teeth and reached toward them.

A crimson blade passed through the place where his head had been.

He twisted sideways. The blade missed his mask by less than an inch, but the pressure behind it split the air. A thin line of blood appeared across Kai’s cheek.

"You are not escaping," the lead Executioner said. "You are being discarded."

Kai grabbed the attacker’s wrist.

For the first time, the Executioner moved with surprise.

Kai pulled himself forward, using the man’s arm as an anchor. His knee struck the Executioner’s stomach. The impact bent the crimson robe and sent the masked figure sliding backward across the bridge.

Kai fell.

Wind tore at his coat. The bridge disappeared above him. The red light became a thin circle, and the Executioners turned into four dark shapes watching from the edge.

Then Sarah caught his hand.

Her fingers were trembling. Her other hand was locked around a broken chain hanging from the wall of the shaft.

"You’re heavy!" she screamed.

Kai looked down at the endless darkness beneath them. "You’re the one who dragged me into the fall."

"I was trying to save you!"

"Then try harder."

Kael’s sword suddenly struck the wall below them. He had driven it into a narrow crack and wrapped one arm around a metal beam. Jax hung from Kael’s belt with both hands.

For a few seconds, none of them moved.

Above them, the Executioners began walking along the edge of the pit.

"They’re coming down," Jax said.

Kai looked at the black wind below. The strange blue lights were getting closer. He could hear something moving beneath them, something enormous dragging metal across stone.

"Let go," Kai said.

Sarah stared at him. "You’re insane."

"If we stay here, they’ll cut us apart one by one."

"The bottom may kill us."

"The bottom is our only chance."

Kael glanced upward. The first Executioner had already stepped onto the wall. He was walking down the vertical surface as if gravity had forgotten him.

"Sarah," Kael said, "he’s right."

She looked at him in disbelief. "You’re taking his side?"

"I’m taking the side that keeps us alive."

Kai pulled his hand free.

Sarah tried to hold him, but he released his grip and dropped into the darkness.

"Kai!"

Kael followed a second later. Jax shouted something that vanished in the wind. Sarah cursed both of them, then let go of the chain.

The fall became violent.

Kai spun through the darkness, striking pieces of broken machinery that floated inside the shaft. A metal pipe hit his shoulder. Pain exploded through his arm. He reached for another piece, missed, and slammed against a hanging platform.

The platform broke beneath him.

He continued falling.

A blue light flashed below. Kai saw a massive shape rising through the darkness. It had the body of a centipede and the head of a statue, with dozens of iron legs scraping against the walls.

Its mouth opened.

Kai twisted in the air and threw a strand of shadow toward the wall. The strand caught around a rusted support beam. He pulled himself sideways just as the creature passed beneath him.

Its jaws snapped shut where his body had been.

The sound echoed through the shaft.

Kai swung around the support beam and landed on a narrow metal ledge. His knees nearly collapsed. His shoulder felt numb, and blood ran from his nose.

Sarah crashed into him a moment later.

He caught her before she fell over the edge.

"Put me down," she said.

"You’re welcome."

Kael and Jax landed nearby. Kael rolled twice before smashing into the wall. Jax hit the ledge face-first and remained there for a moment.

"I hate your escape plans," Jax groaned.

Kai looked upward.

The Executioners were descending through the shaft. They moved slowly, but they were not falling. Their robes floated around them, untouched by the wind.

Sarah stood and raised her staff. "There are four of them."

"And only one path down," Kael said.

Kai looked at the ledge. It ended ten steps away at a broken platform. Beyond it was another gap, then a series of hanging bridges leading deeper into the dark.

The creature below them roared.

The walls shook.

"We move," Kai said.

They ran.

The first Executioner reached the ledge just as Kai stepped onto the broken platform. The masked figure swung his blade. Kai pushed Sarah forward and turned to block the attack with his forearm.

The blade struck his shadow mantle and cut through it.

The force drove Kai to one knee.

The Executioner raised his weapon for another strike.

Kael appeared from the side and smashed his shield into the masked figure’s ribs. The Executioner slid backward, but did not fall.

"Go!" Kael shouted.

Kai grabbed Sarah’s wrist and pulled her across the next bridge. Jax followed. Kael remained behind, blocking the path.

Three other Executioners landed on the ledge.

Kael swallowed hard.

"Four against one," he muttered. "That seems unfair."

The lead Executioner tilted his head. "You are not the target."

"Then why are you looking at me?"

The first blade came toward his throat.

Kael raised his shield.

The impact shattered the shield instantly. The second Executioner struck his knee. Kael fell, but before the third blade could reach him, a black shape slammed into the attacker from the side.

Kai had returned.

He hit the Executioner so hard that the figure flew across the ledge and disappeared into the shaft. No scream followed. Only the fading sound of metal striking metal far below.

"You told me to go," Kael said, struggling to stand.

"I changed my mind."

"You could have warned me."

"I was busy."

Kai moved before the remaining Executioners could surround him.

The first attacked from above. Kai stepped aside and drove his elbow into the figure’s mask. The mask cracked, revealing a pale face covered in black veins.

The Executioner reached for Kai’s throat.

Kai caught his fingers and broke them one by one.

The second fighter appeared behind him. Sarah’s staff flashed, sending a white burst into the Executioner’s chest. The attack did not defeat him, but it slowed him for half a breath.

That was enough.

Kai spun and kicked the figure off the ledge.

The third Executioner charged Kael. The captain raised his broken shield and absorbed the first strike. His boots slid backward.

"Kai!"

Kai threw a shadow chain. It wrapped around the Executioner’s waist, but the masked figure cut through it immediately.

Kael roared and drove his shoulder into the attacker. Both men crashed against the wall.

Kai reached them, seized the Executioner by the back of his robe, and pulled him away. The man turned with impossible speed and struck Kai across the face.

Kai’s mask cracked further.

For a second, the world tilted.

He saw the Executioner’s blade rising.

He saw Sarah shouting.

He saw Kael trying to stand.

Then something inside him changed.

Kai stopped trying to overpower the enemy.

He stepped into the strike instead.

The blade pierced his side and passed beneath his ribs. Pain flooded his body, hot and immediate. The Executioner froze, surprised that Kai had allowed the attack to land.

Kai grabbed the arm holding the blade.

"You made one mistake," Kai whispered.

The Executioner’s mask turned toward him.

"You came close enough."

Kai drove his forehead into the mask.

Once.

Twice.

On the third impact, the mask shattered.

Kai pulled the broken blade from his side and plunged it into the Executioner’s chest. The crimson armor burst apart, releasing a cloud of dark smoke that vanished into the shaft.

The remaining Executioners stopped.

Kai stood over their fallen comrade, one hand pressed against his wound. Blood soaked his coat and dripped onto the metal platform.

Sarah stared at him. "You’re hurt."

"I noticed."

"You need healing."

"Later."

Above them, more figures appeared along the shaft walls.

Not four.

Dozens.

The Company had sent an entire squad after them.

Jax looked down. The centipede creature was climbing toward the ledge, its iron legs tearing through the darkness.

"We can’t go up," he said.

Kael looked at the bridges ahead. "And we can’t go forward."

Kai turned toward the deepest part of the shaft. The blue lights had gathered there. They were not lights. They were windows, each one showing a different place: a ruined city, a silent ocean, a forest under red snow, and a small house beneath a gray sky.

One window showed his mother standing beside the kitchen door.

Kai froze.

Sarah saw his face change. "What is it?"

"My home."

The image flickered. Behind his mother, a tall figure in a charcoal suit stepped into the room.

The Adjuster.

Kai’s breathing became uneven.

The Company was not merely chasing him through the Tower. They had already reached the surface.

A voice echoed from the darkness below.

"Choose carefully, Kai. Climb, and your family dies. Descend, and you may never return."

The Executioners closed in from above.

The monster climbed from below.

Kai looked at his bleeding side, then at the image of his mother.

For the first time since entering the Tower, he did not know which direction meant survival.

Sarah touched his arm. "Kai, what are you going to do?"

He stared into the impossible darkness beneath the floor.

Then he stepped toward the deepest window.

"I’m going home."

The window opened like a door.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

Behind him, Kael, Sarah, and Jax followed without hesitation.

The Executioners reached the ledge one second too late.

The passage vanished.

Somewhere far above, in the Company’s boardroom, every screen went black.

The Director of Compliance slowly stood from his chair.

"Where did he go?" one executive asked.

No one answered.

A single image appeared on the largest screen.

Kai stood in a dark street beneath a gray sky, blood covering his coat. Behind him, his family’s home burned without producing smoke.

The Director stared at the image.

Then Kai looked directly at the screen.

He could not see the executives clearly, but he knew they were watching.

His voice crossed the distance between worlds.

"If you touch my family, I will stop climbing."

He lifted the broken Executioner blade.

"I will come for you instead."

The screen shattered.

In the silence that followed, the Director smiled for the first time.

"Good," he said. "Now the asset has finally become interesting."