Chapter 506: Scum.
As they walked, Cain felt it again—faint, distant, but undeniable. The pressure of divinity shifting somewhere beyond the horizon. Not converging. Repositioning.
The board was being reset.
Whatever had happened here hadn’t ended the conflict. It had merely erased a piece of it. Cain tightened his grip on his blade.
The Celestials would adapt. Their followers always did.
And so would he.
Ahead, through the rain, a faint light flickered—artificial, unstable. A signal. Steve, most likely, trying to stitch order back into a world that kept refusing it.
Cain picked up his pace.
The story wasn’t over. It had just shed another layer of skin.
Rain followed them all the way to the river.
By the time Cain reached the eastern embankment, the ground had softened into thick mud that clung to his boots and dragged at every step. The river itself was swollen and violent, carrying debris—metal, broken stone, fragments of things that had once been buildings—downstream in a relentless churn.
Steve had set up beneath a collapsed overpass, half-hidden by hanging concrete and twisted rebar. Dim lights flickered from jury-rigged equipment laid out on tarps. Susan lay on her side near the far pillar, breathing shallowly, her coat cut open and bandaged tight around her torso.
Roselle stood watch at the edge of the shelter, pistol lowered but ready, eyes never stopping their sweep of the dark.