“I promise, I will tell no one,” said the struggling girl. Her green eyes frantic, as the words barely made it out of her squeezed throat.

  “I know,” responded Alister, clutching the girl’s throat tightly as he shook his head.

  “Normally, I would simply strip from you any recollection that me and mine were ever here, but you see…” said Alister gesturing with his free hand at their current surroundings.

  Alister sighed. Not because of what he was about to do to the young Cultivator in his grip. Nor because of all the witnesses around him, but because of how messy his current circumstances had become.

  First he’d lost the contract at RaidCorp to a group of brats. Then, he’d been forced a level of sabotage that he had long felt was beneath him, and now; now, he felt forced to send a message.

  His eyes swept through the room, taking in the sight of young men and women, all virgin in their Cultivation experience. The sound of water sloshing came from every direction as the captives were forced to eternally tread water.

  “Matters have become incredibly more, how should I put this…?” said Alister, tapping the thumb of his free hand on his chin as he thought momentarily.

  “… difficult,” finished Alister, lifting his victim further into the air as she kicked and ripped at his titanic grip.

  Each and every Cultivator abducted by Honzo for RaidCorp’s fabled leader was supposed to be a secret. Yet due to Alister’s inside man, much of the more incriminating information unseen by the public eye, became more than tangible for Alister to interact with.

  He’d broken into this facility with the intention of making his competitors look ridiculous. In fact, the entire area was filled with bombs. Bombs, he hoped would link the orphans working above him to his current plot, a plot that may redeem Alister’s lost opportunities within RaidCorp. Which is what made Alister know the sacrifices before him were justified.

  “Why, what have they done to deserve this?” said the young Cultivator through gasping breaths.

  Alister shook his head, looking around at the sealed tanks. Countless swimmers within each container, kept within to fuel a perpetual system of water conjuration.

  The naked young adults were forced to fight for their lives within the element linked to their mana. The rare quality of being able to create water seen throughout all realms as priceless, was here made to be seen as simply normal.

  Alister could see no end to the tanks from where he stood. His people still within the room, attaching bombs to nearly every tank in sight and beyond.

  “They have done nothing child, they are simply sacrifices for a grander game…”

  Alister spun slowly as tears began to flow free from the green eyed girl’s face. The powerfully abundant water mana within the room causing her tears to float in the air, streaking to either side of her like droplets slung aside by windshield wipers of ancient crafts.

  “As are you, child. I need this all to be linked to another group, and I believe that with your death here, everything will be perfect,” said Alister smiling down at his captive.

  “My father will find out, and so will Sev-” started the young woman, until Alister shook her violently, drawing her in close, glaring into her eyes.

  “You will keep my son’s name free from your treacherous lips. How he even was drawn in by the allure of such a servile bloodline as your own still eludes me,” said Alister through gritted teeth.

  He’d drawn Honzo’s daughter to this place through the use of her fondness for his son, hoping that what he’d learned from Seven’s guards was nothing more than whimsey and fleeting lust brought on by the sentiments of youth. Yet after a few misguiding messages sent through his son’s stolen handheld, Honzo’s daughter arrived in a place that she was familiar with, all while Seven’s own knowledge of the facility should have been nonexistent, and suspicious even.

  Alister sucked his teeth in disgust at the overflowing tears that lapped into the air as if Vivid’s eyes were twin lakes.

  “Will you at least tell him that I loved him, and that I am sorry for not telling him who I was sooner,” tried Vivid as Alister squeezed tighter, shaking his head at the girl even before she’d stopped talking; her sobs growing with each word pushed free of her closing throat.

  “No, child, I won’t. I need my son’s rage. If he is going to become the scion that I need him to be, your death is the first cog in a plan that began long before even his adoption. You should be proud that you will serve as the key to what will become his prominent future, your death will give him purpose, even if temporary in magnitude…”

  Alister looked away as one of his men approached from behind him.

  “Sir,” said the security team member as he took a knee.

  “Is it done?”

  “Yes sir, all the bombs have been placed, and the secondary team says that your competitors have all started to enter the landfill above us.”

  “Goodie, we must move then,” said Alister lowering his hand, as he pocketed his free hand, dragging Vivid as he walked toward a hacked portal at the center of the room. His many infiltrators could be seen sprinting toward the stairs below the portal he headed to, Alister whistling a haunting tune with each casual step he took.

  “There is a reason you were born,” said Alister, suddenly singing the words sung to him as a child. Though he was mere moments away from killing the vast Cultivators around him, he felt sharing words that once brought him comfort was the lease he could do as he exited.

  “Be as the wind atop the trees,” sung Alister, smiling at the many faces that peered toward him. Their gazes locked in the euphoria brought on by the environment overly saturated in the mana of their own affinity.

  To those within the tanks, water being drained from their prison cells was seen as even worst than death to them. For their minds had been shifted toward unending exaltation.

  There was no pain. No anxiety. Nor did the stress and burdens of life weigh down their minds or the strength of their shoulders.

  They knew only bliss. Their every secret divulged to their captives in efforts to stay once threatened. Though RaidCorp and its leadership had no want for their growing energy resource pool to be diminished by even a single Cultivator, none there knew this, leaving them all satiated only by their further imprisonment.

  The room was filled with former judges, police, lawyers, and even former members of RaidCorp. No one too important in the dealings of Carter Omni. Not even his own children.

  “With all is the end, and with none is a beginning untouched by those before them,” finished Alister with a smile. He began to ascend the spiral staircase below the exit portal, Vivid’s tears dropping to the ground creating sounds like wind chimes or tinkling glass as she was dragged. Her nearly lifeless feet thudding with every step Alister took upward.

  Alister began the song from its beginning, singing merrily, looking toward more and more of the captives. The circular path upward giving Alister more and more of a view of all the lives he was moments away from ending.

  Finally he lifted Vivid for the last time, raising her to look him in the eyes once more before he flung her over the edge of the stairs he’d climbed, whispering as he chuckled at her falling body. The snap of her spinal cord louder than both his words and the fracturing tank her body landed upon below.

  “It’s been a pleasure…”

  …

  Seven was nervous. He sat waiting for Vivid in her bar, wondering where the young woman was.

  They were supposed to meet for dinner. A dinner Seven was excited for, knowing that he planned to ask her if she would be willing to meet his parents.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Which was why he was nervous. His parents weren’t known for being relatively sane in any way, shape or form, but still they loved him and thus he believed they would love Vivid. As he loves Vivid.

  After a while, however, Seven knew something was wrong. Vivid was never late, and if she was, it was for great reason, and not without many calls to lower any potential anger felt by the waiting party.

  Perfect time to lose your flatscreen, Seven, sparking perfect…

  A bustle through the bar caused him to look up from the lavish spread before him that was being perfectly preserved and warm by floating runes above the table as he waited for Vivid.

  What’s going on…?

  People throughout the bar all stood at once and to Seven’s shock, all pulled intricately designed masks from thin air, their bags, underneath tables, and even from behind the bar.

  Each and every mask had a different sword etched into its surface. The unique style and emblems of the Sword gang now all glowing as the gangsters put them on.

  “Bloody embers,” murmured Seven, cursing near silently as he suddenly felt surrounded by a gang he knew through his research over the pass few sunsets wasn’t kind. Especially to strangers.

  He prepared himself for the assault he assumed was coming his way, pulling on his gloves as he stood. Only for every member of the gang to blow by him, all rushing toward various exits.

  Okay… So I’m not about to die?

  Then he cursed his internal thought, Turning his head to see three Sword members standing just beside him, their hands held hovering above their sheathed katanas.

  Spoke too soon, I guess, at least my death will more than likely be quick and silent?

  “How may I help you?” asked Seven, watching as the leader of the group looked toward the food and then back toward Seven before speaking.

  “Where is the young mistress? We must find her before we return to Honzo,” said the young woman simply.

  “Umm, I have no idea, she was supposed to have met me here quite a while ago.”

  “I see,” said the woman, looking over her shoulder toward the pair that flanked her. A single nod all that was needed to signal their exit, leaving Seven alone with the woman.

  Seven couldn’t help but stare at the katana on her pure white mask. The design of the katana on her mask somehow formed from nothing but graceful straight lines that gave the sword the impression of motion, slicing the mask diagonally from one end to another.

  “You have two choices, either stay here and we won’t hunt you down, or come with us,” said the woman. Seven had to pull his thoughts from her mask refocusing on what she’d said to him.

  I believe the white masks are leadership, and so are the black ones but maybe to a lower degree? Which leaves all the various colors to be… Geez, Seven, not right now! Something serious is happening here, focus!

  “I will stay here,” said Seven, after a few moments of silence. The woman nodded, and began to brush by Seven until he grabbed her by the elbow; knowing he’d made a mistake in the next instance, feeling cold steel press softly against his throat.

  “Sorry, I mean no disrespect. I’m just worried now, I haven’t heard from Vivid and now you all seem like something is awry, what did I miss?”

  The woman looked away, and then back toward Seven with a subtly narrowed gaze.

  “The young mistress is missing, she hasn’t been seen since closer to sunrise, and we are being raided by Graveyard, which isn’t normal for us. Just stay here and stay out of trouble. I don’t want to be the one to tell the young mistress that you died while we were looking for her,” said the woman, sheathing her sword, and pushing Seven back into his seat. He smirked and nodded as she stormed off, leaving Seven to peer out a window as SWAT vans lowered onto the street outside the bar. Graveyard officers jumping free of the hover crafts as Sword members seemed to charge them from various nearby alleyways and surrounding buildings.

  “Come on, Vivid, you better be okay…!”

  …

  Vivid couldn’t feel anything. She lay atop one of the many tanks held far beneath RaidCorp Coliseum, listening as the broken tank beneath her unmoving body dripped water . The repetitive sound in perfect intervals showing her nothing but the passage of time.

  Although she couldn’t feel her heart beat, she knew that the drip drop was an echo of her chest’s own drum like rhythm.

  Tears still fell free of her eyes, but Vivid felt herself smile a radiant smile as she was forced to face her own death. As the daughter of an ascended Yakuza descendant, she was destined for a life without love. Without her own happiness. Even without the smallest bit of experienced trust or loyalty.

  Vivid knew however that she’d felt them all. For it was these feelings that brought her to her death. For if she wouldn’t have felt such emotions for Seven, she’d never have run head long into a place she knew held nothing but darkness and turmoil.

  Not rumored hells and heavens promised by a believer’s afterlife, but a purgatory she knew came without end. Her father had shown her what lay beneath the trash of RaidCorp Coliseum as a child, showing her the horrors of what the foundation of many civilizations stood upon even before puberty.

  As she lay there fondling her joyous memories mentally, she heard a song being sung. The very same song that Alister had just shared with her a mere handful of moments ago. The father of her first and last love, surprisingly talented in his expression, even as he walked her to her death.

  The words were being sung over and over again by all the captives. Their soft voices harmonious as each of them picked up the eternal chorus.

  She joined in even as blood began to fill her mouth, spluttering through the words while retching coughs racked through her torso.

  Though she wished her last moments were within Seven’s arms, she couldn’t help but feel her final resting place was far more sentimental. She’d grown up with many around her, now singing alongside those who’d long ago lost themselves to a Stockholm syndrome fueled by drug induced perpetual benders.

  These people knew not who they were, nor what they had once been. They knew not what they sung for. They knew nothing more than the love of bliss and more fathomless joy.

  Vivid’s body experienced the briefest of weightlessness as the top of the tank caved in, dropping her into the water below.

  Even before she could be completely submerged, strong arms enveloped her, wrapping her in a hug, keeping her unmoving body afloat.

  Vivid’s tears and blood joined in the water below; her head resting against the chest of the strong woman whose ability to tread water had once been feeble, and was now tremendous in capability.

  So even while Vivid remained unmoving, and only able to sing the words filling the vast underground, she was still held aloft. The words of the Maiden’s lullaby entering her ears, and softly whisking her to sleep.

  “There is a reason you were born.”

  Heat filled the room as the bombs set inside drew on the vast wealth of mana within.

  “Be as the wind in the top of the trees.”

  Every tank began to shake violently. The power that charged instantly becoming volatile, even before the incoming discharge could be sensed by those gathered and forced to witness the devastation on the horizon.

  With all is the end, and with none is a beginning untouched by those before them.”

  …

  Jade walked beside Jasmine, smiling down at the young woman as she worked.

  Proud of you, kiddo. Glad to know that some of my hard work will result in a promising future, even if my son is trying to make me feel like a psychopath…

  They walked past numerous entrances to the landfill beneath RaidCorp Coliseum. Jasmine easily directed everyone they passed to complete various objectives in a very short period of time.

  In fact, Jade had become lost in her thoughts as she trailed the young woman, only ever having to raise her hand with each entrance they approached to carve a rune into the wall just beside each entrance.

  The runes were being used to create a new dimensional pocket that would completely transport the interior of the landfill into the space already being used by BlackHole Conglomerate.

  This would link the landfill’s contents into the massive space already being used by her son’s company to the space that already held their entire inventory. Even Jade thought this was an astronomical idea, well beyond anything she expected her son and his friends to think of, yet the youngsters moved as if the considerable step in their plans was trivial.

  Bloody brats don’t even know how insane this will be if they manage to pull it off, thought Jade, thinking of her younger self as incomparable to the minds her son had surrounded himself with.

  “Move, people! If Arson comes down here and sees you all slacking, I guarantee you that the training he makes Carter put you all through will leave you with far more regrets than thinking about slacking off now will!”

  Jasmine looked back at Jade, making her laugh as her questioning face seemed to be looking to her for validation. She nodded and her smile grew.

  “Good job, young lady, keep it up. You know I’m proud of you,” said Jade in a hushed whisper. Jasmine smiled and continued on.

  They continued onward, and Jade finished enclosing the landfill in a dense runic overlay that wrapped around the entire landfill. Hundreds of miles were now surrounded by a runic pattern that allowed Jade to see the entirety of the landfill, further impressing Jade with what her son was about to accomplish.

  The work was being completed by her and Jasmine, but the design of the new space being added to their inventory had been designed by Arson and Xani from beginning to end. Jade literally only made one improvement and in all reality the improvement was truly only a precautionary measure.

  Jade worried over the instability of what had been prepared for mass teleportation, and had decided to increase the dimensions of the space used to also transport a foundation. This would ensure that even if the space wasn’t successfully moved to where they had set in place as their target destination; a floating platform formed of the solid stone she assumed was beneath the landfill would serve as a boundary for the landfill’s contents to be restricted to. Almost like a large plate with a concave lip that would keep food from spilling over its edge.

  The teleportation spell had a secondary location built within the vast amount of arrays and formations being used. Which would result in the landfill becoming a floating island of trash that hovered above the dump if their primary target rejected the spell and bounced the large amount of materials to enter their desired pocketed space.

  “So what are the odds of this backfiring on us?” asked Jasmine, the question causing Jade to shrug.

  “If I was in charge of something like this at your age, I could almost promise you that it would fail, but I was even more hard-headed, and less likely to accept help from anyone than even Arson, but you all have vision unlike any other group of Cultivators I’ve ever met,” said Jade.

  “You’re funny, momma Jade, you failing at anything is hard to believe, but that doesn’t matter even if it is true, as I’m no Cultivator, remember? We’re not comparable,” said Jasmine with a laugh as she headed toward where Xani stood waiting for the pair.

  “Could have fooled me,” said Jade underneath her breath, smiling as Jasmine glanced over her shoulder at her.

  “How did it go?” asked Xani, not looking away from her tablet as she spoke to the approaching Jade and Jasmine.

  “Fine, would have taken another few fortnights if Jade didn’t say she would help,” said Jasmine.

  “Yeah, having a runic master and a teleporter willing to help in anything from small to large did take the edge off this project. Thanks again, Momma Jade,” said Xani, briefly looking up toward the woman she secretly idolized much like the rest of Arson’s friends. None of the orphans willing to admit how much they all wished she’d adopted them all alongside their best friend.

  “No issue, but I would love to see how this is going to go before I have to return home to teach. Many of my new chefs are coming for the first time this evening. Is there much more to do before you all attempt this,” asked Jade, and Xani shook her in response.

  “Nope, just need Jasmine to give us the go ahead.”

  “Okay, then I’m excited, shall we do a countdown,” asked Jade. Both Xani and Jasmine giving her a nod, as Xani handed over her tablet to Jasmine. A handprint spanning the surface of the tablet, waiting for Jasmine’s hand to trigger the spell.

  “Ten, nine, eight,” started Xani and Jasmine. All the orphans around them starting to pick up the chant. The countdown echoing as it came from thousands and thousands of gathered orphans lining the exterior of the landfill, chanting as their excitement grew.

  Jade was excited momentarily. That was until she felt a swell of power unlike anything she’d felt on the realm layer as a whole. In that moment, everything froze for her, her senses exploding outward to encompass the entire area that her runes touched, showing her depths well beyond the limits of the landfill.

  “Six, five four,” yelled the orphans, and Jade yanked the tablet from Jasmines hand, and smashed her hand down on the trigger device.

  “Hey wait, what the!”

  A white light stripped the air from the lungs of the screaming orphans, shouts of alarm filling the halls that bordered the landfill. Brilliant illumination was all that could be beheld as the mass teleportation spell stripped everything from before them in an instant.

  Jade could feel herself holding her breath as she opened a portal to the dump and stepped through followed by the confused Xani and Jasmine.

  “Momma Jade, what’s…” started Jasmine, but Jade shushed her, looking upward, tilting her head as she both gazed into the distance and listened for an explosion. One that never came.

  Finally she handed the tablet back to Xani, leaving both her and Jasmine waiting in suspense; Jade slowly turning around as her heart beat out of her chest, hoping that the spell wasn’t rejected nor had a delayed response.

  “Check the inventory, Xani.”

  “What’s wrong, momma?” tried Jasmine again, only to be ignored as Jade cut her off for the second time.

  “Anything?” asked Jade, turning toward Xani as the young Cultivator went pale, blood draining from her face in a blink.

  Xani simply nodded, and Jasmine couldn’t take the suspense any further, twisting behind Xani to see what her friend was scrolling through.

  Jasmine’s mouth fell open as a series of images filled the screen, not only showing countless bombs left in a state of preservation within the pocket space that was their company’s inventory, but also the numerable containers filled with water, mana, and Cultivators that couldn’t be filtered into any of their previously created categories; no filter accepting the lifeforms never before acknowledge by their database.

  “What in the!”