Eternity Decay

INFILTRATING THE WOLF'S DEN

The rain in the Lower District was never truly clean; it always carried the black residue of industrial soot washed down from the Upper District. Axel stood inside the shaft of waste disposal vent number 09, positioned directly beneath the monolithic foundations of the Eternity Tower. 21 Days, 11 Hours, 05 Minutes.

Four days had slipped away since Marcus’s death. Axel’s time continued to bleed out, and the symptoms of Chronos Decay were beginning to manifest with merciless frequency. Every few hours, his vision would blur into a chaotic mess of digital static, torturing his optic nerves. Axel ignored it. He tightened his tactical belt over his black tactical frock coat, which Rhea had recently reinforced with a lightweight layer of kevlar.

“Thermal sensor grids in the waste pipe sector have been disabled,” Rhea’s voice crackled through the micro-transceiver in his ear. “You have exactly three minutes before the system initiates an automated rescan, Axel. Move now.”

Axel didn't waste a single heartbeat. He lunged upward, gripping the edge of a two-meter-wide steel pipe, and pulled his body up with absolute fluid efficiency. The dark fabric of his tactical coat brushed against the damp walls of the pipe without making a sound.

This infiltration bypassed the main entrances entirely, cutting instead through the biological energy waste lines, the very vents where the discarded "seconds" of failed lifespan extractions were vented as radioactive steam.

Axel crawled rapidly. At the end of the conduit, a thick steel grate blocked his path. Armed with a mini thermite cutter engineered by Rhea, Axel melted the hinges within seconds. He dropped down, landing soundlessly on the immaculate white marble floor of Sub-Sector 10, the lowest tier of the Upper District.

The shift in atmosphere was instantaneous. Here, the air carried the synthetic fragrance of lavender, bright lights flooded the halls, and the walls were lined with opulent golden panels.

Axel melted into the shadows of the pillars, advancing with a measured, lethal stride. His primary objective tonight wasn't the main reactor room, but Valen’s personal encryption laboratory. He needed to extract the physical encryption module held by his half-brother so Rhea could hijack the tower's elevator grid from a distance.

“Axel, wait,” Rhea’s voice suddenly cut through the comms, her tone laced with panic. “There’s an anomaly in the local cyber-network. Valen... he’s not in his lab. He’s heading directly toward your sector with a full squad of corporate enforcers.”

Axel ground to a halt, pressing his back against a massive marble pillar. His hand instinctively found the grip of his pistol beneath his black tactical frock coat.

“Has my position been compromised?” Axel asked, his voice as cold as ice.

“No, your AXEL-01 override is still masking your digital footprint. This makes no sense... it’s as if he already knew someone would infiltrate through the disposal vents tonight.”

The information gap had flipped once more, but this time, Axel was the one blind.

The rhythmic, heavy thuds of luxury combat boots echoed through the marble hall. Axel stole a glance around the pillar. Valen strode arrogantly, holding a handheld thermal scanner. But what caused Axel’s jaw to tighten was the battered figure being dragged by two enforcers behind his half-brother.

Angga.

The fraud from the Lower District was unrecognizable, his face beaten into a bloody pulp, drenched in tears and sweat. It seemed that following the incident at the clinic, Angga had been hunted down by Eternity Corp forces on charges of smuggling bootleg lifespan. To preserve his own wretched skin, Angga had dropped to his knees before Valen and spilled everything, including Axel's connection to Rhea and Axel's old infiltration routes through the waste vents.

“So, little rat,” Valen stopped dead in the center of the hall, barely ten meters from the pillar where Axel lay in wait. He kicked Angga’s knee, sending the man sprawling onto the pristine marble floor. “You claim my crippled brother always used vent number 09 for his stealth operations in the past?”

“Y-yes, Lord Valen! I swear it! Axel did it all! He’s the one who breached the time bank, he’s the one who wrote the script! I know nothing, I am just a low-level manager!” Angga wailed, his voice pitching into a terrified shriek as he groveled, literally licking the tip of Valen’s boot for mercy.

Valen smiled with smug satisfaction, staring down at his handheld scanner as it began to register residual thermal signatures around vent 09.

“Do you see that, Father?” Valen spoke to the comm-link on his wrist. “My genius brother is still running the exact same patterns. He is completely predictable.”

Axel’s inner monologue burned with a silent fury beneath his black coat. Angga. The pathetic leech who had chased glory on the backs of others’ sacrifices was now selling out the entire Lower District just to save his own skin. If Axel didn't strike this very moment, Valen would purge the ventilation grid and track Rhea down to her clinic.

Axel drew a sharp, measured breath, stabilizing his racing pulse against the sudden flare of Chronos Decay. He clicked the safety off his pistol.

“Rhea,” Axel commanded in a low, quiet whisper into his earpiece. “Kill the lights in this hall on my count of three.”

“Axel, but...”

“One.” Axel shifted his weight, preparing to burst from behind the pillar.

“Two.”

“Three.”

SNAP!

The entire marble hall of the Upper District plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness, leaving behind a void that was the natural battleground for the former number-one Liquidator.