The slab stopped moving.

I stayed there for a long second, straddling its chest, pipe buried to the halfway point in its sternum, breathing like I’d just run a marathon through hell. My arms were shaking. My legs were shaking. I still couldn’t believe it.

’I did it. I actually did it. I killed a freaking D-rank.’

I slid off the slab and my legs almost gave out. I caught myself against the wall, pipe still clutched in one hand, and just... stood there. Trying to remember how breathing worked. It was through fingers, right?

Then, I heard footsteps, soft ones.

Zero stopped in front of me and for once, she wasn’t smiling.

She was just staring, not the usual way she looked at me when she was teasing, or flirting, or watching me fumble through a drill. This time, her gaze was different. Her black eyes were wide, fixed on my face, and there was something in them I’d never seen before, something that made my chest tighten.

"Lukas," she said quietly.

"Is it... is it dead?" I rasped. "Please tell me it’s dead. I don’t have any more ceilings."

She didn’t answer me.

She just stepped forward, grabbed the front of my jacket with both hands, and pulled me into her.

And kissed me.

It wasn’t like the first time, all teasing and theatrical and you’re mine now, sugar boy. This was harder. Hungrier. As if she had been holding something back and it had finally cracked loose. Her hands fisted in my jacket, pulling me closer, and for a second I forgot about the dead D-rank, the radiation, the ichor on my face, everything.

There was just her, the warmth of her and the faint tremor in her fingers where they gripped me.

When she pulled back, her forehead rested against mine. Her eyes were half-lidded, and her voice came out lower than I’d ever heard it.

"You’re insane," she whispered. "You brought down a ceiling on it."

"It was that or let it eat me." I replied.

"Most people would’ve just let it eat them."

"I’m not most people."

"No." Her thumb brushed my jaw, smearing some of the ichor there. "You’re really not." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

She kissed me again, softer this time, much slower. And when she pulled away, she looked at me like she was trying to memorize my face. As if she was seeing something she hadn’t expected to see.

"I’ve met many people, Lukas," she said quietly. "Strong ones. Smart ones. People with ten years on you in every stat. Not one of them would’ve done what you just did." Her hand slid up to cup the side of my face. "You were F-rank yesterday. Yesterday. And today you killed a D-rank with a ceiling, a pipe, and the kind of nerve that makes me want to lock you somewhere safe and never let you out."

"Please don’t do that. I have many things to do," I gulped down. This woman was crazy enough to do that.

She laughed, and it was the realest laugh I’d heard from her yet.

"My sugar boy," she murmured, her eyes shining in strange glow. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Reward me. Generously." I grinned at her, even though I was so exhausted.

"Mm. We’ll see."

She stepped back, and the moment broke, but not completely. Something had changed between us. I could feel it in the way she looked at me now, the way her hand brushed mine as she moved past me toward the D-rank’s corpse.

"Come on," she said. "Let’s get the Core Stone before you bleed out from sheer audacity."

...

The Core Stone didn’t want to come out easily.

Zero did most of the work, honestly. She knelt beside the corpse, drew a narrow blade I hadn’t seen before from somewhere on her harness, and made a series of precise cuts through the cracked sternum. I helped where I could, which mostly meant holding things and trying not to pass out.

When she finally pulled it free, the Stone sat in her palm like a chunk of frozen lightning. About the size of a golf ball. Deep blue, shot through with veins of silver, pulsing faintly with its own slow light.

"Beautiful, isn’t it," she said softly.

But I have something else in end. "How much is that worth?"

"In Velham? Enough to buy a house or two in a safe settlement," She tilted it in the dim light.

That was more than I expected.

She handed it to me. The Stone was warm, making me wonder if it was alive.

"It’s yours," she said. "You killed it. You earned it."

"We can split if you want."

"We can argue about it later, darling. Right now we still have a vault to crack and—"

She stopped and tilted her head just slightly. That same subtle shift I’d seen yesterday before she’d pointed out the F-rank in the alley. Her whole demeanour changed in an instant, going from relaxed to coiled without seeming to move at all.

"Lukas." Her voice had dropped into that cold tone. "Behind me. Now."

I stepped behind her without any hesitation.

A second later, I heard it too. Footsteps, likely boots on concrete and definitely multiple sets. And they were coming from the stairwell.

Four figures emerged into the corridor, fanning out in a loose formation. All of them armed, all of them clearly not zombies. Three men and a woman, all wearing the same kind of gear, reinforced black jackets with a stylized snake coiled in silver thread across the left shoulder.

The one in front was the tallest. He carried an actual rifle, sleek and modular with a glowing blue energy cell along the barrel. The other three had close-combat weapons, a chain-whip that sparked with electric current, a pair of serrated gauntlets that hummed with some kind of field, and a curved sword that looked like its edge was made of the same material as the Core Stones.

Cheap versions of real tech, maybe. But still miles ahead of my pipe.

The tall one’s eyes went straight past me to the D-rank corpse, then to the Core Stone glowing in my hand. His lips curved into a slow smile.

"Well," he said. "Would you look at that. Somebody did our work for us."

’Oh, you have got to be kidding me.’ I held the urge to roll my eyes. ’This can’t be happening in reality.’

"Black Snake," Zero said flatly.

"You’ve heard of us. Good. Saves time." The tall one took a step forward, rifle lowered but not holstered. His eyes raked over me, over Zero, over the corpse, doing some calculations on his head.

"Sector Three’s been ours for six years, sweetheart. This bank? Also ours. Everyone in Velham knows it. So I’m going to assume you’re new here, because otherwise you’d already have handed over that Core Stone and everything you pulled out of that vault." His smile widened. "Which you haven’t cracked yet. Lucky us. We’ll take it from here."

The one with the chain-whip let it uncoil, the electric current hissing along its length. The gauntlets-woman flexed her fingers and the fields around her knuckles intensified with a low whine.

My hand tightened around the Core Stone. My arms were still shaking from the D-rank fight and my legs felt like wet paper. I had an empty gun, a bent pipe, and a body that had just been pushed past its limit by a margin I didn’t want to think about.

’I’ve got nothing, Fuck. I’ve got literally nothing left.’

Zero stepped in front of me, smooth and unhurried. Her hands hung loose at her sides, and her shoulders were relaxed, and somehow that was more terrifying than if she’d raised a weapon.

She didn’t draw anything. She didn’t take a stance. She just stood there, between me and four armed strangers, and the air in the corridor changed.

The tall one’s smile faltered, just for a second. As if some older, more animal part of his brain had noticed something his eyes hadn’t caught up to yet.

"Darling," Zero said over her shoulder, her voice light and cheerful. "Stay right there and enjoy the show."

Was I about to see her in action?

I smiled at her, "Good luck."

"You should say that to them."

She turned back to the four members of the Black Snake Gang, and I couldn’t see her face, but I could see the tall one’s.

I watched his smile die.