Chapter 55 · The Brother in Flame
* When a brother’s ghost calls from the fire, mercy becomes damnation.*
Inside the turbine hall, a storm of Spirit Force raged.
Eileen’s white dress flared wildly in the current—spinning like a death-blossom caught in a cyclone.
From the control room burst David and Musk, guns already blazing.
Bullets shrieked through the air—
only to fall lifeless three feet from her body.
“Useless…” Musk hissed, knuckles white on the trigger.
The rounds disintegrated before contact—crushed by the density of her Spirit Pressure, turning to dust mid-flight.
The squad was running on fumes.
Their Spirit reserves were almost gone.
Their bodies—seconds from collapse.
Behind Eileen, seven eyes snapped open.
Black tendrils writhed like sentient shadow.
“Don’t look into her eyes!” YiChen shouted, swinging his axe through the first wave—
But it was already too late.
Ryan’s gun slipped from his hands.
His gaze went hollow.
Logan grinned—wide and wrong.
Xu Wei froze—blank, empty.
Just like Isaac Kane before him.
“She’s feeding on our memories,” Han Yue snarled, “twisting them into illusions!”
His Soulwhisper burst in violet light, flaring into a psychic barrier.
Veins bulged along his temples—he couldn’t hold it long.
Eileen blurred—reappearing before Logan.
Her hand reshaped into a blade, slicing toward his eyes.
“Logan!” YiChen roared.
He surged forward—axe igniting in silver.
Eileen laughed—and vanished sideways.
Her claws still grazed Logan’s chest, blood blooming through his uniform.
“You can’t save everyone,” she sang.
And disappeared again.
“Xu Wei—behind you!” Han Yue yelled.
Too late.
Eileen emerged from shadow, claws like sickles.
Five deep gashes tore across Xu Wei’s back.
Blood sprayed—sharp and sudden.
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“Urgh—!”
He dropped to one knee, face ghost-white.
YiChen clenched his jaw.
His Spirit Force was nearly spent.
Another minute, and they’d all be dead.
Then Eileen’s eyes met Han Yue’s.
Her voice dropped to a whisper—silken, intimate:
“Mmm… such a lovely scent. You’ll make a fine appetizer.”
She moved—
faster than sound—
claws flashing toward his face.
In that final heartbeat—
YiChen unleashed everything.
“Time—Stop.”
Golden light detonated from his palm.
A shockwave rippled outward, freezing the world mid-motion.
Eileen’s claws halted inches from Han Yue’s skin.
The air turned solid.
Silence fell like glass.
YiChen stepped forward.
Each footfall felt like walking across knives.
He raised his axe—
poured every last thread of Spirit Force into the swing—
Crack.
The blade cleaved through her soul-core.
Eileen screamed.
“Ah—! You… you have divine power?! What are you?!”
Her body twisted.
Flesh unraveled into shadow.
Black mist surged up—
and swallowed YiChen whole.
?
Inside the Fog
Shadows churned.
A figure lay curled on the ground—
silver wings shattered, blood smeared across bruised skin.
“Brother…”
That face—he knew it too well.
ChengYu.
“Don’t kill me… please…”
ChengYu staggered upright, every step leaving blood in his wake, feathers dragging behind him.
“I died because of you…”
Tears carved tracks through soot-streaked cheeks; his voice trembled.
YiChen’s hands spasmed.
The axe nearly slipped.
He clenched the haft—nails biting into his palms.
Blood ran down his fingers.
It’s an illusion.
He repeated it like a mantra.
But every breath felt like drowning.
ChengYu came closer—
and fire swallowed him whole.
“Brother… help me… it hurts…”
YiChen’s tears fell—hot and soundless.
Then came the voices—serpents coiling through his mind:
“He’s in pain. Don’t you want to save him?”
“Make a pact with me. I’ll bring him back. You’ve saved so many… and they used you. Broke you.”
ChengYu screamed again, wreathed in flame:
“Brother—please!”
Pain detonated behind YiChen’s eyes.
He bit his tongue; blood filled his mouth.
Then—
He roared.
And brought the axe down.
“You’re a demon!”
Boom.
The illusion shattered.
Black fog tore apart—
and silence returned.
?
Reality
YiChen’s axe was still buried between Eileen’s brows.
Her soul-core split in two.
The shadows unraveled, dissolving into ash and wind.
YiChen stood motionless.
The axe slipped from his fingers, clanging against the floor.
Tears streaked silently down his face.
His heart—
had already been torn to shreds.
?
Aftermath
9:30 a.m.
The city convoy arrived.
Blue lights flashed.
Ambulances lined the gates.
Clergy and engineers moved in to secure the site.
All ten priests once stationed at the power station—confirmed dead.
Logan and Xu Wei were stretchered out—
one swaddled in field gauze, blood soaking through,
the other’s uniform split open at the back, red to the belt.
“Good thing you had military medkits,” a doctor muttered.
“Half an hour later, we’d have lost both.”
YiChen stood apart, watching.
Faces flickered through his memory—
three medics, years ago,
the ones who never let a comrade die alone.
“We need a medical unit,” he said quietly.
“Now.”
He rubbed his temples.
Exhaustion hit all at once.
He hadn’t slept.
Each time he closed his eyes, ChengYu burned again—
crying, screaming, wings torn from his back.
“Captain Caelestis? …Captain?”
A voice pierced the fog.
He blinked.
A city official was waving in front of him, lips moving—
but YiChen couldn’t hear.
Only the ringing remained—thin, sharp, like a thousand needles in his ears.
He climbed numbly into the off-road vehicle.
The door shut.
Morning light poured through the window.
He leaned his head back against the seat—
letting the brightness cut through him like blades.
The wheels crunched over gravel,
carrying him back toward the city.
But his mind—
was still trapped in the flames.
