The dungeon or jail was a lifeless, haunting space.

Cold air seeped out of moss-covered pipes, and the flickering fluorescent lights, caged in rust, cast an eerie pale glow.

Tap-Tap-Tap!

And somewhere in the darkness, water dripped steadily, echoing off the damp walls.

THUD!

A body slumped against the far wall—unconscious, A shallow rise and fall of the chest proved that.

Kismet crouched beside him, shaking blood off his gloves.

"Still alive," he muttered.

His voice wasn't loud, but it had weight—low, sharp.

"We handled the southern guards," one whispered. A girl—barely eighteen, sharp cheekbones, burn scars coiled down her left arm. "Didn't kill. Just... broke their heads a little."

Kismet raised an eyebrow. "So... they might die?"

"No," she said flatly.

He smirked. "Fine. That works."

They weren't friends. Just the kind of people fate scrapes together at the bottom of the barrel.

They had escaped their cells using Kismet's plan. Not flawless, but effective enough: abuse the century-old piping beneath the lower blocks, time it with a scheduled transfer between upper halls, and knock out the three-man rotation with speed.

Still, it wasn't clean.

The tunnels they crept through now were part of the old sewer grid, restructured during a war no one bothered to record. Rusted ladders, loose stones, ancient maintenance symbols scrawled onto support pillars.

No alarms—yet.

"Using magic could be risky – it might set off the alarms." Kismet said.

"Why aren't we running?" another whispered. Tall man, broad shoulders, arms marked with gang ink and former military brands. He had a limp now. Knife wound from a guard he hadn't dropped fast enough.

Kismet didn't answer at first. Just stopped in front of a sealed grate and crouched, twisting a knob hidden behind loose brick.

A metallic click echoed faintly, and the grate slid open—revealing a narrow shaft, choked with vines and cracked light panels.

He stepped through without turning.

The others hesitated. Then followed.

.

Fifteen minutes later, they emerged.

Not into sunlight, but jungle. Overgrown, damp.

The kind of growth only found in deep restricted zones—Dense trees arched into the sky like pillars of bone.

Artificial birds—drones long abandoned—fluttered above, blind and harmless now. The ground hummed beneath patches of power-relay wires still buried in dirt and rotting roots.

"Holy shit," one muttered. "We actually made it out."

They stood there for a second. Breathing. Not like survivors. Like men and women who didn't know what came next—and didn't care.

The night air was warm, thick with green mist. No patrols. No sirens.

Just breathing jungle and the sound of bugs crawling in unseen places.

Then Kismet turned to them. He looked different in the open. His white hair wasn't grey from age, but ash. His eyes didn't glow—they were quiet. That was the terrifying part.

Quiet eyes in a man who'd planned a prison escape with the precision of a surgeon slicing bone.

"I'm leaving," he said, casual.

The girl blinked. "What?"

"I have... something to pick up," Kismet said, cracking his neck. "Fifteen minutes, tops."

The big man took a step forward. "We don't split up."

"You don't," Kismet corrected. "I do. And you'll wait."

He pointed toward a broken transport drone half-eaten by vines.

"There's shelter in that. Scanners won't pick it up if you're inside. Don't move. Don't attract anything. If I'm not back in twenty..." He smiled faintly. "Then make peace with your gods."

None of them replied.

Kismet turned without a word and vanished into the trees—no sound, nothing. Just gone.

The others moved slowly, inspecting their surroundings. They found bones. Old bones—human and not. Tags of former prisoners. An old med-station booth long out of power. Trees bent toward the light.

The girl with the burn scars leaned against the drone. "You think he'll come back?"

The big man didn't answer. He just sat down, arms crossed over his knees.

---

(Kismet's POV)

Damn it…

Kismet moved quickly, dodging under low branches as dusk settled like ash across the treetops. The faint scent of mana discharge lingered in the air — sharp, metallic.

He glanced at his watch.

Twenty-three minutes.

Longer than he thought.

The others… if the trap hadn't been shut off—

No. I cut the seal myself. They should've made it through.

He reached the perimeter clearing — the "wire zone." A deadly stretch of forest laced with invisible mana threads strung between the trees like spiderwebs. One wrong step, one jolt of uncontrolled magic — and they'd fry on the spot.

He exhaled slowly as his boots touched the moss-ridden stone path, a winding trail veiled by jungle overgrowth. The dark canopy above trembled faintly with wind.

Kismet picked up his pace.

As he reached where he left them.

He scanned the clearing.

There were no signs of the others. No footsteps. No scent of recent magic.

They left early.

Of course they did. Cowards or survivors — the line blurred more and more these days.

He turned toward the north direction.

Then—

A cold breeze brushed past, and with it — a soft snap.

CRACK!

A leaf breaking under weight.

Kismet slowly shifted his stance.

Alarmed.

From the treeline ahead, movement.

Subtle. Professional.

He counted the mana signatures without looking.

Eight… no. Nine.

Then came the voice — smooth, practiced, and vaguely amused.

"Nice little stroll you're having, Kismet."

From between two gnarled trunks stepped a woman dressed in officer blacks — reinforced uniform, badge gleaming with layered enchantments. A rank too high to be patrolling this side of the forest. Eyes sharp enough to cut through lies before they formed.

Senior Enforcement Officer.

Likely SS-Class. Maybe more.

Kismet looked up at her, lips curled into the ghost of a smirk.

"You've been following me this whole time, huh? Damn."

Another footstep. Then another. Seven more shadows emerged, spreading like a web. They weren't rookies. Each carried themselves like weapons — taut, quiet, and cold.

The woman didn't rise to the bait. She only stepped forward.

"You think you're clever, Kismet. But the thing about men like you — the ones who think they're special — is they always forget the system watches everything."

Kismet tilted his head, almost mockingly.

"Yeah? That same system that let a professor burn down three dormitories for a 'mana experiment' and blamed the janitor because he couldn't fight back?"

"That never happened."

Her voice was clipped.

"No," Kismet said softly, his eyes beginning to glow faintly violet, "but it's funny you thought of it so fast."

The officer's expression twitched.

Just a fraction.

But it was enough.

The moment Kismet brushed against her aura, her soul, her lingering residue of thoughts — he saw it. Just a glimpse.

Her kneeling beside a boy, her gloves soaked in blood.

The quiet whisper: "Don't make me choose. Please. Not again."

And the boy's eyes — cold. Still.

Kismet blinked, and the memory ended. He chuckled darkly.

"Ah. So that's what you buried. A little brother, was it? Or just someone who looked up to you before you let him die?"

One of her men surged forward with a snarl.

"You dare speak of that—!"

The shout was cut off.

BAM.

Just a flash of movement and a thud that echoed through the trees. The man folded over Kismet's fist like paper, his eyes wide with shock as air exploded from his lungs.

The forest stilled again.

Kismet stepped over the twitching body, cracking his neck.

"Who the fuck are you?" he muttered to the unconscious man. "And why are S+ officers so... soft?"

They all lunged.

Magic surged. Air rippled. Shadows snapped.

"Too cowardly for your rank," Kismet whispered.

"Zone Expansion —The VoidWalk!

The world shattered.

In a heartbeat, all color vanished.

The trees. The dirt. The bodies.

Gone.

Now: black.

A space of silence.

Endless.

Motionless.

Mute.

The air no longer touched their skin.

The wind no longer hummed.

Breath became shallow. Taste vanished. Sound dulled to a whisper.

The officers staggered, each one realizing the truth.

They couldn't sense each other.

Couldn't feel their feet touch the ground.

Couldn't tell how far their own limbs stretched.

It was like being submerged in ink.

They stood suspended in an endless void, a nothingness that felt like the absence of existence itself. Their senses were numbed, as if the void had anesthetized their ability to feel or perceive. Sight, touch, hearing – everything was dulled, leaving only a crushing sense of unease. It wasn't just darkness; it was the erasure of all reference points. No ground beneath their feet, no sky above, no sense of depth or distance. The void seemed to suffocate their very awareness, leaving only a growing dread that something was profoundly, irreparably wrong.

The officers staggered, instincts flaring.

And then — instinct kicked in. Their bodies responded the only way they could.

Inner Zone!

One by one, they expanded their inner zones — shields of compressed law, elemental dominance, self-contained logic trying to defy the overwhelming emptiness.

A woman formed a sphere of frost around herself.

Another conjured a starbound sigil, blazing with artificial light.

A man pressed gravity into a spinning shell of force.

Magnetic fields. Flame auras. Gravity wells.

Each tried to claim space. To survive.

But the void swallowed it all.

And Kismet smiled calmly, like a teacher watching students try to solve a problem far too large.

Somewhere, Kismet's voice cut through the void.

He took a step forward, hands still in his coat pockets.

"Go ahead. Resist. Pretend this space obeys your logic."

His eyes gleamed beneath silver lashes.

"But this domain wasn't made with logic and magic."