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Deep beneath Zone C-3, in a hall that had never known sunlight, robed figures gathered like moths to a dying flame. The darkness should have been absolute, but their eyes—dear god, their eyes—provided the only illumination. Each pair glowed with unnatural light: amber, crimson, violet, colors that had no names in human language.
"It's time," a black-robed figure intoned, his voice echoing off stone walls slick with moisture and darker things.
A blood-red robed figure stepped forward, pushing back his hood to reveal a surprisingly young face. Handsome, even, if you ignored the madness dancing behind his eyes.
"Brothers and sisters," he began, his voice carrying that particular tone of someone about to deliver very bad news with a smile. "Our mission, the one given to us by the Supreme Being himself, has failed. Completely. Spectacularly. Lord Koth, the Heart-Eye, the strongest among us? Dead. His body decorates the sky like a monument to our inadequacy."
The crowd's reaction was a symphony of despair. Some wept, others trembled, a few just stared with the blank incomprehension of those whose world had shattered.
Depression. Fear. Confusion. The emotional cocktail of the thoroughly fucked.
"But," the young man continued, his voice rising with evangelical fervor, "we still have a chance at survival."
The mood shifted instantly. Drowning people will clutch at straws, and he was offering them a whole haystack.
"Lord Ming, what do you mean?"
"Don't toy with us! We'll do anything!"
"We have nowhere left to run! The entrance is suicide, staying here is death!"
Ming's smile widened. He'd played them perfectly.
"You all know I'm Lord Koth's descendant, yes?"
Confused nods. Why did genealogy matter when extinction knocked at their door?
"What if I told you," Ming said slowly, savoring each word, "that I can obtain the same eye as Lord Koth?"
The explosion of voices was immediate and deafening.
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
"The Heart-Eye appeared only once in all our history!"
"Lord Ming, have you awakened the third eye!?"
Hope was a dangerous drug, and they were all addicts now. If Ming had Koth's power, if he could lead them past the invaders, they could escape this death trap. Freedom lay just beyond one impossible battle.
Ming raised his hand for silence.
"I haven't awakened anything," he said, letting disappointment sink in before delivering the real shock. "You see, Lord Koth's eye... was never natural."
The silence that followed was different from before. This wasn't confusion—this was the quiet before revelation, the held breath before the scream.
"Do it."
Two words. That's all it took.
Black-robed figures throughout the crowd moved with rehearsed precision. Blades found throats, claws pierced hearts, magic stopped breath. In seconds, the hall transformed from gathering to slaughterhouse. Bodies hit the floor in waves, their various colored eyes still glowing as they died, creating a rainbow of fading light.
When the screaming stopped, only Ming in his blood-soaked red robes and a handful of black-robed executioners remained standing.
"Dig them all out," Ming commanded, his voice as casual as if ordering coffee.
The executioners worked with practiced efficiency, plucking eyes from corpses like grapes from a vine. No ceremony, no respect for the dead—just harvest.
Blood flowed across the stone floor, but instead of pooling randomly, it moved with purpose. Ming's fingers danced through the air, conducting the crimson symphony. The blood formed patterns, symbols, a massive magic circle that covered the entire floor. From above, it would have been obviously recognizable—the same cracked pupil that stared down from the moon.
"Lord Ming, they're all here." A black-robed man presented a jar filled to the brim with eyes. Dozens of them, floating in preservation fluid, still somehow watching.
Ming examined his remaining servants—six men who'd just murdered their companions without hesitation.
"I need yours too," he said conversationally. "Just one each. The right one, specifically."
Without complaint, protest, or even hesitation, each man reached up to his own face. The wet, sucking sounds as they removed their own eyes would have made normal people vomit. They placed the organs in the circle with the same casualness as dropping coins in a collection plate.
Ming studied the arrangement, then placed his thumb, index, and middle finger against his own right eye socket.
Pull.
No scream. No flinch. Just a gentle extraction, as if he were plucking a flower. Blood cascaded down his cheek, but he paid it no more attention than rain. He placed his eye dead center in the formation.
"Begin."
The eye erupted with light. The magic circle thrummed with power that made the air itself scream. One by one, the harvested eyes shattered, their essence—colors, abilities, memories—flowing like liquid light toward the center. They merged with Ming's eye, transforming it, elevating it.
"Almost there," Ming panted, face flushed with exertion and anticipation. "Just a little more..."
Once I have that eye, I can escape. Revenge? He shuddered, remembering the woman with the perpetually paralyzed expression who'd killed Koth as easily as swatting a fly. No. Survival first. Revenge never.
The blood circle dimmed, its purpose served. In its place, a single eye floated in the air, pulsing with malevolent light. It looked like a star had been compressed into an organ, beautiful and terrible.
Ming plucked it from the air with trembling fingers.
"Success!" His laughter bordered on hysteria. "The same eye as Lord Koth! I actually did it! I ACTUALLY FUCKING DID IT!"
His ancestors had risen to power through this same forbidden technique. Now their descendant had rediscovered the secret—power through harvesting, strength through sacrifice.
He brought the new eye to his empty socket. Tendrils of flesh reached out, embracing the organ, pulling it home. The integration was disturbingly organic, as if his body had been waiting for this upgrade.
"HAHAHAHA!"
"Lord Ming," one of the one-eyed servants ventured, "are you alright?"
Ming's eyes snapped open. The left was normal, human. The right contained a blood-red star, slowly rotating in the iris like a galaxy of suffering.
"I've never been better!" His voice was manic, drunk on power. "I'm so fucking high right now!"
The servant took an involuntary step back.
Then Ming frowned, closing the transformed eye.
"But it's still weaker than Lord Koth's original. And the strain..." He touched his temple, wincing. "It's manageable. And it can grow stronger. It just needs... feeding."
A black-robed scout dropped to one knee. "Lord Ming, my eye detects outsiders approaching. Five of them."
Ming's smile returned, predatory and eager.
"Perfect. My new eye is hungry, and these mice will make a lovely first meal."
"Did anyone else see the moon's eye flicker?"
Russell's question made everyone look up, but the crimson moon stared back unchanged.
"I didn't see anything," Lucian said.
"Me neither," from Jean.
"Weren't watching," Yuna admitted.
"You're paranoid," Sonny muttered, though not quite quietly enough.
I know I saw something. That eye moved. Twitched. Like it was winking at us.
"This place feels wrong," Russell said aloud. "Everyone stay sharp."
They materialized at the forest's edge via shadow travel. Through the trees, a town sprawled in unnatural silence. No lights, no movement, no life.
"I can't sense any demons," Russell reported, mental probe returning nothing.
Lucian tried too, frowning. "Same. It's like the town's empty."
"Two possibilities," Lucian analyzed. "Either they're gathered elsewhere, or they can block our detection."
"Only one way to find out." Russell had Fubuki cast Wind King's Aegis over everyone—invisible protection that would at least give them warning of attacks. They approached the town's perimeter, but even up close, their senses found nothing.
"They're definitely blocking us somehow," Jean concluded.
"Anyone have detection cards?" Russell asked hopefully.
Head shakes all around. They'd all optimized for combat, sacrificing utility for the national competition.
"Fine. Shadowkhan will scout."
Ten shadows peeled away from Russell's feet, dispersing into the town. The team waited, tension building with each passing minute.
And waited.
And waited.
"Shit," Russell finally said. "We've been made. My Shadowkhan are dissipating."
Arrogance consumed him instantly, black-red symbiote replacing human form. "Combat positions. We're going in hot."
They charged toward where Russell had last sensed his scouts. But halfway there, he skidded to a halt.
"Stop!"
The silence was wrong. Not peaceful quiet—the aggressive absence of sound, as if the world was holding its breath.
"Fubuki, full barriers, NOW!"
The telekinetic shields snapped up just as a crimson laser scythed through the air. It carved through buildings like they were made of paper, turning solid stone to molten slag. The beam slammed into Fubuki's barrier, growing thicker, brighter, hotter.
BOOM!
The explosion shattered windows for blocks. Smoke and dust billowed up, obscuring everything.
Artoria's invisible sword created a wind blast, clearing their vision instantly.
"Tricky," Russell's layered voice observed, "but manageable."
Lucian's dragon-snake was already airborne, storm clouds gathering with unnatural speed.
Clap... clap... clap...
Slow, mocking applause echoed down the empty street.
"Impressive. You're worthy of being from the world that killed Lord Koth."
A young man in blood-stained robes stood at the street's far end. His right eye was closed, but his left was fading from red to normal—clearly the source of the laser attack.
Heat vision? Seriously? What is this, discount Superman?
As if Ming's appearance was a signal, demonic auras erupted all around them. Black-robed figures emerged from buildings, shadows, even climbing up from sewer grates.
Every single one was missing their right eye.
"Lucian," Russell said quietly, "the briefing didn't mention they were all one-eyed, did it?"
"No." Lucian's expression had gone grim. "Russell, you were right about the eye-swapping."
"Tactical retreat," Russell decided. "I'll have Artoria cover with her Noble Phantasm. You handle Red Robes. You three," he indicated the others, "keep the minions off us."
"Clear," came the chorus of agreement.
Ming laughed, the sound carrying despite the distance.
"Still hoping to struggle? How adorable. Let me show you the difference between mortals and gods."
He opened his right eye.
A blood-red star blazed in the socket, its light washing over them like a physical force.
"The Eye of the Heart."
(End of this chapter)
PLZ THROW POWERSTONES.