All Chapters of HELL'S ARCHITECT: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
45 chapters
Chapter 11. The Begging Devil
Thick purple blood from the demon’s exploded head was still warm, clinging to Sister Vera’s pale cheek like alien tears.The intelligence agent’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes were wide, empty, fixed on the lump of flesh on the floor, the remains of the demon’s face that had tried to speak to her moments ago. Seconds earlier, the creature had begged. Begged for its “Queen.” Begged for the truth.Now it was nothing but floor decoration.BANG! BANG! BANG!Three follow-up shots slammed into the concrete pillar where Elios had dragged Vera into cover. Sharp shards of stone exploded outward, slicing into Elios’s face.“Stop spacing out, Sister! Your head’s next!” Elios shouted, his voice cutting through the thunder of gunfire.He pressed his back against the cold pillar. His chest heaved, but his eyes stayed steady, scanning reflections in the pooling blood to track the enemy’s position. He gripped his shotgun tightly, even though he knew buckshot at this range was useless against
Chapter 12. Silencing Protocol
WHOOSH!Their landing was anything but graceful.Elios and Vera slammed into the surface of toxic wastewater from a height of ten meters. The thick black liquid flooded their noses and mouths, tasting like molten sulfur mixed with leaking batteries.They sank briefly into pitch darkness, then fought their way back up, coughing violently.“Hack! Gagh!” Vera vomited the black sludge, her eyes burning in agony. Her helmet visor had been torn away during the fall, leaving her face fully exposed to the poisonous air.“Don’t drink it, Sister! That’s not holy water!” Elios grabbed the back of Vera’s collar and dragged her toward the slick concrete edge.Above them, from the opening they had jumped through, tactical flashlight beams swept downward. Then small cylindrical objects clattered as they fell.Ting. Ting. Ting.Elios’s eyes went wide. “Flashbangs!”“Cover your eyes!”BLAAAM!A blinding white explosion detonated inside the vertical shaft, followed by a concussive blast that made their
Chapter 13. The Cursed Data
It smelled like rust, mold, and despair.Elios dragged his body up onto the dry concrete ledge at the edge of the underground river. Every movement of his leg sent sharp bursts of pain straight into his brain. The bullet was still lodged in his left calf, grinding against muscle each time he moved.“Vera… wake up,” Elios said, slapping Vera’s cheek with his cold, wet hand.Vera coughed and spat out murky water. Her body shook violently. Her lips were blue from hypothermia. “C-cold…”“We’re not dead yet. Don’t die now, it’s a pain to bury you,” Elios muttered gruffly, even as his hands worked to peel off Vera’s soaked coat so she would not freeze.They were inside an old concrete cavity hidden behind the wall of the main drainage tunnel. This was Safehouse Zero. A hideout Elios had built five years earlier, right after Lyra “disappeared.” The place where he had spent the first months of his trauma drunk and assembling weapons.The room was small, damp, and thick with dust. A rat-chewed
Chapter 14. Knocking on Heaven's Door
The rain that night did not wash away the city’s sins. It dissolved them into black sludge that flowed through the gutters.The Eastern Branch Cathedral rose majestically at the heart of the Business District. Unlike the main headquarters where Valdos usually resided, this building was a logistics fortress. An armory, a storage site for “samples,” and a secondary data center. The Gothic-Industrial structure was protected by three layers of perimeter security: electric fences, automated turrets, and two platoons of fully armed Paladins patrolling with cyborg dogs.Across the street, on the rain-soaked roof of a parking structure, Elios stood motionless. His tattered leather coat was drenched, clinging to a body covered in wounds. But he did not shiver. The fire in his chest burned too hot to let the cold in.Beside him, Vera crouched low, typing rapidly on her cracked tablet, which was wired into the parking structure’s transmitter antenna.“Perimeter security is level five,” Vera repo
Chapter 15. One-Way Ticket
Gravity is an honest enemy. It does not lie. It does not betray. It simply pulls you downward, toward a certain death.Elios and Vera fell through the cold night air, surrounded by shattered glass and burning debris from the explosion of Bishop Valdos’s office far above. The wind howled in their ears like the screams of a thousand ghosts, tearing at their skin and forcing tears from their eyes.“ELIOS!” Vera screamed, her voice breaking apart, swallowed by the wind. Her body spun uncontrollably, her hands grasping at empty air.Despite the excruciating pain from the blast, Elios forced his eyes open. His back felt like it was on fire. But survival instinct took over.He saw Vera drifting three meters away.“Got you,” Elios growled.He folded his body in midair, a crude skydiving maneuver, accelerating his fall to catch up to her. His blood-slicked right hand clamped around Vera’s wrist in a death grip.“Don’t let go!” Elios shouted.With his left hand, he reached behind his belt and p
Chapter 16. A Wounded Dog Bites Harder
Ctrek. Jleb.The crack of an industrial staple gun shattered the silence inside the rusted van.“Argh… bastard…” Elios snarled. Cold sweat the size of corn kernels streamed down his temples.He was slumped in the passenger seat of the stolen van, his leg kicking the dashboard every time a wave of pain tore through him. In his hand was a furniture stapler he had found in the tool box at the back, its metal jaws pressed against the gaping wound in his left shoulder.“Elios, stop it! You’ll get tetanus!” Vera screamed hysterically, gripping the steering wheel with trembling hands. Her eyes darted between the slick, rain-soaked road and the horrifying state of her partner.“Shut up… and drive…” Elios gasped.He drew in a long breath, held it in his lungs, then pulled the trigger again.Ctrek!A steel staple punched through skin, forcing torn flesh together after the explosion at the Cathedral. Fresh blood seeped out, but the wound closed.“Three… good enough.” Elios tossed the stapler ont
Chapter 17. The Underground City
Rain in the Undercity cleans nothing. Here, it only adds another layer of filth.Water dripping from the concrete ceilings of the upper districts mixed with industrial waste, creating an acidic drizzle that smelled like leaking batteries and rotting meat. Cheap purple and green neon signs flickered, reflecting off black puddles that filled the narrow streets.Elios limped forward, one arm slung over Vera’s shoulder. Every step was a battle against gravity. His freshly stapled shoulder burned as if live embers had been shoved beneath his skin.“This place…” Vera held her breath, her eyes scanning the crowd with a mix of wariness and disgust. “It’s worse than the intelligence reports.”They were in Sector Nine’s Night Market. Humans, mutants, and low-class demons lived side by side here, their coexistence enforced by poverty.A street vendor, a three-armed mutant human, grilled skewers of giant rat meat over an oil drum. Nearby, two small imp demons fought over scraps in a gutter, hissi
Chapter 18. Those Who Do Not Speak
The acid rain over the Undercity was coming down harder now, hammering against the corrugated metal roof of the safe house they had just entered with a deafening clatter. The place was cramped, a single studio room on the second floor of an abandoned apartment block Grimm had provided as part of their escape package.There was no electricity. Only the red neon glow from a brothel sign across the street bled through the torn curtains, staining the room in the color of blood.Elios slid down against the wall, breathing heavily. He clutched his freshly stitched shoulder. The cheap anesthetic from Grimm’s dentist was wearing off, and the pain came back biting like a rabid dog.“Lock the door. Jam it with the chair,” Elios ordered without opening his eyes.Vera obeyed. She dragged a rusted metal chair beneath the door handle, then turned to look at Elios. The agent’s face looked exhausted, filthy, and for the first time… afraid. Not afraid of demons, but afraid of the unknown.“Grimm menti
Chapter 19. The Algorithm of God
The rain had not stopped. It was as if the sky itself suffered from chronic incontinence.On the roof of an abandoned textile factory at the edge of Sector 9 stood an old water tower made of rusted iron. Inside the dry cavity beneath the tank, Elios and Vera were hiding. The space was cramped, reeked of moss, and trembled whenever strong winds struck the structure, but at least it was dry and beyond the thermal sensor range of patrol drones.Elios sat with his back against one of the water tower’s support legs, his knife-wounded leg stretched stiff in front of him. He had just injected a leftover wartime adrenaline booster stimulant he found in Vera’s medical bag. It felt like liquid fire flooding his veins. The pain vanished, replaced by razor sharp focus and a faint edge of paranoia.“You sure you can read stuff like this?” Elios asked, angling his dim flashlight toward the screen of Vera’s tablet.Vera sat cross-legged across from him. Her face was still pale. Traces of the Silent
Chapter 20. Bloody Bait
The rooftop of a Sector 7 tenement was not an ideal dance floor, especially when your dance partner was a three hundred kilogram demon dog whose mouth spewed fire.GROAAAARR!A Hell-Hound lunged from behind a chimney. Its blazing claws tore through the air, aiming straight for Elios’s throat.“Sit. Dog.”Elios ducked at the last second. He planted his right foot forward, bracing his momentum, then smashed the shotgun’s stock into the beast’s snout with all his strength.KRAK!The sound of a shattered nasal bone cracked sharp and clean. The hound howled and staggered back. Elios gave it no time to recover. He spun, shotgun in his left hand, Kukri in his right.BLAM!A point blank blast tore into the hound’s belly. Guts spilled out. Before the corpse could hit the ground, Elios kicked it off the rooftop, where it crashed into two other Hell-Hounds climbing the wall below.“One down. Plenty more!” Elios shouted toward Vera.Vera was pinned behind a concrete water tank, bullets raining do