8:47 PM – Ghostline Southern Ridge Safehouse
The wind had stopped.
Inside the reinforced bunker carved into the mountain's ribs, Ryoji worked fast, methodical. His hands danced across tripwire coils and sensor mines, sweat cutting paths through the dust and grit caked on his face. Behind him, Miura checked ammunition loads, muttering status codes under her breath.
Aiko sat on a steel crate, staring down at her open palm. The Seal shimmered again—no longer just a mark, but something alive. Something transmitting.
"They're already moving," she said.
Ryoji didn't turn. "Then we lock the gates and make them regret it."
Cut to – 8:48 PM – Asia, Ruined Radar Station
A dark patch of sky peeled open.
The GODTHREAD dropship descended without a whisper. Shaped like a wasp with armor plated in void-black alloy, it touched down amid the collapsed bones of a long-dead radar station.
Its ramp extended.
Six figures stepped out. No insignias. No words. Just silent synchronization, like a hive with a shared mind. Their suits rippled with digital mesh, and their rifles—long, ridged, inhuman—pulsed with latent heat.
The lead figure pointed once toward the south.
The hunt had begun.
8:49 PM – Inside the Ridge
"We've got full motion sensors running every twenty meters," Miura said. "Turrets in quadrants two and four. Still nothing on aerial sweep."
Ryoji shook his head. "They won't come from above."
Aiko whispered, "They'll come from everywhere."
She pressed her hand to the floor, feeling vibrations that weren't there yet. She didn't need vision anymore. The Seal was mapping signals in the air like sonar.
"I can feel the intent," she murmured. "The rage. The hunger. They're not just killers. They're... rituals in motion."
Cut to – 8:50 PM – Eastern Seaboard Blackzone
Flames lit the skyline.
A retrofitted fire truck burst through crumbling concrete barriers, now welded into a rolling urban death machine. The KRAKEN BURN UNIT was inside.
Flamethrowers hissed from side rigs. Napalm gel lines dangled like venom sacs. The crew inside wore blast armor seared black and red, faces hidden behind soot-streaked masks.
One of them sniffed a vial of accelerant before laughing.
"Burn it all. Walls, trees, bones. We're just here to paint."
They roared southbound.
8:51 PM – Ghostline Ridge Interior
Miura set down her rifle and leaned toward Aiko. "Can your Seal detect specifics yet?"
Aiko nodded. "Sort of. Not who they are. But how they think. There's one group that doesn't blink. Another that drags every thought through blood. And then there's…"
She shuddered.
"…something watching. Not moving yet. Like it's waiting to see who dies first."
Cut to – 8:52 PM – Zurich Deep Vaults
The air shimmered like water.
Jet-black hovercycles lifted off the subterranean launch platform in synchronized formation. These were the SHADOW KINETIC UNITS.
No wheels. No engines. Just gliding death.
Each wore refractive armor that made them nearly invisible in motion. Their weapons—rail pistols and curved stealth blades—were designed for motion assassination. Targets never saw them twice.
"Pulse in, kill, vanish," said their lead. "No delays."
They flew into the dark.
Cut to – 8:53 PM – Arctic Prison 9X
Sirens screamed.
A stolen medical convoy barreled down an ice ridge, siren lights still flashing. Inside, blood-streaked walls, surgical lamps, and six women—laughing.
The Serrated Sisterhood.
One sharpened a scalpel on a steel tooth. Another adjusted her vibro-chainsaw with the delicacy of a surgeon prepping for a C-section.
They all stared at the same image of Aiko projected from a cracked tablet.
"She's not a person," one whispered. "She's perfection. And perfection needs to be opened."
8:54 PM – Ghostline Ridge Outer Perimeter
Ryoji crouched beside the entry passage, checking detonation lines. Miura adjusted her thermal scope. No one was in sight—but the mountain was holding its breath.
"We might not survive this," she said flatly.
Ryoji's tone didn't shift. "Doesn't matter. She does."
Aiko stepped forward, holding out her glowing hand.
"I can see the line between each of them," she said. "Their thoughts leave trails. If I focus…"
The Seal pulsed like a sonar burst.
"…I can burn those trails."
Cut to – 8:55 PM – Northern Wastes
The ground quaked beneath treads the size of buildings.
Red Vault Tankers.
Mobile oil rigs, refitted for war, surged across ice and ash, pumping black fog into the air like industrial dragons. On their sides, chain-hooks spun on motorized winches, and shoulder-mounted cannons hissed with corrosive coolant.
Inside, their leader watched the bounty notice on repeat.
"She's worth a kingdom," he muttered. "Or at least the fire it takes to bring one down."
Back at the Ridge – 8:56 PM
The wind changed.
Ryoji looked toward the tree line.
"I smell fuel."
Miura's breath hitched. "They're too close already."
Aiko stepped up beside him, eyes glowing faint violet, the Seal fully ignited now.
"We can still hold," she said. "We have to."
Ryoji gripped the Vulcan-GX rotary cannon, the same weapon that turned flesh into memory.
"They're not getting through," he said.
"But if they do…" Miura added.
Ryoji finished the sentence without turning.
"…then hell is what's waiting for them."
In the distant fog, lights began to flicker. Dropships. Bikes. Black rigs. Flame in the trees. Screams in the static.
The world was bleeding toward the mountain.
And they would meet it head-on.
To be continued in Chapter 61...