“......She has disappeared.”
The hologram’s voice in the control room sounded clearer now.
The Chief Administrator was running his fingertips over the leaves of a small orchid beside the control console.
A droplet clinging to the tip of a leaf caught on his fingernail.
His hand stopped.
There was no way he could fail to know whom that report meant.
The young lady shut away in the main house.
The child who had not taken a single step outside her room since the day Yeon Mujin died.
That child had finally gone outside.
For the first time, the Chief Administrator’s expression crumbled.
Not because he was surprised. Because it was something he had known would happen someday, and yet had prayed until the end that it would not.
“......Since when?”
That single sentence sank low into the control room.
—-
The Star Radiance Council investigation team’s convoy.
Black transport vehicles were moving along the outer blockade lane. It was the road linking District 30 and District 32. The purification filters beneath the chassis repeatedly glowed red-hot and cooled, and black, powder-like contaminant particles clung to the armor plates.
Only the emblem of the Star Radiance Council was stamped on the vehicle exteriors.
No family crest, no corporate mark.
There was no need for them. Within The City, the name Star Radiance Council was the authority that mediated the interests of families and corporations—and, at times, could issue orders to both.
That one emblem was enough.
And the man who executed that authority in the field was sitting inside the lead vehicle.
Ezekiel Vermilion.
Chief Executor of the Star Radiance Council.
His red eyes were fixed on the moving map.
The control officer lowered his posture as he reported.
“All aerial routes are closed across the board. The low-altitude contamination layer has exceeded critical density, and the upper layer has been reclassified as the activity zone of airborne contaminants. We are maintaining the ground blockade lane out of necessity.”
“Estimated delay.”
“At the current transit speed, approximately two hours. However, there is room for fluctuation depending on the contamination density ahead.”
“Maintain course.”
“Understood.”
In this region, the sky was not a road.
The ground was not safe either. These armored transports, however, had been built to pass through contaminated zones.
Beyond the vehicle window, the faint lights of the outskirts flowed past in the distance. Beyond the plank layers and waste rails, only a few central blocks rose like blades, encircled by armored glass and automated sentry systems.
Even as part of The City, not all of District 30 was protected.
Outside that narrow center, organizations, smugglers, fixers, and outer militias were closer than the law.
Lin withdrew her gaze from the window.
“Shall I report it as a delay?”
Ezekiel did not take his eyes off the map.
“We’re on schedule.”
“I’ll report it as is.”
It was a brief exchange.
Several markers overlapped on the map.
The District 32 boundary.
The core’s last confirmed location.
Traces of knight-class combat.
The appearance point of the unclassified vessel-class entity.
Signs of solo intervention by Demon-Subjugation Unit Commander Yeon Mujin.
They were too close.
Then the communication network hummed low.
Chzzk.
[Outer wall erosion grade in District 30 rising.]
[Current grade: C-4.]
The communications officer raised his head.
“Chief Executor. The outer perimeter alert has risen. It is currently up to C-4.”
Ezekiel was still looking at the map.
“Outer perimeter alerts always rise.”
“Yes. However, the rate of increase differs from usual.”
“The things they placed in front of the wall must finally be raising the numbers.”
No one replied to that.
Lin asked quietly.
“Will you not consider a detour?”
Ezekiel’s red eyes turned toward her.
“No need.”
“I will relay that as is.”
Her words were courteous.
Ezekiel dropped his gaze back to the map.
“The destination has not changed.”
Lin said no more.
Meanwhile, Karin was looking out the window. A pale face. A resonance assist device wrapped around her wrist. The light inside the device blinked at a steady rhythm, then, for an instant, stuttered out of sync.
Beep.
Lin noticed first.
“Karin.”
Karin did not answer immediately. Her fingertips trembled faintly. It was not the trembling of someone in pain. It was closer to the trembling of someone who had tried to grasp something and missed.
“Just now.”
Her voice was low.
“The direction changed.”
Lin’s eyes narrowed.
“The core?”
Karin slowly shook her head.
“The core didn’t move.”
Ezekiel’s gaze also turned toward Karin.
Karin slowly looked out the window.
Toward the wall.
“Whatever was covering the core...... moved.”
The inside of the vehicle went silent.
At that moment, the communication network rang again.
This time, a short warning tone came first.
Beeep—
[Outer wall erosion grade in District 30 reclassified.]
[Current grade: C-5.]
The communications officer’s lips stiffened.
“C-5......”
Several breaths in the vehicle stopped.
Ezekiel’s hand stilled.
Only for a very brief moment.
But that brief pause alone was enough to convey the weight of the number that had just appeared.
His gaze slowly swept over the map. The District 32 boundary, the core’s last confirmed location, the appearance point of the unclassified vessel-class entity. And now the outer wall newly reclassified as C-5.
Markers that should have been separate were interlocking in one direction.
His red eyes turned back to the communications officer.
“Possibility of a false report.”
The communications officer moved at once.
“We are cross-checking simultaneously through the district network, the Star Radiance Council auxiliary network, and the outer automated warning system. Please wait a moment.”
A brief silence.
“......All match, Chief Executor.”
No one added a word.
Ezekiel cast his gaze out the window. In the distance, black smoke was rising into the sky near the wall. The vehicles ahead automatically reduced speed and displayed a detour route.
He did not give an order immediately.
Over the screen where the detour route had appeared, Karin’s resonance, the core, and the number C-5 overlapped.
Ezekiel’s fingertips brushed briefly across the map.
The detour line disappeared.
The original route thickened again.
The communications officer answered as though swallowing his breath.
“Maintaining original route.”
“The destination remains the same.”
Ezekiel spoke low.
“We simply have one more reason now.”
Karin was still looking toward the wall.
The light of the resonance assist device stuttered out of sync once more.
This time, it was clearer.
Karin spoke very softly.
“Over there...... something is covering it.”
Lin’s gaze rested briefly on the device around Karin’s wrist.
Then turned toward Ezekiel.
“The direction was not wrong, then.”
Ezekiel’s red eyes returned to her.
Lin said no more.
It happened then.
Clang.
The vehicle lurched violently.
Immediately after, the sound of something colliding exploded from the front.
Bang!
The lights inside the transport flickered for a beat. Several pieces of equipment fixed to the walls trembled briefly, and the purification filter beneath the floor growled harshly.
Vroooom—
The communication network instantly boiled over.
Chzzzk.
— Lead Two stopped! Repeat, Lead Two has stopped!
— Lane ahead is blocked!
— Multiple external heat sources. Contaminant reactions mixed in!
— We are engaged! Combat has broken out ahead!
The communications officer raised his head.
“Chief Executor. We are detecting combat activity ahead. Location is in the middle of the blockade lane.”
Lin’s eyes narrowed.
“In a place like this?”
No one inside the vehicle answered immediately.
This place was less a road than a transit line. On the map, it was marked as a blockade lane, but in reality, it was a narrow line forcibly cut through the contaminated zone. It was not a place to linger.
Combat in such a place.
The location was too bad.
Ezekiel was looking down at the map. Several new red dots had appeared over the lane ahead. The location of the lead vehicle. The point where it had stopped. And beyond it, rapidly wavering unidentified heat sources.
He flicked a finger.
“Confirm.”
“Yes, understood.”
The communications officer pulled up the forward feed, and the control officer opened the external observation device.
A fractured screen appeared in midair.
At first, there was only static. Black dots and white horizontal lines split the screen. Soon the image corrected, revealing the blockade lane ahead.
Lights shook.
In the middle of the lane, two vehicles of a different model from the armored transports were stopped at an angle. The mark of a carrier affiliated with Wudang Corporation remained faintly on the side of the chassis. The armor was too thin to be an official escort vehicle, and there were clear traces of protective coating hastily painted over it.
Behind them were people.
They looked like refugees. An old man in a worn protective suit, a woman clutching a child, a man wearing a bloodstained mask. They crouched between the vehicles, trembling. Some coughed as if they had already inhaled contaminant particles, and someone was forcing a filter into the mouth of a collapsed person.
Two people stood in front of them.
One was a woman who appeared to be a martial artist. She wore thin protective armor over a black combat suit, and a folding shield was deployed on one arm. In her other hand was a short blade. With her back to the people behind her, she was blocking the black spikes flying toward them.
And farther ahead than her.
There was a woman in a white coat.
The coat was already torn. It was neither field protective gear nor combat wear. She looked as if she had hastily strapped a few pieces of external armor over clothing closer to high-grade ceremonial attire. It was not proper combat equipment. Even so, the woman did not retreat.
What the woman in the white coat blocked looked at first like the wreckage of powered armor in motion.
Thick armor plates covered its shoulders and chest, and severed cables tangled with blackened, hardened flesh at every joint. Inside the half-fused helmet, a dim bluish-white warning light flickered irregularly.
A human shape still remained.
But it did not look human.
It was closer to a broken piece of combat equipment forcing a corpse to stand and move.
Each time it took a step, the lane floor sank. It was not fast. Instead, it did not stop. When the woman traced a blue arc to bind its feet, black fibers like muscle swelled beneath the armor plates and forced another step forward.
The communications officer’s voice stiffened.
“It appears to be an irregular, presumed knight-class entity.”
The air inside the vehicle grew heavy.
Lin looked at the screen, then, for the briefest moment, looked at Ezekiel.
Fragments resembling the things that had been missing from the last meeting were gathering in one place again.
She said nothing.
She merely turned on the recording device indicator in silence.
Ezekiel’s red eyes brushed over the movement.
The knight-class entity pushed forward.
It was heavy.
With every step, the metal lane caved in, and the black fibers matted beneath its armor plates writhed as they added force. Taking it head-on would mean being crushed. The woman on the screen knew that too.
Her toes struck the ground.
Thud.
She did not block from the front.
Retreating half a step, she turned her body. Her wrist rotated smoothly, and her elbow followed late. Outwardly, it was loose. But her center did not waver. Wudang’s so-called softness outside, strength within. It was the Taiji principle of binding overwhelming force with a gentle arc.
The knight-class entity’s arm dropped.
Bang!
The woman’s body seemed to vanish beneath its arm. No, she had not vanished. Just before the impact landed, her foot stepped along a circle. A blue arc spread across the ground, and the descending force flowed sideways as it was.
The metal lane crumpled in a long line.
But the woman was still there.
She had not blocked it completely. The ill-fitting external armor creaked belatedly, and the turbid energy of the contaminated zone gnawed at the lines of Taiji. From both sides, contaminants continued to spit black spikes. When one spike grazed the blue arc, the connected circle tore apart for an instant.
Blood spattered from the woman’s fingertips.
Even so, she did not retreat.
She stepped again into the broken circle. One step. Half a step. One step again. The knight-class entity’s heavy power seemed to be driving her back, but at some point, that power was losing its direction within her arc.
She was not winning through strength.
Let it flow, wrap it, return it.
Borrowing force to strike with force.
Four taels to deflect a thousand catties.
It was Wudang’s method of making the strong lose their way inside a gentle circle.
The problem was that she could not endure for long. It was not only because her opponent was strong. This was a contaminated zone, her equipment did not fit, and behind her were vehicles and people. The circle of Taiji had to spread wide to be complete, but the woman could not retreat.
So the circle continued to warp.
Even so, it did not break.
The martial artist shouted through gritted teeth.
“Director!”
The woman did not look back.
“The vehicles first.”
“If you hold out any longer, your body—”
“The vehicles first.”
It was brief.
A voice that left no room for objection.
The control officer enlarged the screen.
Within the fractured image, the white coat flipped once. Through a torn gap, a small emblem beneath the nape of her neck flashed past.
Lin’s gaze stopped there.
The board mark of Wudang Corporation.
And the workmanship permitted only to the direct line of the main family.
For the first time, Lin’s expression changed subtly.
“Dam Sohye.”
The name required no long explanation.
That was enough.
A director and heir of Wudang Corporation. The fiancée of the late Demon-Subjugation Unit Commander Yeon Mujin.
Ezekiel’s red eyes turned toward the screen.
This was not a place where someone like that should be.
Not the Wudang main house, not a board-exclusive vehicle, not an official escort contingent. The middle of a contaminated zone. Two thin vehicles bearing the mark of an affiliated carrier. A few pieces of ill-fitting external armor. One martial artist. And unidentified refugees.
Lin’s gaze rested on the vehicle markings on the screen.
Was this a convoy that had received permission to leave?
There was no way.
That was enough.
Ezekiel did not answer.
Instead, he rose from his seat.
The air inside the vehicle stiffened once more.
The communications officer raised his head.
“Chief Executor?”
Ezekiel did not take his eyes off the screen.
“Stop the vehicle.”
That was all the answer he gave.
Lin’s gaze reached Ezekiel.
Only for a moment.
A presumed knight-class entity.
A contaminated zone.
A director of Wudang.
And a resonance leaning toward the wall.
Ezekiel’s red eyes settled coldly once more.
“Open the front.”
His voice was low.
“I will confirm it myself.”