Location: Central Armory – Abandoned Sawmill.

  Time: 4:20 AM.

  The Sawmill’s armory is a cold room, locked behind a reinforced steel door. Henry uses Gun’s master key. The mechanism creaks, and the door gives way. Inside, displayed on shelves like trophies from a won war, lie the Heretics' weapons.

  Henry enters first. The silence is sacred. Each of the brothers walks toward their gear like someone reuniting with a piece of their own soul:

  Mika Thorne slides her fingers along the carbon fiber of her Naginata.

  Kol Valet feels the familiar weight of the handle of his Fire Axe.

  Kane Sterlow powers on the Saw Gauntlets; the high-pitched electric whine dies instantly under his command, but the glint in his eyes is lethal.

  Henry picks up his Serrated Knife Brass Knuckles. He slides them over his fists, feeling the cold metal against his scars.

  In the corner of the room, hangers hold the utility jackets and, most importantly: the Carved Wood Masks. One by one, they put them on. The twig crosses in the center of the masks seem to come to life under the dim light. Their human faces disappear; now, they are only the Heretics.

  The Rescue of the Intellect

  They move like shadows through the technical sector. Beck Volter is hunched over a table of gears, surrounded by guards dozing in their chairs.

  Before the first guard can even wake up, Elena Vesper’s hidden blade has already visited two throats. Henry taps Beck on the shoulder. The German man spins around, startled, but upon seeing the blue mask and the twig cross, his eyes light up with excitement.

  "Henry..." Beck whispers.

  "Grab your Mechanical Spear, Beck," Henry orders. "We’re leaving."

  Beck grabs his starter motor and his rotary spear. The group moves in a diamond formation, exiting the Sawmill through the ventilation shafts and rooftops that Kane had mapped out months ago. They are invisible.

  The Radio Call

  Already outside the walls, hidden within the tree line surrounding the Sawmill, Henry pulls out his closed-frequency radio.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "Piro, this is the General," Henry says, using the codename to avoid alerting casual listeners. "The whiskey is gone. The tab is paid. Get out now. I repeat: get out now."

  In Chemult, at the bar, Steve "Piro" hears the message. He looks at the counter, at the drunken guards, and at the city he hates. He lets the dish towel drop, walks to the back where he hid a spare gallon of kerosene, and exits through the rear, vanishing into the darkness toward the rendezvous point in the forest.

  The Eye of the Storm

  Location: Leader’s Quarters – Top of the Sawmill.

  Time: 7:15 AM (Dawn).

  The scene cuts abruptly to the oppressive calm of Gun’s bedroom. The Oregon sunlight, filtered through dust and chimney smoke, seeps through the cracks of the wooden windows.

  The room is silent. On a canopy bed draped in animal peles, Gun and Freya sleep spooning. It is an almost human image, if not for Gun’s leather mask tossed on the nightstand next to his loaded Magnum.

  Gun sleeps deeply, one arm wrapped around Freya’s waist. Her eyes are open, staring at the wall. The sun illuminates her short blonde hair. To the world, Gun is a monster; in this moment, he is just a man who fully trusts that his "General" is guarding the door.

  He doesn't know that the "General" has just taken his trump card away.

  Outside, a bird chirps—a rare sound in 2040. Gun stirs, beginning to wake. He pulls Freya a little tighter against his chest, letting out a sigh of satisfaction. He believes the day beginning will be the first of his absolute empire.

  The camera pans down from the bedroom window to the base of the Sawmill, where one of Gun’s master keys lies on the ground, abandoned by Henry.

  The room is bathed in a soft, golden light. Gun, without his mask, props himself up on one elbow, watching Freya. His fingers, which have pulled triggers and wielded whips, now trace the contour of her shoulder with an almost surreal delicacy.

  Freya remains with her back to him, feeling the heat of Gun’s breath on the nape of her neck.

  "Do you hear the silence outside?" Gun murmurs, his voice still raspy from sleep, but lacking his aggressive leader’s tone. "It’s the silence of order. Thanks to Henry, there are no more Rodoviários. No more resistance."

  Freya turns slowly, meeting Gun’s gaze. He looks ten years younger without the black leather covering his face, but the scar on his neck is a constant reminder of his nature.

  "You seem at peace," Freya says, her voice a cautious whisper.

  Gun gives a rare, genuine smile. He leans in closer, pressing his forehead against hers. "For the first time, I can see beyond next week, Freya. I see a legacy. This world of 2040... it’s a wasteland, I know. But I’ve built an oasis of lead and oil."

  He pauses, his hand sliding gently down to Freya’s abdomen, resting there with a hopeful possessiveness.

  "I’ve been thinking..." Gun continues, lowering his voice as if confessing a forbidden secret. "A king needs a prince. Or a princess. Someone who doesn't have to fight just to eat. Someone to inherit Region 97 and turn it into something greater. A true heir, Freya. Blood of our blood."

  A chill runs down Freya’s spine. The idea of bringing a child into that world—to be raised by a man who worships gunpowder—is her greatest nightmare, but she keeps her mask on. She forces a melancholy smile.

  "A son of yours would have the whole world at his feet, Gun," she says, while her mind screams with the image of her brother, Silas, lost in some testing center. "But would you have the patience to be a father?"

  Gun chuckles softly, a vibrant sound. "I’d teach him to shoot before he could walk. He would be the heir to all of this. Henry would handle his training, you would handle his mind... it would be perfect. It would be our proof that we beat the end of the world."

  He kisses her with a possessive tenderness, dreaming of a lineage. Gun is planning a child’s future, unaware that, a few floors below, his "elite trainer" has just opened the gates of hell.

  The Fall of Paradise

  As Gun lies back down, closing his eyes for a few more minutes of peace, the camera cuts to the Sawmill’s courtyard.

  A patrol soldier, holding a metal coffee mug, walks lazily toward the cell block for the shift change. He hums a random tune. Upon reaching the main door of the dungeons, he stops.

  The door is wide open.

  The soldier runs inside, coffee spilling onto the floor. He passes the empty cells. The silence here is not one of order; it is the silence of an open grave. At the end of the hallway, he sees Solomon’s cell. Open.

  The guard panics. He rushes to the wall radio and hits the emergency button, but the radio emits only static—Beck has already cut the internal communication wires.

  The soldier stumbles back out into the courtyard and looks up toward the window of Gun’s room, hesitating whether to interrupt the "Demi-God’s" sleep with the news that will surely cost him his life.

  End of Chapter