"My own route map?"
Hiltina blinked, caught off guard. "What do you mean?"
"You'll have to plant and detonate the timed explosives yourself, according to the map inside the steam factory," Rast explained calmly. "We'll have to split up for this part."
As he spoke, his hands never stopped moving. One by one, he pulled firearm components from the suitcase, assembling and adjusting them with precise, practiced motions.
The weapon that emerged was a long-barreled sniper rifle—sleek, deadly, with pointed armor-piercing rounds gleaming beside it. The optical scope was slender and polished, catching a cold glint in the rain.
"The Iron Cross aren't mindless corpses," Rast continued, his tone steady. "They retain full human intelligence. Timed bombs are nothing they can't comprehend. If they find them, they'll defuse them immediately—and our entire plan will collapse."
"We also don't have time to eliminate every Iron Cross inside the factory. That leaves us with one viable option: one of us must draw their attention—lure them out and hold them off—while the other sets the bombs inside."
"That person has to be me. My blood attracts the Iron Cross like nothing else. And besides," Rast said with a thin, self-deprecating smile, "I can't keep up with your speed. Moving together would only slow you down."
He pulled out a slender glass vial filled with an amber liquid.
"With your speed, how long will it take you to place all the bombs at the marked locations?"
Hiltina's gaze swept across the factory blueprint, her eyes tracing the intricate lines. After a few seconds of silent calculation, she replied, "Including setup time… if I push myself to the limit, about twenty minutes."
"You'll have twenty-five."
Rast broke the vial's seal and drew the amber liquid into a syringe. Then, from the suitcase, he retrieved another vial—this one containing the inky black blood of the Iron Cross. As the two substances mixed in the syringe, a violent but soundless chemical reaction began, the liquid swirling into a dark, unstable hue.
"What is that?" Hiltina asked.
"Animal stimulant. Originally designed for fighting bulls." Rast watched as the fusion settled into a deep, earthy brown, thick and heavy at the bottom of the syringe.
"Unlike escaping, stalling them means fighting head-on. This serum should balance the gap in physical ability between me and the Iron Cross—as much as possible. Of course, the side effects are… significant."
He chuckled quietly. "It took dying from organ failure a dozen times to figure out my exact tolerance. This dose will keep me alive for about two to three hours after injection."
When the reaction finally stabilized, Rast pressed the needle into his vein and slowly injected the dark serum. His face didn't flinch, but the black cross-shaped marks across his skin began to spread, creeping up his neck and onto his face like a living curse. They glowed faintly in the dim light—sigils, runes, and scars all at once.
Flexing his fingers, Rast turned to Hiltina. "If you've rested enough, it's about time. Let's go take down the final boss."
Then, as if remembering something, he added lightly, "Oh, and don't worry about escaping afterward. There's a ventilation duct inside the factory that leads directly outside the harbor zone. Based on your speed, you'll make it out just before the explosion hits. You'll be well beyond the blast radius."
The wind howled, catching the edges of the blueprint in Hiltina's hand. On the reverse side of the factory's schematics was another hand-drawn map—a rough layout of the harbor district, with a clear green line marking the escape route from the factory to safety.
Given her abilities, as long as she avoided the blast center, she would survive.
But Hiltina didn't move.
She stared at Rast. "And you? What about your own escape route?"
"I didn't make one," he said flatly. "But it doesn't matter."
Rast's tone was eerily calm. "I won't really die. Death just means entering the next cycle."
"This cycle started too suddenly—finding you, making this decision… there wasn't time to prepare properly. Given our circumstances, there's no version of this plan where both of us survive. Not even one chance in ten thousand."
"From the very beginning, everything I've done in Deep Blue Harbor—all my actions, all my plans—have been for one purpose: to ensure you make it out alive."
"If you feel you owe me, then repay that debt by growing stronger once you leave this echo of the Night World. Seek help from the outside. Find tools capable of countering the Iron Cross and the Eldritch Gods. Once you're ready—truly ready—come back and rescue me."
"I can't predict how much time will pass before you return," he added quietly, "so I'll keep preparing in every cycle until you do."
Hiltina met his gaze, her voice low and strained. "The flow of time in the Night World's echo doesn't match the real world. Even if I return just a few weeks later in the real world, hundreds of years could've passed here."
"I know," Rast said simply. "But that doesn't matter."
His voice was cold enough to cut through the storm. "I've already spent centuries here. A few hundred more won't change anything."
Hiltina fell silent. Her brows knit tightly, but she said nothing.
Rast tilted his head slightly. "Strange. I thought you weren't the sentimental type."
"To be honest, I hate these tearful farewell scenes." He spun the revolver in his hand. "Every time I read one, I can't help thinking how ridiculous it is. If you've got time for melodrama, you should spend it planning the next move instead. That's how you make someone's sacrifice mean something."
Bang.
The revolver barked.
A piercing flash erupted as the bullet shattered the joint between two steel grates beneath their feet. The bridge groaned, the metal twisting, on the verge of collapse.
"Oh, one more thing," Rast said, his tone suddenly lighter. "If you do make it out of the Night World… there's a place I'd like you to look for."
"It's a border town called Canaan. From there, you can see a range of snowy mountains in the distance. There's a huge white waterwheel beside the town, and the locals—" a faint smile crossed his lips, "—they're fond of playing the bagpipe."
"I think… that place might have something to do with my past. Before Deep Blue Harbor. Before I entered the Night World."
Boom.
The bridge gave way.
Rast didn't finish his sentence before the steel platform beneath him crumbled completely, taking him down with it into the roaring depths below.
The sound of collapsing metal and rushing wind filled the air, swallowing his voice, separating him and Hiltina into two different worlds.