CHAPTER 44: CHAPTER 44: DUNGEON BREAK, THE ASH WARDEN WAR (4)

We heard him before we saw him—swearing at the architecture in escalating poetry. Jax lurched in from the south arcade, hair a mess, knee wrapped with tape that had given up on being adhesive and decided to be a suggestion. He spotted us, grinned like a bad sun, and pretended the limp was a swagger.

"You two have a talent for finding the ugliest parts of town," Jax said when he finally limped through the smoke. His voice was gravel—same as always—but his eyes looked like they hadn’t closed in a week. He took one look at me, then at the black-red harness flexing over my ribs. "Huh. You look like allegedly you."

"Allegedly," I said. "Got you a present."

"Unless it’s a new knee, pass."

"Close."

I palmed open Inventory, light spilling between my fingers, and slid the wrapped cleaver into reality. The Grav-Edge Core hit the air like a promise. It drank light, heavy enough that even holding it wrong felt like an arm workout.

Jax reached for it automatically—and almost lost his balance when the weight pulled forward.

"Holy shit," he grunted, catching it on reflex. "That’s not a sword. That’s a punishment."

"It’s helpful," I said. "Amplifies impact. Gravity reinforcement. Don’t swing it near civilians unless you’re bored of their spines."

He turned it in his hand. The blade gleamed black under the fires. "No kidding—this thing pulls. Feels like it’s trying to dig through the floor."

"That’s the idea."

He gave it another test swing, low and slow. The air bent around the arc and threw grit into a spiral at his feet. His eyes widened. "That’s... A-rank at least. Maybe higher. Where the hell did you even get this forged?"

I smiled without humor. "Me."

He blinked. "You?"

"Forge therapy."

"Bullshit." He crouched, ran a thumb along the etching, frowned. "You made this in your apartment?"

"Technically," I said,

Jax barked out a laugh, half disbelief, half nerves. "You’ve lost it."

"Probably."

He studied the cleaver one last time, then exhaled. "This thing’s worth more than my life.""Then make it worth the trade," I said.

His jaw flexed. "No promises."

Hana had been quiet through all of it. Her uniform was torn, soot streaked her collarbone, and her threads—what was left of them—hung limp around her wrists. She finally looked at me, then at the flickering metal shape on my back. "And for me?"

"Hold still," I said.

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t move. I drew the folded shawl from Inventory. The Lotus Thread V2 unfolded itself, silver-blue, weightless, alive. It rippled once and then climbed her shoulders like mist that had been taught manners.

She stiffened. "It’s moving."

"It’s syncing," I said. "Reads heartbeat, breathing. Hardens on contact when you’re hit. Shares part of the load with anyone inside its pulse range."

The fabric adjusted again, threads tightening over her sternum. "It’s... warm. Almost feels like it’s breathing."

"It is. Don’t think too much about it."

She looked down at the weave, expression caught somewhere between reverence and discomfort. "Ethan... this is national-level equipment. This should take a whole forge crew. Not—" she gestured at me, the ruined building, the ash-streaked table "—whatever this is."

"Just a hobby," I said.

Jax let out a low whistle. "Bullshit hobby. You know what the appraisers will say when they see this? They’ll drag you into a vault and make you replicate it under watch."

"Guess better not show them, then."

He stared at me for a long second. "You’re serious."

"Would I be joking right now?"

"Yes."

"Fair."

The silence stretched. The firelight caught the shimmer of the harness under my jacket, the faint ember lines crawling with my pulse. Hana’s shawl adjusted again, threads curling to her shape like memory. Jax hefted the cleaver once more and muttered something low under his breath that sounded like prayer or profanity. Maybe both.

Hana broke first. "Ethan... this is dangerous."

"City’s already dangerous."

"I mean you

."

"I’ll survive."

"Will you?" she asked quietly.

Jax looked between us, the air thick with things none of us could afford to say. He finally slung the sword across his shoulder. "HQ?"

"Yeah," I said. "HQ."

"Good," he said, limping forward. "Maybe they’ll have whiskey."

"Maybe they’ll have walls still standing," Hana muttered.

Neither of them looked at me as we started walking, and that was fine. My hands were still shaking. The forge heat hadn’t left.

Inside, the truth pressed like a knife against my ribs:

I’d made miracles happen more than once.

[Objective Suggestion — Guild HQ: Command Row]

[Allied Signals ↑]

"Yeah," I said. "Darius will be stacking survivors. If anyone knows where to plug three idiots in, it’s him."

"Three idiots?" Jax said. "Rude. Accurate. But rude."

Hana scanned the arches, the roofs, the alleys that used to be safe. The shawl tightened when her gaze found a dark corner, then loosened when she moved on. "Evac corridor Mu is stable for now. Lambda’s gone. I can keep a thread on a squad if they pass through our radius."

"Do it," I said. "And if we run into monsters on the way, we don’t be heroes. We be boring. First we go see the guildmaster"

Jax blinked. "Who are you and what did you do with Ethan Cross?"

"Upgraded," I said. "Heroics get people killed. We do tools and timing."

Silence landed. Not heavy. Honest. Jax nodded like a punchline had learned manners. Hana glanced at the Gate glow and didn’t say what both of them were thinking: the shaman’s shadow was still out there, and sooner or later we’d walk into it.

The Market groaned under another distant impact. Dust sifted down like snow that had seen things.

I checked the phone one last time—battery coughing, signal muttering. Mara’s last message sat pinned above the rest like a heartbeat I’d promised to return. Selene’s ping still read

[Access Denied — Lockdown AEGIS].

Alive, buried, busy. Pick any two.

"Form up," I said, because someone had to say the thing that made our feet move.

Jax slung the cleaver over his shoulder; the blade tugged his center of gravity forward and he compensated, body remembering how to be a weapon. Hana’s shawl petaled into a half-mantle at her back, threads whispering to her pulse like a second breath.

Darkharness flowed along my spine and down my right arm, molding into a compact forearm guard that would become whatever I needed before my brain caught up. I didn’t deserve a toy this smart. Too bad. We had a city to fix.

We stepped out from under the arches into air that tasted like a coin. The Gate’s red pulse lined up with my heart for three ticks, then let go.

Hana stopped beside me. Her shawl pulsed faintly, picking up the tremor in her breath. "Ethan..." she said quietly, almost lost under the wind. "We’re not going to make it through this, are we?"

Jax froze mid-step, like he didn’t want to hear the answer either.

I looked east. Guild Row was half shadow, half fire. Towers hunched like animals trying to stay small. Every block between here and there was a scar. The Hierophant was still out there somewhere, preaching to the corpses with light and ash.

I should’ve lied.That used to be my first instinct—keep it light, dodge the weight. But something in me cracked open in that dungeon, and the lie wouldn’t fit anymore.

"We probably won’t," I said. "Not all of us."

Hana’s eyes glistened in the half-light. "Then why—"

"Because somebody has to," I said, before she could finish. "That’s all this ever is. You do the next thing. You keep standing up until something bigger decides it’s tired of knocking you down. Then you get one more swing before you go. That’s the job."

The ash drifted sideways, silent. Even the sirens seemed to hold their breath.

I flexed my hand; the harness shifted, whispering against my spine like it agreed.

"Every dungeon I’ve walked into, every time I should’ve died—I kept waiting for some divine reason. But there isn’t one. There’s just people worth bleeding for, and the chance to do it again."

Hana looked at me like she was trying to memorize the words, maybe in case I didn’t come back. "You really believe that?"

"I don’t know," I said. "But it’s better than being afraid."

Something in her shoulders eased. The tremor in her breath evened out; the shawl around her pulse dimmed from alert red to a calm, steady blue.

Jax nodded once, jaw set. "Good enough for me."

"Good," I said. "Then move."

We moved—three ghosts pretending to be enough for a war.

The city breathed around us, broken and burning, but for the first time, I didn’t flinch from it. The fear was still there. It just had somewhere better to go.

[Quest Updated — Regroup Achieved]

[Next: Reach Guild HQ — Command Row]

[Recommended: Maintain Low Signature • Avoid Western]

The Market swallowed our footsteps and spat us into the street. The city didn’t cheer. It didn’t need to.

It let me try again.