CHAPTER 293: CHAPTER 293- ESCAPE

The room was a smoldering ruin. Dust and the acrid smell of smoke filled the air, punctuated by the groans of the wounded and the shifting of collapsed stone. Heikal, his clothes torn and face smudged with soot, helped Valeria shift a heavy pillar to free a trapped soldier. The aura of relaxed authority was gone, replaced by a grim rage.

Rei, clutching a bleeding gash on her arm, stumbled towards him, her expression a mixture of pain and unwavering loyalty. "Leader Heikal... what are your orders?"

Heikal straightened up, his voice calm but carrying an undercurrent of steel as he surveyed the devastation. "First, we secure the survivors and stabilize the wounded. Then, you will reach out. Calm the remaining forces. We must re-establish a perimeter and project control. Panic is our enemy now."

From a pile of rubble nearby, Finn winced as Gab carefully cleaned a cut on the boy’s forehead. His tired, youthful voice held a stark clarity that cut through Heikal’s commands.

"It will be difficult," Finn stated, not with malice, but with simple, brutal honesty. "The ones who want to be free... they outnumber the ones who are still loyal. Forcing them again... if we try to bind them with the Marks again..." He looked up at Heikal, his large eyes serious. "...the ones who stayed with us will see. They will see that our ’order’ is just chains. And then they will turn on us too."

Heikal stood in silence amidst the chaos, the cries of the wounded and the shouts of rebellion a dissonant symphony to his failure. For a moment, his mind reeled. ’What was the flaw in my justice? Order, peace, structure... were they not righteous goals? Where did it all go wrong?’

He closed his eyes, shutting out the immediate devastation, and when he opened them, his decision was made. "Let them go," he commanded, his voice low but cutting through the din.

A wave of disbelief and protest erupted from his subordinates.

"Let them GO?!" Gab roared, slamming a fist into a cracked wall. "After what they did?!"

"We cannot, Leader Heikal! They must pay!" Valeria insisted, her metallic form trembling with fury.

Heikal raised a hand, demanding silence. His gaze fell upon Finn, then swept over the others. "Finn is right," he conceded, the words tasting like ash. "We cannot rebuild on a foundation of chains. Relying on the Mark again would only prove Julian right and turn our last loyal followers against us. The old way is broken."

Rei, hearing this, flinched as if struck. The purpose of her very existence, the Mark she bestowed, was now deemed a liability. "I... I’m sorry," she whispered, her voice thick with shame and the pain of her injury. "My power... it’s useless now. I’ve failed you."

Heikal turned to her, and for a brief moment, the manipulative facade fell away, revealing something akin to genuine, weary resolve. "It is not your fault, Rei. The failure is mine. We were simply... unlucky. It seems we encountered a variable I had not calculated for—a man who doesn’t just break chains, but shatters the very pillars holding the cage."

He straightened his posture, the strategist in him re-emerging from the wreckage. "Our immediate resources are insufficient. Contact our... allied factions. It is time they repaid their debts. We require their assistance."

Lyra, ever the pragmatist, immediately saw the danger. "In our current weakened state, revealing our vulnerability to the outside world is a massive risk. Our enemies are numerous. If they learn of this collapse, they will swarm like vultures to pick our carcass clean. Some of these ’allies’ may turn on us the moment they see an opportunity."

A grim, almost feral smile touched Heikal’s lips. The humiliation and rage he had felt earlier had now crystallized into a cold, singular purpose.

"If that time comes, we will deal with it then," he stated, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "But for now, our focus is singular. We clear this rubble, we gather our strength, and we use every tool, every favor, every shred of power we have left."

His eyes glinted with a promise of vengeance that eclipsed all other concerns.

"To make Julian and his entire band pay for this transgression in blood."

The ground beneath their feet suddenly trembled, a deep, unsettling vibration that had nothing to do with the recent explosions.

"Now what?!" Gab growled, bracing himself.

A section of the shattered floor near a collapsed wall burst open. From the darkness below, a horrifying figure emerged. Its skin was a mottled grey, stretched taut over a gaunt frame. Its mouth hung open, an unnaturally long, black tongue lolling out, and its eyes were solid, sightless white. It threw its head back and let out a guttural, mindless roar.

"GROOAAAKKKK!"

"Damn it!" Rork, the beast-man, snarled. "Subject 734! It’s broken containment!"

Lyra’s eyes widened in tactical alarm. "How? The lab was deep underground and fortified!"

Finn, piecing it together with cold logic, pointed towards the distant sounds of rebellion. "The freed ones. In their rampage, they must have destroyed everything... including the lab’s power core or structural supports. They didn’t know."

Valeria let out a frustrated "Tch!" sound. "That thing is a valuable specimen! All that research..."

Heikal’s eyes narrowed, his plans for vengeance momentarily sidelined by this immediate, chaotic threat. "Forget the research! Capture it now, before it—!"

But he was too late. The monster, sensing the concentration of powerful auras around it, seemed to panic. Its white eyes glowed with a sickly pale light. It slammed its claws into the ground and let out another, higher-pitched shriek. A visible pulse of white energy erupted from its body, washing over everyone.

The effect was instantaneous. The glow around Heikal’s hands, ready to unleash Karma’s Retribution, winked out. Gab, who was charging forward with earth-infused fists, stumbled as the rock around his hands crumbled into dust. Lyra’s tactical analysis of its weak points vanished from her mind, leaving only baseline human thought. The nullification field was active again.

"He neutralized us?!" Heikal seethed, frustration boiling over.

The monster, though mindless, possessed a primal cunning. It understood the shift. The overwhelming pressure of their skills was gone. With another grating roar, it didn’t attack. Instead, it turned and scrambled over the rubble with shocking speed, its form disappearing into the thick smoke and chaos of the burning citadel.

It was free. And the New Order, battered, broken, and now powerless, could only watch it escape.