The briefing room was smaller than Kael expected.
Not cramped—just deliberately modest. One table. Four chairs. No screens, no visible artifacts, no defensive constructs humming in the air. The kind of room designed to feel unimportant, so that anything said inside it felt smaller than it truly was.
Kael disliked it immediately.
Selene stood by the wall, arms folded, her presence quiet but alert. Across the table sat two members of the Ivory Circle he hadn't met before. One was a man with silver hair and ink-stained fingers. The other, a woman whose gaze never quite settled on any one thing.
No introductions.
That, too, was information.
The silver-haired man slid a thin folder across the table. "Your first field assignment," he said calmly. "Observation-focused."
Kael didn't open it yet.
"What kind of observation?" he asked.
The woman answered instead. "Residual instability following a failed artificial awakening. Chaos-aligned."
There it was.
Too clean. Too fast.
Kael nodded once, then opened the folder.
Images. Industrial blocks in the lower districts. Collapsed infrastructure. Emergency seals stamped by municipal authorities. Dates and times were included—but no names.
No casualty count.
No response teams listed.
"Where is the subject now?" Kael asked.
The silver-haired man steepled his fingers. "Alive."
A pause.
"Uncontained," the woman added.
Kael absorbed that in silence.
Artificial Chaos Path awakenings were volatile by definition. If one failed and the subject was still alive, that meant either outside interference—or deliberate restraint.
Neither option was comforting.
"Objective?" Kael asked.
"Confirm the nature of the residue," the silver-haired man said. "Determine whether the instability is self-sustaining. Intervene only if escalation occurs."
Kael finally looked up. "Intervene how?"
Selene answered. "Containment. Redirection. Withdrawal if necessary."
Withdrawal.
Not extraction.
Another gap.
Kael closed the folder. "Who else is aware of this site?"
The woman's gaze sharpened slightly. "Why do you ask?"
Because if you hesitate, the answer isn't 'no,' Kael thought.
"Because Chaos doesn't exist in isolation," he said evenly. "And because if this is my first mission, it's either low-risk—or a test."
Silence.
Not denial.
The silver-haired man smiled faintly. "You're perceptive."
That was not reassurance.
Kael leaned back slightly, forcing his posture to remain relaxed. "Is Crimson Veil involved?"
"No confirmed agents," the woman said.
Confirmed.
Kael nodded. "Obsidian Order?"
Another pause.
Selene's voice cut in, calm but precise. "Observers have shown interest in the district."
Interest.
Not presence.
Kael felt the pendant beneath his clothes, quiet and heavy.
"So," he said slowly, "this isn't about stopping chaos. It's about seeing how I react to it."
The silver-haired man didn't deny it. "This is about data."
Figures.
Kael stood. "When do I leave?"
"Tonight," the woman replied. "You'll enter alone."
Of course I will, Kael thought.
He turned toward the door, then stopped. "One more question."
They waited.
"What happens if I find out this situation exists because someone wants it to?"
The silver-haired man met his eyes. "Then you will have learned something valuable."
Not: We'll handle it.
Not: Report back immediately.
Just learn.
Kael inclined his head once and left the room.
Night settled heavily over Argentinis as Kael approached the sealed industrial district.
Public access barriers glowed faintly at the perimeter, projecting warnings about structural instability and toxic runoff. Official reasons. Acceptable ones.
Beyond them, the city's threads felt… wrong.
Not violent.
Uneven.
Like a melody that kept missing a note.
Kael didn't cross the barrier immediately. He stood still, breathing slowly, letting his awareness expand only a fraction—just enough to skim the surface.
Chaos residue wasn't loud.
That was the mistake most people made.
True chaos didn't scream. It warped.
The threads ahead of him bent subtly, refusing symmetry. Lines that should have intersected slid past one another. Cause and effect lagged by half a beat.
Artificial.
Definitely artificial.
Kael stepped over the barrier.
Nothing happened.
No alarms. No pressure. No sudden awareness of being watched.
That worried him more than any immediate response.
He moved deeper into the district, boots echoing softly against cracked pavement. The buildings here were half-functional—machines left behind, systems running without supervision. Perfect for hiding instability.
Kael stopped at the first intersection and didn't move.
He waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Still nothing.
"So I'm not the trigger," he murmured.
Good.
He focused inward, carefully peeling back his perception layer by layer. Not searching widely. Not probing.
Just listening.
The threads here carried emotional residue—fear, confusion, desperation—but not frenzy. That didn't match a Crimson Veil rampage.
Which meant either:
The Chaos user was restrained.
Or someone else was controlling the output.
Kael marked that mentally and moved again.
A figure sat slumped near a collapsed conveyor line ahead.
Kael slowed.
Didn't approach.
Didn't focus.
Just observed.
The figure was breathing. Shallow, irregular. Threads clung to them in erratic spirals, snapping and reforming like frayed wire. Artificial overload symptoms.
But no active distortion.
They weren't the source.
They were the aftermath.
Kael felt a familiar urge—to intervene, to stabilize, to do something.
He ignored it.
Instead, he looked past the figure.
And felt it.
A pocket of absence.
Not emptiness.
Exclusion.
Something nearby was deliberately suppressing interaction—locking the threads into a static configuration.
Containment.
Kael smiled faintly, without humor.
"So that's how you're playing this."
He stepped back into the shadows and did nothing.
Minutes passed.
Then—
A ripple.
Faint, controlled, deliberate.
Someone else had entered the district.
Kael didn't look.
Didn't focus.
Didn't react.
He simply shifted his position slightly, placing a ruined generator between himself and the disturbance.
Let them move first.
Let them reveal themselves.
Because now he understood the truth of this mission.
The chaos wasn't the threat.
It was the bait.
And Kael was not the only one being tested tonight.
He settled into stillness, mind calm, awareness narrow and sharp.
Control, he reminded himself, wasn't about acting.
It was about choosing when not to.
And somewhere in the warped heart of the district, the hunt quietly began.