Chapter 1106: Rambling Curses.
"If we cut," he said, voice low but sharp, "we don’t stop at crippling the Grid. We stop at crippling their grip. We tear it until nothing they know can be trusted. Not their memory. Not their gaze. Not their orders."
Susan’s lips curled into something like a smile. Roselle lowered her pistol but didn’t look away from Hunter. Steve only nodded, teeth gritted as he reached for the main breaker.
Hunter, though, stood motionless, the silence around him louder than the hum. Cain could see the war in his eyes—not loyalty to the council, not even fear of ruin, but the weight of someone who still believed survival demanded compromise.
The ceiling above rattled. Dust sifted down like pale rain. The first of the hunters would breach soon. Cain gripped his blade.
"Do it," he told Steve.
And the Grid began to scream.
The sound wasn’t a sound at all—it was the collapse of every hum, every throb of hidden machinery, each heartbeat of data unraveling into static. Lights strobed, flickered, then died. Servers whined as though gutted. Across the city, towers coughed themselves into blackout.
Steve wrenched the lever down until it locked, sparks clawing his arms, his body jerking against the surge. "It’s tearing!" he gasped.
Cain saw it too—saw the veins of light on the wall fracture like broken arteries. The Grid bled. Every system tied to it convulsed, alarms choking into silence, elevators freezing, drones dropping into alleyways like stones.
Hunter stumbled back as though the scream itself shoved him. "You don’t understand! This—this isn’t precision—it’s collapse!"
"Exactly," Roselle said coldly.
The wall shuddered with the first impact. The hunters were on them now, cutting their way in. Cain gestured sharply. "Positions!"
Susan slid to one side of the corridor, rifle braced, jaw clenched. Roselle crouched at the breaker, pistol ready. Steve fell back, coughing through the smoke, but still clutching the tools as though he’d need them again.
Cain stood at the center, blade drawn, eyes burning in the flickering half-light.
The wall tore open with a metallic shriek. Figures poured in—armored, visors glowing, rifles raised.
Cain moved first. His blade carved a horizontal arc, sparks flying as steel clashed against plated chest. The man fell before he could fire. Susan’s rifle cracked, the shot ripping into another visor. Roselle’s pistol barked in rhythm, precise, unrelenting.
Hunter stayed still. Too still.
Cain saw it in the corner of his eye—the hesitation, the moment that told him Hunter’s fight wasn’t here. It was still in the council chambers, in whispered negotiations and folded promises. His war had never been on the ground.
Cain shoved it from his mind, just as he shoved his blade through another soldier’s rib. Blood sprayed against the wall, sizzling where it touched the sparking circuits.
"More incoming!" Roselle shouted, her voice sharp against the chaos.
The corridor was a storm now. Boots slammed against steel, weapons roared, sparks burst like lightning. Cain moved through it all with brutal economy—cut, pivot, thrust. Every strike was a decision, every kill a piece of weight on his shoulders.
Susan fought like a wall, holding ground no one else could. Her rifle spat until it clicked empty, then she swung it like a club, cursing as she drove the butt into a soldier’s throat. Roselle shifted positions with ruthless precision, firing with both hands, her movements as fluid as a knife fight.
Steve ducked low, dragging cables, rerouting sparks, forcing surge after surge into the wall to overload the breach. Each explosion staggered the hunters, buying seconds that felt like hours.
Cain carved down another man, the blade catching the dim light, his chest heaving with the rhythm of survival. His mind was cold now, his rage slow and deep. This wasn’t battle. This was dismantling.
"Cain!" Susan barked. She pointed past the breach.
More shadows. More boots. Too many.
He gritted his teeth. "They’ll drown us in numbers."
Hunter’s voice broke through then, raw and strained. "I can stop them."
Cain turned, disbelief cutting sharper than his blade. "You what?"
Hunter lifted his comm unit, its green light faint against the dying Grid. "They still listen to me. Daelmont’s eyes still think I’m theirs. I can call them off—long enough to move."
Roselle’s snarl was pure venom. "You’ll sell us while you’re at it."
Hunter shook his head, trembling. "You think I don’t know what they’ll do if they get me? I’m already dead in their books. But if you want to survive this corridor, you need my voice."
Cain stared at him, the blade heavy in his hand. Trust had never been thinner.
Another surge shook the wall. Hunters pressed forward again. Susan cursed, blood streaking her cheek. Steve shouted that his circuits wouldn’t hold another overload.
There wasn’t time.
Cain lowered the blade—but only slightly. "You get one chance."
Hunter’s fingers flew over the comm, his voice cutting into the static with authority Cain hadn’t heard before. "Stand down! Grid failure confirmed. Orders reroute to fallback. This sector is contaminated. Pull back now!"
For a breath, impossibly, the advance faltered. Soldiers froze. The corridor hung in suspended disbelief.
Then—movement. The hunters withdrew, rifles lowering, visors flickering with confused signals. Within seconds, the breach was empty, only smoke and bodies left behind.
The silence afterward was louder than the fight.
Cain held Hunter’s gaze. "You bought us minutes. That’s all."
Hunter didn’t flinch. "Sometimes minutes save lives."
Roselle spat on the floor. "Or kill more later."
Steve leaned against the wall, coughing, eyes on the schematic still stuttering across the broken screen. "Doesn’t matter. We’ve already crippled them. Daelmont’s bleeding, whether he knows it yet or not."
Cain exhaled slowly, blade lowering but never sheathing. "Then we move before the minutes run out."
The corridor hummed faintly, the servers flickering like dying stars. Smoke curled from the breaker. The Grid’s scream was fading now, leaving only the echo of what they’d done.
Cain turned, leading them into the shadows of the spire, every step heavier than the last. What they’d cut couldn’t be undone.
And above, somewhere beyond the smoke and ruin, Daelmont would know his empire had been wounded.
Not destroyed. Not yet.
But wounded enough to finally bleed.