The Black Cross camp was built like a shrine and a prison.
At the edge of a ruined village swallowed by ash and ember, the robed zealots had erected their sanctuary—a circle of sharpened stakes, salvaged stone walls, and iron fences twisted into sacred symbols. Torches burned day and night, lighting a ring of flame around the perimeter.
Inside, they kept the "tainted."
Children with strange eyes. Adults who coughed too much. Anyone who limped, stuttered, or asked too many questions.
Some were tied to wooden posts for "cleansing." Others were herded into locked pits underground, left to starve or change—whichever came first.
And above it all stood Mother Eliora, the Ash Prophet.
They watched her from a ridge that night. The moon was a thin blade, and her voice echoed through the camp like cracked thunder.
She wore a long white robe, stained with soot and dried blood. Her hands were black from ash. Her eyes burned with fanaticism—fervent, wide, unblinking.
"THE VIRUS IS SIN!" she cried. "THE MUTATION IS JUDGMENT! THE FLAME IS OUR SACRAMENT!"
The crowd roared, falling to their knees. Some wept. Others chanted her name.
"She's mad," Rui said quietly.
"No," Li Wei corrected. "She's worse. She believes."
They observed for hours. Chen Yu grew restless.
"Let's just blow the place up," he muttered, chewing a matchstick.
"There are prisoners," Rui said.
"They're already dead."
"No," Li Wei said. "Not yet. But they will be, by sunrise."
He turned to both of them, eyes sharp. "We go in. Tonight. Quiet. Get who we can. Burn the rest."
Chen Yu's smirk returned, but this time it was grim. "There's the Wei I know."
Rui cracked her knuckles.
They moved.
Midnight.
Chen Yu slithered along the east fence, his face smeared with charcoal. He found the first pit quickly. Two men guarded it—young, devout, carrying rusted rifles and shaking hands.
He crept behind the first and whispered, "Your God's busy."
Then slit his throat.
The second turned, gun rising, mouth open.
Chen Yu's knife was already in his eye.
Rui scaled the back of the shrine silently, slipping through the shadows like mist. She found the cages—wooden prisons stacked against the walls, locked with rope and fear.
Inside were ten people—four children, five women, one older man.
"Quiet," she whispered, slicing through ropes. "We're here to break your chains."
One girl tried to speak, but Rui held a finger to her lips. "No words. Just breath."
Li Wei entered the chapel.
Inside, candles flickered across walls painted with fire and blood. Symbols of burning angels. Crosses dripping flame. A mural of the world split open by holy light.
Eliora knelt before the altar, whispering prayers.
Li Wei stepped behind her.
"Repent," she said softly, not turning. "You reek of sin."
"I've killed monsters."
"And yet they still walk beside you," she replied. "Your girl with the eyes of steel. Your jester with the tongue of poison. I've seen you all in the ash-dreams. You think yourself clean?"
"I think you burn the innocent."
Eliora finally turned.
"You are not innocent either," she whispered, smiling. "But you are… interesting."
Then she screamed.
The guards stormed in—six of them, rifles raised.
Li Wei kicked the altar forward. Candles tumbled. Fire spilled. A shot rang out, missed.
He ducked, rolled, came up with his knife, and moved like a storm in a cage.
Two fell immediately.
Another stumbled—Rui's blade struck from the window behind him.
Gunfire cracked. One bullet grazed Li Wei's side. He didn't stop.
Within seconds, it was quiet.
Eliora was gone.
They regrouped at the north fence.
Rui led the prisoners. Chen Yu was dragging a stolen fuel barrel. Li Wei limped, bleeding but steady.
"Where's the Prophet?" Rui asked.
"She ran."
"She'll rebuild," Chen Yu warned. "People like her always do."
Li Wei poured fuel on the chapel walls.
"Then we burn what's left of her gospel."
The fire rose behind them, licking the sky.
Screams echoed. Fanatics scrambled. The shrine crumbled.
The black cross turned orange, then white-hot, then nothing at all.
They walked away, smoke in their lungs, silence on their lips.
One of the freed prisoners—a boy with bandaged hands—asked, "Are you… the good guys?"
Chen Yu looked at him, half-laughed, and muttered, "We're just… the ones still standing."