The walls were painted with silence and shadows.
Cipher stood motionless in the heart of Death Protocol's underbelly, flanked by concrete and steel as cold as the truth he had come to face. The room—dim, quiet, and vast—was supposed to be a chamber of horrors, the one Jason said held dozens of children being experimented on. But it was empty.
"Gone…" Cipher whispered, eyes scanning every inch. No machines. No restraints. No screaming children.
Just… nothing.
"They moved them…" he muttered. "They knew."
The click of a boot echoed.
Cipher turned—too late.
A blur of movement from the dark, then ten Executioners leapt into view from the shadowed ceiling, dropping like reapers cloaked in obsidian armor. The light of their systems flared as digital weapons blinked into existence—blades humming with red binary, claws woven from corrupted code, eyes glowing like demonic circuitry.
Cipher snarled and activated his system. " Can't use fire"His weapon, a double-edged digital glaive, unfolded from his arm like a blooming death lotus.
"Let's go," he said, "I'll carve through you bastards if it's the last thing I do."
And it was.
Elsewhere in the facility…
Lucy and Riven burst into the chamber after Cigar, every step a pulse of urgency. They entered an empty circular room—chrome walls, no hiding places.
Something was wrong.
Cigar stood in the center, arms folded behind his back, smirking like a conductor ready to cue a bloody symphony.
"I'm glad you made it," he said coolly.
Riven's brow furrowed. "Where are the children, Cigar? What the hell have you done?"
Cigar said nothing. He turned slowly and snapped his fingers.
From the darkness behind him, a tall female figure stepped into view.
Riven's breath left him.
"Kira…" he whispered.
The girl had the same sharp chin. The same silver-streaked hair. The same eyes—only hollow now, devoid of recognition.
It was his sister.
Weaponized.
Her body bore signs of experimentation: black veins pulsed with digital energy, and her arms flickered with raw binary code. A digital greatsword unraveled from her back, expanding and contracting with an eerie hum.
"Meet the perfect Executioner," Cigar said. "No thoughts. No will. Just absolute obedience."
Lucy gasped. "She's... alive?"
Riven fell to his knees. "You monsters…"
Tears fell silently from his eyes. He stared at the ghost of his sister, now forged into a puppet of war.
"You'll pay for this," he growled. "I swear it."
Then he charged.
kira reacted instantly, swinging the massive sword with perfect precision. The blade expanded to thirty feet in length mid-swing, cleaving through the room like a wrecking ball of data.
Riven's clone took the hit and disintegrated.
The real Riven appeared behind her, Flash activated, slamming his palm into her back.
Nothing happened.
Kira turned and swung upward. Riven barely phased away, blinking with Flash, but blood sprayed across the room—his shoulder grazed by the expanding blade.
Lucy launched herself into the fray, twin digital daggers in hand. She darted low, going for a disabling strike to the heart.
"No!" Riven screamed. "Don't kill her! She's my sister!"
Lucy paused for a split-second—and it cost her. The weapon pivoted and slashed her with the blunt edge, sending her crashing into the wall, coughing blood.
"She's too strong!" Lucy gasped.
Kira lashed out again, her greatsword now separating into dozens of thinner blades that floated mid-air and began circling her. An S-rank multi-strike skill—Riven had never seen it before.
He created four clones, each one blinking toward the blades to distract them.
He phased between attacks, blinking beside Lucy and dragging her behind cover.
"We can't beat her head-on," Riven said. "We need to outthink her."
The weapon turned and faced them again, blades reforming into a single massive spear.
Meanwhile…
Cipher was drenched in blood—some of it his, most of it not. He had killed three of the ten Executioners. His body was torn, one arm dangling uselessly, and his system was flickering, nearly out of power.
One enemy lunged—he parried.
Another came from behind—he spun and stabbed, impaling them through the neck.
But he was tiring.
One final swing.
One last breath.
The ninth Executioner fell.
The tenth drove a spear through his gut.
Cipher gasped.
He looked up—into the cold, dead eyes of his killer.
He fell, silently, to the ground.
Back in the main chamber…
"Lucy run as far as possible, I want you.." Lisa didn't let Riven finish. " Am staying."
Without hesitation.
Lucy and Riven launched their counterattack. Riven blinked between attacks, dragging his clone in a loop to distract kira. Lucy unleashed an overload burst from her daggers—crackling arcs of white electricity dancing across the floor.
Still not enough.
The weapon surged forward, blade extending again, and plunged it straight through Lucy's shoulder.
"Lucy!!" Riven shouted.
She fell, gasping, trying to keep pressure on the wound.
Riven turned to face the kira his sister—and time slowed.
He remembered their childhood.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
How she had died alone.
"Why…?" he whispered. "Why would you do this to her?"
Cigar's voice echoed. "Because she was perfect. And now you are too. You will serve the system."
Riven snapped.
His body glowed. The Execution Code burned across his arm in flaming red binary.
"You want war?" he snarled. "You'll have it."
The last of Cipher's men arrived—two rogue Executioners who had followed the trail down.
They leapt into the fray—but they didn't last long. His sister—the weapon—sliced through them with perfect, emotionless precision. Their bodies split into two before they hit the floor.
Riven stood alone.
But he smiled.
He pulled a small black detonator from his belt—the one Cipher gave him.
"Cigar…" he muttered. "You're not getting away."
He pressed the button.
Explosions rocked the chamber.
Walls crumbled. The ceiling groaned. Fire tore through the floors above.
Cigar vanished in a flash of red binary, teleporting away through a hidden system.
The weapon—his sister—was caught in the collapsing ceiling.
And as Riven stood there, the smoke curling around him, his system chimed.
[New Skill Acquired: Portal]
A swirling ring of red light opened behind him.
Riven turned to Lucy—badly wounded, but still conscious,"we have to go." he said.
But this isn't over.