The chopper had not fully touched the ground before Jayden jumped.
The skids were still inches above the fractured pavent when he dropped, landing with a force that cracked the street beneath him. The wind from the spinning blades whipped dust and ash into spirals around him, but he did not notice. He did not hear the pilot shouting sothing behind him. He did not register the scattered soldiers turning in shock.
His eyes had already found her.
linda lay a few ters ahead.
Still.
Too still.
For a second, his mind refused to understand what he was seeing. The world felt distant, muted, as though soone had subrged him underwater. The fires burning around Dominion City flickered in silence. The smoke drifted in slow motion. Even his own heartbeat seed to vanish.
His heart left his body.
That was the only way to describe it.
He took one step forward.
Then another.
Each step felt heavier than any battle he had fought that day. His boots scraped lightly across broken concrete as he approached her, unable to look away, unable to breathe properly.
Kael stood several ters away, watching.
He was smiling.
That was what finally made the world snap back into focus.
Jayden reached her and stopped.
He stared down.
Her hair was dusted with ash. Her eyes were closed. Her body lay motionless against the cracked street, as if she had simply fallen asleep in the worst possible place.
"No..." he whispered.
His voice trembled, barely audible.
He knelt slowly beside her.
His hands hovered over her for a mont before he finally touched her shoulder gently, as though afraid she might break.
"No..."
The word ca out again, broken this ti.
Behind him, Harper stirred weakly on the ground. Esta pushed herself up slowly, her gaze shifting from Kael to Jayden.
Kael’s voice cut through the air, calm and cruel.
"She was brave," he said lightly. "Foolish. But brave."
Jayden’s head lifted.
The look in his eyes changed.
It was not grief alone.
It was sothing deeper.
Sothing darker.
Kael took a step toward Harper, who was still struggling to rise.
"I believe I left sothing unfinished," Kael said casually, preparing to strike her down.
He never got the chance.
Jayden vanished.
The ground where he had knelt exploded outward in a violent shockwave.
Kael barely had ti to turn before Jayden’s fist collided with his face.
The impact thundered across the city.
Kael’s body shot backward through the air, crashing through the remains of a concrete structure before slamming into the far end of the street.
Jayden did not pause.
He was already there.
Before Kael could fully stand, another blow crashed into his ribs. Then another to his jaw. Then a kick that sent him skidding across the ground like debris in a storm.
There was no breathing space.
No exchange of words.
Only raw, relentless force.
Kael attempted to rise again, summoning the power of the Absolute instinctively. Dark energy flared around him, his body beginning to regenerate from the earlier damage.
Jayden’s next strike shattered the regeneration mid process.
Kael’s eyes widened.
There was sothing different.
Sothing within Jayden’s attacks that cut deeper than strength alone.
Each blow carried an unseen edge, a resonance that disrupted the flow of the Absolute itself.
Kael blocked one strike and felt it.
A pulse.
A guiding force embedded within the impact.
"What..." he muttered under his breath.
Jayden did not respond.
He struck again.
And again.
The pavent collapsed beneath them as the force of their clash tore open the street. Buildings nearby trembled violently. Windows shattered. Debris rained down.
Kael tried to counterattack, unleashing a concentrated wave of Absolute energy from his palm.
Jayden tore through it.
He drove straight through the blast as though it were wind and slamd his fist into Kael’s chest with such power that the shockwave rippled outward for blocks.
Kael gasped, stumbling backward.
For the first ti since the invasion began, genuine shock appeared on his face.
"You have assistance," Kael said, struggling to stabilize himself. "That is not rely strength."
Jayden’s eyes burned.
"You should not have touched her," he said, his voice low and trembling with fury.
He lunged again.
This ti, his movents were faster than before. Not just speed enhanced by attributes. Sothing more refined. More precise. Every strike landed exactly where it would cause maximum disruption to Kael’s core flow of power.
Esta watched from a distance, her breathing still unsteady.
"He has aligned with it," she whispered to herself.
Harper dragged herself up beside her, wiping tears from her face, eyes wide with disbelief as Jayden overwheld the very man they had barely survived monts earlier.
Kael tried to summon another surge of the Absolute, but each ti he did, Jayden’s attacks cut through it, destabilizing the energy before it could fully form.
It was not brute force alone.
It was guidance.
Kael was forced back again and again until he finally slamd into a fractured building, the structure collapsing partially around him.
He coughed, blood spilling from his mouth before regenerating.
"You..." he began, staring at Jayden with dawning realization. "You carry it."
Jayden did not care what he ant.
He moved again, preparing to finish it.
Kael understood then.
If this continued, if Jayden’s rage remained this focused and fueled by whatever unseen aid strengthened his blows, he might not survive this encounter.
With a sudden burst of Absolute energy, Kael created a violent distortion around himself, forcing Jayden back half a step.
In that split second of space, Kael shot upward into the sky, vanishing in a streak of dark light.
Jayden launched after him instinctively.
But Kael was gone.
The sky above Dominion City was empty.
Jayden hovered there for a second, scanning every direction, rage still burning through him like wildfire.
He clenched his fists.
Then he descended slowly.
Esta stepped forward carefully as he landed.
"He retreated," she said calmly.
Jayden did not respond.
Harper rushed past them both and collapsed beside linda’s body.
Her composure shattered completely.
She broke down in uncontrollable tears, her hands trembling as she reached out toward her boss, toward the woman she had sworn to protect.
"I am sorry," Harper sobbed. "I am so sorry..."
Jayden walked back to where linda lay.
His legs felt weak now.
The rage that had propelled him monts ago gave way to sothing far heavier.
He knelt again beside her.
His hands shook as he gently brushed ash from her face.
"No... No..."
His voice cracked openly this ti.
"You should not have showed up here."
His breathing beca uneven.
"You should not have..."
The mory of the book surged back into his mind.
IF YOU WILL EVER SEE THIS, AND I HOPE. I LOVE YOU, JAYDEN.
He closed his eyes tightly.
He rembered the café.
He rembered her teasing him about being too serious.
He rembered the awkward first ti they had argued over sothing small and aningless.
He rembered the way she had looked at him that quiet evening, when everything else felt uncertain but she had stayed.
"I was going to say it," he whispered brokenly. "I was going to..."
His shoulders trembled.
The man who had just torn warships from the sky now sobbed openly in the middle of a ruined city.
For a while, there was nothing but grief.
Even the fires around them seed to burn more quietly.
Then sothing shifted again.
The grief did not vanish.
It hardened.
It sharpened.
Jayden slowly lifted his head.
His eyes were no longer just filled with sorrow.
They burned with sothing unrelenting.
He stood up.
Without another word, he activated Soar.
Energy surged around him, lifting him off the ground with controlled force. The air rippled as he rose.
He clenched his fists, his voice echoing across the shattered city.
"Kael!!!"
The na roared from him, filled with anguish and fury.
"You picked the wrong person to ss with!!!"
With that, he shot upward into the sky at blinding speed, vanishing into the clouds like a missile launched by grief itself.
Harper staggered to her feet slowly, watching the space where he had disappeared.
Her tears continued to fall.
"Unbelievable..." she whispered.
"Believable."
The calm voice behind her made her turn.
Esta stood there, bruised but composed, watching the sky thoughtfully.
"For soone with the Absolute Guide?" Esta added quietly. "Believable."
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