He stopped briefly at an intersection and looked down one street, then the other. Nothing stood out, so he picked a direction at random.“This way.”He walked for several more minutes before suddenly stopping. “Wait.”He looked around, his brows furrowing as he studied the unfamiliar-looking buildings around him. “This looks familiar.”He turned around and stared at the road behind him.“Was I here already?”Drax frowned. He had absolutely no sense of direction.He continued walking anyway.The further he walked, the quieter the streets became. The evening darkness gradually swallowed the city, and the few lamps scattered along the roads flickered weakly. Some buildings were nothing more than rusted structures held together by desperation, while others had their windows boarded shut. Somewhere nearby, music played loudly from a bar, followed by shouting and the crash of something breaking.Drax glanced toward the noise. “Not my problem.”He continued walking.The mission clock was sti

Desmond stared at him helplessly, his small chest rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to find the right words. Then, as though something inside the boy finally broke, he slowly lowered himself onto his knees in the middle of the road. Drax’s eyebrows immediately pulled together when he saw him. “Hey.” Desmond ignored him. “Please.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, so faint that it almost disappeared beneath the distant sounds of Null City. Drax looked down at him, his expression hardening slightly as the boy lifted his tear-filled eyes toward him. “My mother is going to die.” The desperation in those words was different from before. It wasn’t simply fear anymore. It was the helplessness of a child who had reached the end of every option he knew and had finally realized that he had nowhere else to turn. Desmond’s lips trembled as he clasped his hands together, desperately trying to hold himself together. “I need you,” Desmond said, tears finally spilling fr

Drax’s eyes narrowed. “How did you…” He stopped himself, then turned fully toward the boy. “How do you know about that?” Desmond wiped the remaining tears from his cheeks. “I heard you.” Drax stared at him. “When?” “Inside the restaurant.” Drax’s expression changed immediately. Desmond pointed toward the direction they had come from. “When you were fighting those men, you asked them if they were Red-Ledger. I heard you asking them.” Drax’s eyes narrowed further. “You were listening?” “I wasn’t trying to,” Desmond quickly replied. “I just heard it. But I can help you get to them. Drax studied the boy carefully. For the first time since Desmond had appeared, Drax wasn’t looking at him as simply a frightened child. He was assessing him, carefully weighing every word the boy had spoken. The Red-Ledger was the one thing Drax had been trying to find since entering Null City. The Special Force had practically thrown him into the city with a name and a deadline and expected him

Drax and Desmond were already on their way back when Drax suddenly slowed down and glanced over his shoulder at the boy. The evening had grown darker, and the streets of Null City were becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. The few streetlights scattered throughout the area flickered weakly, casting long shadows across the cracked roads, while the sounds of the city seemed to grow louder as night approached. Drax had no idea how far the restaurant was from their current location, but judging from the amount of time it had taken Desmond to find him, it was definitely not close enough for them to casually walk back.Drax frowned as he looked at the bicycle beside him. “How are we getting there faster?”Desmond looked at him blankly. “I don’t know.”Drax stared at him.“You don’t know?”Desmond shook his head. “I only came with this bicycle.”Drax looked at the bicycle again. It was small, old, and clearly not designed to carry two people. One of its pedals looked slightly bent, th

Lydia’s tears flowed freely as she remained on her knees in front of Gunner, her hands clasped together so tightly that her fingers had begun to ache. She had never been this frightened in her life. The sight of thirty armed men surrounding her restaurant, combined with the cold expression on Gunner’s face, made it painfully obvious that there was no negotiating with these people. She shook her head desperately as she tried to explain herself, her voice breaking beneath the weight of her fear. “Please, spare me and my son. We didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t bring anyone here to attack your men. I swear, I didn’t even know that man before today. He was just a traveler who came into my restaurant. He got involved because your men were hurting my son. I never asked him to fight anyone.”Gunner stared down at her without the slightest trace of sympathy. The cigarette between his fingers burned slowly as smoke drifted across his face, but he didn’t bother moving away from it. His remain