Stepping out of the hidden sanctuary and back into the world was like plunging into a stagnant pool. The air was the first shock. After hours breathing the cool, energized, almost sweet air of the Sanctum, the atmosphere of the surface was a physical assault. It was heavy, thick with the chemical tang of ancient fires and the cloying, sweetish scent of decay that clung to everything. The perpetual, sickly orange twilight of the poisoned sky pressed down, seeming to sap the very color from the landscape, leaving only shades of rust, grey, and despair.
Adekunle stood for a moment on the crumbling concrete steps of the derelict building, allowing his senses to recalibrate to the harsh reality. Behind him, a solid wall held a realm of miracles. Before him lay a continent-sized tomb. The sheer dissonance of it was enough to cause vertigo.
"Map's active," Funke's voice cut through his reverie, sharp and grounding. She held up the data-slate, its screen a vivid pool of blue and green light that looked alien in the gloom. A glowing topographical map was displayed, a pulsing red arrow marking their destination seventy-two kilometers to the north-west. "The path of least resistance is to follow the old A5 highway bed for about twenty klicks before cutting west. There are fewer demonic signatures concentrated along that route."
"Least resistance is still resistance," Adekunle muttered, hoisting the heavy pack higher on his shoulders. He turned and carefully maneuvered Funke's chair down the broken steps and onto what was left of the street.
The journey began. In the past, travel had been a frantic, terrified scuttling from one piece of cover to the next. Now, it felt different. It was a march. But the world had not changed its nature simply because they had. The ground was a treacherous mess of shattered pavement, twisted rebar jutting from the earth like metallic bones, and deep, stagnant pools of black, oily water. Pushing the heavily laden wheelchair was grueling work. Even with his enhanced strength, Adekunle found his muscles straining, his boots slipping on loose rubble. This was a different kind of effort than the intense focus of the Forge; this was a raw, physical grind, a battle against the very terrain of the fallen world.
He was the engine, and Funke was the navigator. With the slate resting on her lap, she was their eyes and ears, her sharp gaze flicking between the map's display and the path ahead.
"Watch your left," she'd command. "There's a sinkhole about ten meters up, the ground looks unstable." Or, "The map shows a cluster of low-level signatures in that collapsed office block ahead. Give it a wide berth. We're not looking for trouble."
For the first few hours, they managed to avoid it. They moved through the skeletal remains of suburban Lagos like ghosts, their signature-dampening packs making them shadows in a world of shadows. The silence was unnerving. This close to a former metropolis, there should have been a constant swarm of Scrabblers or other low-level scavengers. Their absence was more troubling than their presence; it suggested something larger and more dangerous had cleared them out, claiming this territory as its own.
The confirmation came as they were navigating a wide, debris-strewn plaza surrounded by the husks of shattered glass towers. Funke held up a hand, her body tense. "Stop."
Adekunle froze, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of the Conduit Blade. "What is it?"
"Signatures," she whispered, her eyes glued to the slate. "Five of them. Fast. They're coming this way. I don't think they've seen us, they're just on patrol. We can try to hide." She pointed towards the hollowed-out shell of a bus, its metal frame rusted and peeling.
Adekunle looked at the approaching red dots on the map, then at the path ahead. It was the clearest route they had seen for miles. To go around would cost them at least an hour, an hour Tunde's trapped group didn't have. He thought of the blade on his hip, of the effortless way it had erased the carbon target from existence. This was the moment. The first stone.
"No," he said, his voice a low growl that surprised even himself. "We're not hiding anymore. Get behind that bus. Stay there."
Funke opened her mouth to argue, a flash of fear and protest in her eyes, but she saw the look on his face. It was not the desperate resolve of a cornered survivor; it was the cold, hard certainty of a predator. She nodded curtly, wheeling herself into the shadows of the burnt-out vehicle.
Adekunle stepped into the center of the plaza, his boots crunching on broken glass. He took a deep breath, the foul air filling his lungs, and drew the sword. He closed his eyes, focusing his will, and the blade of pure white light sprang into existence with its signature, lethal hiss. He was a beacon in the gloom, a stark, solitary figure of white light against the oppressive grey. He was making himself bait.
He didn't have to wait long.
They came loping out from behind a collapsed building, moving with a horrifying, unnatural gait. They were Razorbacks, demons a full class above the common Scrabblers. Roughly the size of large dogs, they ran on four powerful, clawed limbs, their backs covered in a ridge of razor-sharp spines that quivered with malevolent energy. Their skin was the color of dried blood, and their featureless faces were dominated by a vertical, grinning maw filled with needle-like teeth.
The moment they saw him, the five demons skidded to a halt, a collective, guttural snarl rising from their chests. They had been expecting frightened, scurrying prey. They found a lone figure, armed with a star. The sight of the Conduit Blade seemed to confuse and enrage them. It was a light from a world they thought had been extinguished.
One of them, bigger than the rest, lowered its head and charged, its claws tearing up chunks of asphalt. Adekunle stood his ground, his heart a steady, hammering drum against his ribs. The training from the gauntlet took over. He didn't think; he reacted. At the last second, he sidestepped the clumsy, brutish charge, and with a fluid, economical motion, he brought the blade down.
There was no clang of impact, no meaty thud. The light sword passed through the demon's neck and shoulder as if through air. The Razorback stumbled past him, took two more running steps, and then its head and right foreleg simply slid from its body, falling to the ground with a wet slap. The rest of the corpse dissolved into a cloud of foul-smelling black dust before it even hit the pavement.
The other four demons froze, their snarls turning into high-pitched, confused whines. They had never seen anything like this.
Adekunle didn't give them time to recover. He lunged forward, a whirlwind of white light. He spun, the blade arcing horizontally, and bisected two of the creatures in a single, elegant motion. They disintegrated mid-stride, their dust scattering on the wind. The remaining two broke and ran, their primal terror overwhelming their aggression. They didn't get far. With a precision he didn't know he possessed, Adekunle reversed his grip on the sword and threw it.
The blade of light detached from the hilt, spinning through the air like a deadly discus. It caught one of the fleeing demons in the spine, and the creature vanished in a silent puff of black ash. The blade then ricocheted off a concrete barrier, angled impossibly, and struck the final demon, erasing it from existence. The crystalline hilt, now inert, clattered to the ground twenty meters away.
The plaza was silent again. Adekunle stood, panting, his chest heaving. The whole encounter had lasted less than thirty seconds. He felt a wave of adrenaline-fueled nausea. It had been so… easy. Too easy. He walked over and picked up the hilt, the crystal cool in his gauntleted hand. It felt heavier now. The weight of it was not in its mass, but in its meaning.
Funke emerged from behind the bus, her face pale, her eyes wide. She looked at the faint patches of black dust on the ground, the only evidence of the fight.
"Adekunle…" she whispered.
"It's done," he said, his voice flat. He sheathed the sword, trying to control the trembling in his hands.
"That was…" she struggled for the word. "Efficient."
He just nodded, unable to speak. The first stone had been moved. And it had cost him something he couldn't quite name yet. A piece of his humanity, perhaps. The part that believed killing should be hard.
They found a defensible spot—the intact vault of a collapsed bank—and decided to rest. Adekunle deployed one of the signature-dampening shelters. It unfolded and solidified into a small, grey dome, and the moment they stepped inside, the oppressive feeling of the outside world vanished. The air within was clean, the silence was peaceful, and the filtered light was gentle. It was a pocket of the Sanctum in the middle of hell.
Funke used the medical synthesizer to produce two nutrient packs, a tasteless but nourishing paste. They ate in silence for a long time.
"Ben used to say that the right tool doesn't make a man," Funke said finally, her voice soft in the quiet of the dome. "It reveals him."
Adekunle looked up from his food pack.
"He could fix anything with a roll of wire and a screwdriver," she continued, a sad smile on her face. "He was patient. Methodical. He respected the problem. He never tried to just… overwhelm it." She looked at Adekunle, her eyes filled with a deep, aching concern. "That sword, this gauntlet… it's a power Ben couldn't have imagined. I'm proud of you, Adekunle. I'm terrified for you. I'm afraid this power will burn away the man my husband loved like a son, and leave only the tool behind."
Her words hit him harder than any demon ever could. He looked down at his gauntleted hand, at the intricate, alien patterns that were now as much a part of him as his own skin. She was right to be afraid. He had felt the intoxicating pull of the power, the clean, righteous ease of erasing his enemies.
"I won't let that happen," he said, his voice raw with conviction. He reached out with his bare left hand and placed it over hers. Her skin was warm, real. "You are my anchor, Aunt Funke. You and the others. Tunde. Chiamaka. This isn't about power. It's about them. It's about getting our family back. The gauntlet, the sword… they're just the tools to do it. Nothing more."
She searched his eyes, looking for the boy she had raised, and found him there, behind the new, hard glint of the warrior. She squeezed his hand, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on her cheek. "Okay," she whispered. "Okay, my boy."
They rested for another hour, the dome holding the horrors of the world at bay. When they stepped back out, the toxic twilight seemed a little less oppressive. Adekunle's shoulders felt a little broader. The sword on his hip felt less like a burden and more like a responsibility.
He helped Funke into her chair, shouldered his pack, and they set off again, leaving the city behind and entering the tangled, overgrown wilderness. The map on the slate glowed before them, a beacon of purpose. Sixty kilometers to go. The journey was far from over, but for the first time, it felt not just possible, but inevitable. They were no longer running from the darkness. They were a light pushing it back.