Page 130 of Interion

“Understood, general!”

Zion dismissed him with a wave and headed toward the facility. The entrance was blocked by debris from a collapse on the upper floor—concrete blocks and shattered glass obstructing the passage. This would help keep anyone from entering, but it would have to be cleared for the forensic team arriving the next day. From where he stood, Zion could smell decomposing bodies. They were still fresh, so the odor wasn’t that strong yet, but by tomorrow it certainly would be. After all the evidence was collected, they would gather what remained to hold a dignified funeral.

Five doctors and ten nurses had died at dawn. Combined with the eighty soldiers lost in the conflict, the death toll approached a hundred. The losses were so staggering that Zion tried not to think about them—he felt he’d spiral into guilt if he did. First he had to solve the problems; then he would mourn. Right now, the doctors were waging war against the death hovering over the rest of his men. He was anxious for news from the hospital, but he also didn’t want to face the reality stretching before him, threatening to suffocate him. His second-in-command was in critical condition, and he already expected the worst—he knew what shape she’d been in when he saved her. His heart clenched every time he remembered the battlefield.

Bodies. So many fallen bodies. So many that, in the end, it was hard to tell the living from the piles stretching across the gorge floor. When he arrived, it was already too late. Drute soldiers were everywhere, and Zion couldn't understand how his squadron had ended up in a situation like this—they were usually careful.

Δ

When Zion appeared in the middle of the battle, his second-in-command was fighting alongside five other soldiers, nearly spent. They were protecting the wounded on the ground, which meant they couldn't retreat from the gorge.

“Kaori!” he shouted above the sounds of battle. He stayed back from the fighting—there was no time for combat. He had to transport the men, and he could only take them one at a time. “Gather all the wounded you can in the right corner of the gorge. I'll keep the enemies back.”

She searched for his voice amid the clash of gifts colliding—fire, metal, water, and lightning. The place was hell, with little room to escape: only ten meters wide and choked with trees. When their eyes met, she smiled as if the sun had broken through the carnage. Even her slit-shaped pupil dilated, making her eyes even more terrifying.

“Damn, I missed you, you son of a bitch. Thought you wouldn't make it in time,” she exclaimed, sheathing her twin swords in the holder on her back.

Her hair writhed around her shoulders—dozens of cobalt blue serpents thrashing uncontrollably. She quickly followed the general's orders, dragging the fallen men by their feet to a safe spot near the mountain wall. Zion sent his shadows out in a protective circle; anyone who entered would be attacked by the tendrils. He focused on protecting his people and containing the enemy advance.

“Shadow!” Zion heard someone yelling from the other side, and soon several voices took up the cry.

“Shadow! Shadow! Shadow!”

Zion had heard it before—a warning to stop attacking. They knew the general was there and needed to retreat.

For an instant, Zion lowered his guard when he saw the attacks cease and the soldiers beat a retreat. That was when, from a recess in the gorge, a damned Drute who'd been lying in wait struck. The general only had time to hear a click before an air and fire grenade flew, exploding near the wounded—right next to Kaori.

His head throbbed from the blast, and for a moment the world buzzed and spun around him. As soon as he recovered, he transported himself to where the enemy stood. The man didn't have time to see death coming. Zion slammed him with a kick against the rough mountain stone and, in seconds, slashed the enemy's throat from ear to ear with a dagger. The last thing the soldier saw were eyes of war—wild and stormy.

Through the bodies, blood, and earth, Zion dragged his men. Only five soldiers could still walk and help him—the only ones who still had elemental power. Even with overwhelming rage trying to consume him, he forced himself to prioritize his allies' lives. That was the only thing keeping him in control. He needed to stay focused or he'd succumb to the vengeance the shadows whispered in his ear. So he left half the tendrils protecting his people and transported the wounded one by one to the meeting place he'd arranged with Cauê.

He lifted Kaori with all the care in the world, feeling that if he didn't hold her firmly, parts of her head might fall to the ground. His heart sank in a way he'd rarely felt in his life. It reminded him too much of the past—of a playful boy whose life had been stolen too soon—and Zion wanted to scream in despair at reliving the scene.

He could cope with the death of the other men, but not with his second-in-command's. She was the only person in the army who made hell more tolerable—his protégé, his best friend, the one with whom he'd shared the burden of Akira's loss, someone for whom he would move mountains. So, as soon as he confirmed she was still alive, he fastened Kyller's necklace on her. He didn't know if the sinil could contain damage of that magnitude, but he hoped it would help Kaori hold on until she reached the medical base. Luckily, Cauê had already contacted the Vinturian base five hours earlier, reporting that Kaori was in the middle of the confrontation. The helicopter arrived exactly as Zion finished collecting all the bodies and flew away loaded. For lack of space, Zion was left alone in the middle of the dark forest. Just him, the darkness, and all the demons roaring for retaliation in his chest.

Knowing he could lose Kaori tore a hole in his chest, straight to the memories of the day Akira died. It made his blood boil in a sickening way.

So he did exactly what Cauê had warned him not to do. He returned to the gorge.

Slowly, he walked among the bodies of his former colleagues, saying goodbye one last time and letting himself take in the full extent of the damage. In his 250 years in the army, he'd only lost this many men twice. The first time, in the final battle against the chimeras. The second, on the night his friend was taken.

Zion burned in his grief. Past and present blurred along a dangerously unstable line.

His boots crunched on ancient bones as he passed. The fog from the battle between fire and water users hung thick, covering every inch of the place. Zion walked through the heavy air, which rippled around him. He didn't know where his shadows began and the darkness ended—he was focused only on gathering each death around him, sharpening the blade that was his soul. Cautiously, he made his way toward the voices, toward the heart of the army that had destroyed his men. The shadows followed him like serpents, undulating over bodies, communicating that many enemies lay ahead.

They were setting up camp when the general emerged from the fog. On his shoulders, the shadows smiled—perverse and hungry. They remembered the days when Zion still liberated forced reproduction facilities, and they were eager for the results of this night.

The moment the general and his shadows emerged from the mantle of mist, the men only had time to shout:

“Shadow!”

Then the general unleashed his darkness on all the Drutes present.

The soldiers' gifts attacked him. A metal chain shot toward him, but he vanished and reappeared behind the soldier, stabbing him through the heart. Water, fire, air, explosions, telekinesis... Every gift struck at once, but he was the night itself, and the darkness shielded him, whispering warnings of incoming attacks before they even grazed his skin.

That night, the ravine learned true terror, and the walls echoed with the despair of souls being torn apart: the screams of people already dead before their bodies hit the ground. Nothing could stop him as his chest poured all the pain, sadness, and grief onto the guilty—as his shadow-wrapped fists split skulls with a single blow and the shadows surged like waves of a furious sea. Zion was an entire ocean, and his waves would break and break until the stones turned to sand.

And they did.