Chapter 90: Saint Hilarius Hospital (22)
In the suffocating darkness of the metal emergency stairwell, beneath the depths of Saint Hilarius Hospital, "Sia Novilth" sat alone.
Her body was burning and healing in an endless cycle of torment.
But the tears washing her blood-stained face were not because of the acid that had eaten into her waist.
She was crying for the charred young man left behind the steel gate. Damian Ivaris.
The shield that never retreated.
Sia closed her blue eyes.
Amid the stench of death and rust, her exhausted mind fled from this present hell, diving deep into the archives of memory.
She went back. To a time when death did not chase their every breath.
To a time before the "Silver Transcendent," Valisera, had descended to turn their lives into a suicidal path.
Sia went back three years.
To the day "Alpha Squad" was born. The day they learned how to bleed together.
[— Three Years Ago — Magical Intelligence FBI Headquarters — Sector A]
The smell of cheap coffee and expensive cigarettes mixed in the air of Meeting Room (404), known among agents as "The Outcasts’ Room."
At the head of the long wooden table sat a man who looked as though he had been carved from a mountain of black ice.
"Kyrion." The legendary field commander, the man feared by underworld syndicates more than death itself.
He wore a dark tactical coat, a long scar cutting across his left eye, and his cold gray eyes studied four files placed before him as he exhaled cigarette smoke with lethal calm.
The intelligence division did not lack obedient soldiers.
But Kyrion was not looking for obedience; he was looking for claws capable of tearing through the darkness.
He had requested permission from high command to form an elite rapid-response unit.
The problem? He had selected the four worst misfits in the organization.
The door opened slowly, and the four entered.
The first was "Damian." A massive young man, his muscles nearly tearing his formal military uniform, which he wore with excessive discipline.
He walked as if he had swallowed a wooden rod, his face carrying exaggerated seriousness. His file noted:
Reckless, suffers from a hero complex, refuses to retreat even if it means the annihilation of his entire team.
The second was "Eva." She entered chewing black gum, her jet-black hair cut chaotically, her sniper rifle slung over her shoulder despite weapons being forbidden in meeting rooms.
She looked at no one, sat in the farthest chair, and put her feet on the table.
Her issue: a genius sniper, but a lone wolf—refuses radio communication and abandons teammates if they obstruct her line of sight.
The third... was "Sia." She entered with a bright angelic smile, wearing a pristine white doctor’s coat.
She hummed a childish tune while cleaning her nails with a sharp surgical scalpel.
Her issue: an A-rank doctor and healer—but a psychopathic sadist. She had been court-martialed twice for "accidentally" dissolving the limbs of interrogation prisoners while they were still alive.
The fourth... dragged his feet, wearing a worn-out office suit, holding a cup of green tea, his round glasses slipping down his nose.
"Aiden."
"Excuse me, sir..." Aiden said in a trembling voice as he stood at the door.
"I think there’s been a system error. I’m from technical support and illusion archives. I was summoned here, but... I have allergies to blood, dust, and field death. And I would like to keep my retirement benefits."
"Close the door and sit down, Aiden," Kyrion said in a deep, rough voice that made bones tremble.
Aiden sat beside Damian, shaking.
Kyrion looked at them one by one.
"High command thinks I’m assembling a suicide squad," Kyrion began, extinguishing his cigarette in a metal ashtray.
"Damian, you’re a fool who thinks a shield is made of flesh, so you charge forward to die. Eva, you’re arrogant—you think the entire world can be solved through a sniper scope. Sia, you’re a monster wearing a doctor’s coat, enjoying your patients’ pain more than their treatment. And Aiden..."
Kyrion looked at the thin young man. "...you’re such a coward that you use your A+ rank illusion skill just to hide in the bathroom during overtime shifts."
"I... I had a stomachache, sir!" Aiden interrupted in a broken voice.
Kyrion ignored him and stood.
"You are the system’s trash. Mismatched pieces. But... each of you possesses talent beyond the limits of the human mind. If you can work together, you will become ’Alpha.’ If you fail... you will die tonight. Because your first mission begins now."
"A mission? Now?" Eva raised one eyebrow, not lowering her feet from the table. "Where?"
"At the ’Weeping Flesh’ Manor," Kyrion said coldly, tossing a blood-stained file onto the table.
"A cult den that worships demons. They fuse humans alive into the manor’s walls to create a single massive entity. Intelligence sent two squads... none returned. You will go in, clean it out, and come back. I will be there to evaluate your performance. Move."
(Three hours later — Dark outskirts of Elysium)
Rain fell like a cascade of icy needles. Black mud swallowed their military boots as they stood before the rusted iron gates of a gothic abandoned manor, exuding the smell of cold sweat and rotten blood.
"The smell of this place makes me want to bathe in sulfuric acid," Sia complained, opening a small pink umbrella above her head, unconcerned that they were on a stealth mission.
"Close that damn umbrella! It’s a glowing target!"
Damian growled, raising his heavy shield and machine gun.
"I’ll breach the gate. Eva, cover me. Sia, stay back. And Aiden... try not to wet your pants."
"Terrible plan, but go ahead, hero," Eva mocked, leaping onto a nearby tree branch and taking a sniper position.
Kyrion stood in the back, completely concealed in the shadows, watching silently.
He knew what would happen.
Damian kicked the iron gate, shattering its locks.
He charged into the manor’s front garden...
Suddenly, the muddy ground beneath him wasn’t mud.
KRAAAAAANCH!
The entire garden was a biological trap! The mud split open, and dozens of hardened human arms fused with tree roots emerged, wrapping around Damian’s ankles and pinning him in place.
"Damn it! What is this?!" Damian roared, firing wildly at the ground.
From the manor’s walls, stretched human faces began to emerge, moaning and screaming. Then the main wall tore apart, and the "Flesh Priest" emerged—a three-meter-tall monstrosity composed of fused corpses, wearing bone armor, wielding a massive hammer made of melted human heads.
"Eva! Fire!" Damian shouted as he struggled to free himself.
In the tree, Eva aimed—but—
"I can’t see a weak point! This thing is just a random mass!" she shouted.
Instead of coordinating with Damian, she acted alone.
She fired a high-caliber shot toward the creature’s head.
BAM!
The bullet shattered one of the heads forming the creature’s face—but the priest was unaffected.
It turned, swung its massive arm, and launched hundreds of bone shards like nails toward the tree where Eva stood.
"Damn it!" Eva threw herself from the tree, crashing into the mud and rolling to avoid death—but a bone shard pierced her left shoulder.
"Sia! Heal Eva!" Damian shouted as he blocked a hammer strike with his shield, sinking into the mud up to his knees from the force.
But Sia?
Sia wasn’t looking at Eva.
She stood beside a human arm fused into a tree, stabbing it with her scalpel, smiling widely.
"Fascinating... how does blood flow through wood? I’ll need to take a sample..."
"You lunatic! We’re dying here!" Aiden screamed, hiding behind a broken statue, trembling and covering his head with his office jacket.
"Where’s Commander Kyrion?! He left us! He tricked us!"
Chaos was absolute.
The monster raised its hammer for a final crushing blow against the trapped Damian.
Eva was bleeding, unable to lift her sniper rifle.
Sia was playing with remains. Aiden was crying.
They were a failed team by every measure.
In that bare moment, the temperature of the garden dropped below zero.
The shadow beneath the massive creature suddenly expanded.
From within it, Kyrion rose slowly.
He did not draw a weapon.
He simply placed his bare hand on the creature’s massive leg.
"Disintegrate."
One word, spoken in his calm voice.
A surge of dark gray Eitra burst from Kyrion’s palm. The massive creature, weighing tons, did not explode.
It eroded.
In a single second, the Flesh Priest turned into a pile of cold gray ash that dissolved into the rain.
The garden fell silent, broken only by their ragged breathing.
Kyrion walked calmly through the mud and stopped in the middle of them.
He looked at them—and the contempt in his eyes was harsher than the hammer strike.
"You are not trash... you are worse than trash," Kyrion said slowly.
He looked at Damian, still trapped.
"You charge like a blind pig. A shield is not built by recklessness; it is built by absorbing damage to protect those behind you—not by falling into the first trap."
He looked at Eva, bleeding.
"And you, genius sniper. Sniping is not pulling a trigger—it’s controlling the battlefield. If you had communicated with Damian, you would’ve known the creature’s heart was in its glowing left knee—and you wouldn’t have fallen like a clumsy bird."
He turned to Sia, who had stopped playing with her scalpel.
"And you, sick woman. Your skills mean nothing if your teammates are corpses. There is no sadism in random death. True sadism is keeping your team alive so they can torment your enemies."
Finally, he looked at Aiden, curled behind the statue.
Kyrion sighed deeply.
"And you, Aiden... I don’t blame you for fear. Fear is natural. But you possess power capable of changing the entire battlefield—and you use it only to hide?"
Kyrion raised his hand and pointed toward the "Weeping Flesh" Manor, whose doors began to open, revealing an entire army of dozens of deformed priests and fused abominations.
"I will not intervene again," Kyrion said, his voice carrying an eternal threat as he stepped back into the shadows.
"Either you leave this garden as Alpha Squad... or you are buried in it as pieces."
They were left alone once more.
Rain lashed their faces. The army of monstrosities advanced toward them slowly, nightmarishly, pounding their bone armor.