CHAPTER 39: THE TYRANT’S EYE

Everything was happening so fast.

One moment, the group was safe, conversing lightly among themselves as they cautiously moved through the city.

The next moment, the ambush started and Jonas was injured, bleeding to death. Everything was happening so fast and at such a scale that for the first time in what felt like forever, Ethan’s special ability was failing him.

The Wheel was not spinning fast enough, and the options that he gave him were not ideal to salvage the situation.

Right until Travis pulled the impossible and actually Awakened right in front of them. By healing Jonas, Travis directly eliminated the one dilemma that Ethan saw as the most priority, feverish to improvise.

With Jonas no longer dying in the immediate term, Ethan could focus the scope of his Gacha System back on the enemies.

But he was not the only one that watched, He also watched.

The city belonged to him.

From the top of a gutted bank, Major Harlan Pike watched the firefight unfold with the same cold detachment he once reserved for training exercises.

His jaw was square, his hair shorn close to the scalp, his eyes steel-gray and stripped of mercy. There was a cold, inhuman gleam in his eye, the gleam of a man who long lost his humanity to the harshness of military training and war reality.

The Rift had devoured his uniform, but the bearing never left him. Every breath, every order, and every glare carried the weight of rank.

Seventeen soldiers stood under his banner now, not comrades, not allies, but assets that he could move like chess pieces in a game of chess.

Their ability as assets was why he kept them alive, and took them in.

He had no room for the weak, not in the apocalypse. Awakened who proved useful were brought into the fold. Those who didn’t? They were culled, stripped for their system drops like any other prey.

"Seven on street, six holding crowns, two on sweep," he said, voice flat as a chalkboard. "Suppressing fire on my mark. Pin their healer, let the rest starve."

Travis’s sudden Awakening clearly put a dent in his plan, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. All it did was delay the inevitable.

His plan was solid, and at the end, these Awakeners would become nothing but system drops to further develop his cohort.

A chorus of crisp nods followed as soon as he gave the order. Obedience here wasn’t respect, it was survival.

Pike smiled, thin and cruel. "Another crop for harvest."

Below, the green-gold glow of Travis’s Awakening still burned against the ash-stained street. He knelt over Jonas, palms pressed into the F-Rank brawler’s torn chest, energy spilling out of him in waves.

The light sank into ruptured muscle, into shredded veins, into a heart that had almost stilled. Jonas’s body convulsed once, breath hitching raggedly.

Then, the system answered.

DING!

~----~

[Vital Surge Successful!]

[Target: Jonas Hale – Stabilized]

[Survival Threshold: Secured]

~----~

Jonas gasped, his eyes snapping open.

He blinked against the haze, his eyes wide with disbelief before a bloody smile split his battered face. "Damn!" He exclaimed, looking at Travis.

"Cook turned doctor... hell, I owe you one."

Travis collapsed against him, his arms trembling, Rift energy guttering out of him like a dying flame. ’I-I-I did it!’ Was the only thought in his mind.

His new power had worked, but it had drained him to the marrow.

Reid staggered forward, one hand gripping his Rifle for balance. Jonas had survived, but they were all still in mortal danger at this moment. Reid’s face was ashen, sweat plastering his hair to his temples. "He’s alive?" he rasped.

"Alive," Mira whispered, her wind curling protectively around the two men. "But none of them are ready to fight again, they’re spent".

Jonas was too weak to rise, Travis barely conscious, and Reid was one heartbeat from collapse.

That left only four still able to fight... Ethan, Kara, Holt, Mira, and Mira was still an Unranked Awakener.

BAM!

Gunfire cracked from the rooftops, biting into brick and steel. System-drop grenades sizzled against the pavement, distorting the air into jagged mirages.

Even with the expected death not happening, the cohort did not falter as they moved like a machine, each angle of fire perfectly chosen, each lane of escape locked tight.

Holt crouched behind the burnt shell of a car, snapping precise shots at shadowed figures above. "Their positions are overlapping! They’ve drilled this formation! There’s no way out!"

Kara darted from cover, spear flashing, her movements too fast to follow.

She lunged into a flank and forced two shooters back, but three more replaced them before she could breathe.

Mira’s arms shook as she forced gusts of wind through the haze, trying to scatter the grenades’ resonance. "Too many! We can’t hold forever!"

Ethan’s heart pounded as he scanned their broken line. Jonas was barely breathing, Travis was out cold, Reid staggered, Kara fought wildly, and Holt was down to his last magazine.

Mira was burning herself out just keeping them from drowning in smoke.

And Pike’s voice cut through the chaos, calm and merciless.

"Box them in". It felt like a death sentence.

"Break the healer, the rest will fall".

Ethan gritted his teeth.

He clenched his fists until the gauntlet pulsed against his skin. His Wheel spun violently in his vision, ideas flashing through his head even as improvisations flickered too fast to read. None of them were enough, not for this.

Not for a kill box designed by a monster who once commanded soldiers and now commanded killers.

The fear in his chest twisted, but then his resolve hardened. If the Wheel failed them now, if he gambled small, they were all dead.

He had to believe in his ability and gamble hard.

’F*ck it!’ Ethan slammed his palm down.

And then, the Wheel stopped.

Black and gold light flared as the circle locked in place, pins clamping down as though some ancient gear had engaged. The air rippled, the sound of gunfire dulling under a heavy hum.

Then, the system pulsed in his skull.

DING!

~----~

[Critical Improvisation Triggered!]

[Unique Draw... High Stakes Protocol Context: Coordinated Human Kill Box!]

[Calculating options... please wait...]

~----~

"Ethan!" Kara’s voice cracked, half-command, half-prayer. "We can’t hold on much longer".

Ethan’s lips pressed thin. "Trust me. Just hold."

The Wheel burned. The world shuddered.

Then, the final notification carved itself into his mind, heavy as a gavel.

~----~

[Improvisation Draw Complete!]

[Unique Improvisation...]

~----~