Isla’s jaw tightened. "Meaning ash fiends."

"Meaning worse than ash fiends," Vane corrected. He tapped the table and changed the projection.

The city map collapsed into a three dimensional view of the underground transit network beneath Johannesburg. Large sections were gray, but beneath Sector Three, a cluster of tunnels glowed with a dull crimson pulse.

Glenn stared at it. "What is that?"

"Ash bloom," Vane said. "Residual anti mana growth. The fiends are not merely spreading across the surface. They are rooting themselves beneath the city. The Wanderer is converting Johannesburg into an anchor."

Caleb went pale. "An anchor for what?"

"For himself," Vane answered. "For The Lost. For whatever lies beyond the tear he crawled out from."

The room became colder, and this time it was not because of Isla’s gauntlet.

Glenn pushed away from the table. "Then we go there."

"No," Malachi said.

The word came fast.

Glenn turned slowly. "No?"

"You are not ready to assault an ash bloom."

"I did not say assault. I said go there."

"You are angry," Malachi replied. "You are frightened for your mother, and because of that, you are mistaking movement for progress. Johannesburg is not a battlefield anymore. It is a living grave. Every step you take inside that wasteland will be watched by the Wanderer’s influence."

Glenn stepped around the table. "My mother is somewhere inside that grave."

"And that is exactly why you are vulnerable."

The words hit harder than a threat would have.

Glenn stopped a few paces away from Malachi. His voice dropped. "Be careful."

Malachi did not move. "The Wanderer wants you. He said as much before the city fell. A human capable of wielding rot is not just an enemy to him. You are a resource. A vessel. A door that learned how to walk like a man. If you enter Johannesburg recklessly, he will not need to hunt you. You will deliver yourself to him."

The fragment stirred again.

This time Glenn did not let it leak.

He held it down.

For three months, Vane had locked him inside sensory isolation chambers and forced him to stare into the dead gray vortex anchored to his soul. For three months, Kaelen had beaten the weakness out of his body until every movement became deliberate. For three months, Aris had studied the Abyssal Prism, tuning its dimensional vacuum to the same anti mana signature that now infected the city.

Glenn had changed.

But fear had changed with him.

It had become sharper.

Quieter.

More dangerous.

"I can control it now," he said.

Malachi’s mask tilted slightly. "Better than before. Not completely."

"Enough."

"For a training chamber. For a controlled strike. For opening a vault door. Not for standing inside a city saturated with the same power that lives in your core."

Vane nodded once. "The ash bloom could resonate with your fragment. In simple terms, the city itself might pull the rot out of you. If that happens, your body will become the weakest wall between your soul and The Lost."

Isla pushed away from the wall. "Then we do not send him alone."

No one looked surprised.

Glenn turned to her. "Isla."

"Do not start," she said coldly. "You are about to make the noble sacrifice face, and I am not in the mood to watch you pretend you can carry the apocalypse by yourself."

Caleb cleared his throat. "She is right. Strategically speaking, going alone is stupid."

Glenn stared at him.

Caleb raised one hand. "Respectfully."

A faint, exhausted smile almost touched Glenn’s mouth, but it disappeared before it fully formed.

Isla stepped closer to the table. "We know Sector Three. We know the target area. We know there are unofficial routes that may not show up in Association records. We also know the ash bloom is spreading beneath the city. That means this is not just about Glenn’s mother. It is reconnaissance."

"Correct," Vane said. "Which is why I was going to propose a limited insertion."

Malachi turned his mask toward him. "You were?"

"I am not suicidal, Malachi. I am practical." Vane tapped the projection and highlighted a thin tunnel line beneath Sector Four. "There is an old pre Awakening maintenance route beneath the eastern drainage spine. It was sealed decades ago, but Eden still has access codes for the first three gates. The route passes under the collapsed border of Sector Four and opens near the lower residential blocks of Sector Three."

Glenn leaned forward. "How close to my mother’s apartment?"

"Four kilometers."

"That is close enough."

"It is also dangerously close to the ash bloom," Vane added. "Which is why this cannot be a rescue operation in the emotional sense. You will not search every building. You will not engage every hostile. You will not attempt to save every survivor you hear screaming in the dark."

Glenn’s eyes narrowed.

Vane met his stare without flinching. "If you cannot accept that, you should not go."

The words settled heavily in the chamber.

For a moment, Glenn heard nothing but the low hum of the holographic table. Four kilometers. His mother could be four kilometers from the tunnel exit. She could be trapped in an apartment. She could be hiding in a shelter. She could be dead in the stairwell of the building he had paid for because he thought money could buy safety in a world that specialized in taking everything away.

He wanted to say he would save everyone.

He wanted to say he would tear Sector Three apart brick by brick until he found her.

But he was not the same reckless F Rank who had first stumbled into the tutorial dungeon. He had seen S Ranks die. He had seen an SS Rank Monarch fail to kill the Wanderer. He had seen what arrogance cost.

So he swallowed the lie before it left his mouth.

"What are the objectives?" he asked.

Malachi was silent for a moment.

Then he nodded once, as if Glenn had passed a test.

Vane tapped the table again. Three markers appeared.

"First objective, reach the Sector Three residential block and confirm whether Amelia Mcdonald left any trace behind. Blood, clothing, mana residue, survivor notes, anything. Second objective, collect a live sample of the ash bloom without allowing it to contact your spiritual cores. Third objective, determine whether the fiends are being directed by Elena Rostova or by a deeper intelligence."

"Elena," Caleb muttered. "The dead mage wearing someone else’s soul."

"She has been sighted six times since the fall began," Malachi said. "Always near areas where survivor groups vanish. She does not simply slaughter. She harvests."

Glenn’s face hardened. "Harvests for what?"

Vane’s black eyes reflected the crimson light of the map. "We do not know."

"That is comforting," Isla said dryly.

"It was not meant to be."

Caleb leaned over the table, studying the underground route. "If we enter through the drainage spine, I can stabilize the tunnel pressure with gravity fields. But if the structure has been weakened by rot, too much force could collapse the entire path."

"Then you will use restraint," Malachi said. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Caleb gave him a thin look. "I was planning to."

Isla flexed her right hand inside the Frostbreaker gauntlet. Frost crawled over her knuckles. "And if we encounter fiends?"

"Do not leave bodies behind," Vane said.

"Burn them, freeze them, crush them, or erase them completely. Anything left in infected territory can become part of the ash."

Glenn looked at his left hand.

A thin thread of dead gray energy moved beneath his skin like smoke trapped under glass.

"I can erase them."

Malachi’s voice sharpened. "Only if absolutely necessary. Every time you use the fragment inside Johannesburg, you risk announcing your location."

"To the Wanderer?"

"To everything."