Judith released him and Ada from the bear hug. Ada landed a bit more gracefully while Dan staggered back and just barely regained his footing. He gave Judith an incredulous look as she still grinned.

  Admittedly, Dan had no other choice to follow her orders. He knew that if he were to try for an escape, he would inevitably face the likes of Kate, Adam and possibly more high-ranking Bloodknights. He needed to get stronger.

  “There’s not many methods for an agent to fast track level ups and their growth in power. But I do know one tried and true method,” she said. Judith gave a sideways glance at Ada. This only made Dan even more curious as to how the Bloodknight was only a year older than him yet and a munich higher level than him.

  “Here’s your new waypoint,” Judith said. “Follow it and you’ll see what I have in mind to get you to the power level you need to be.”

  A burst of glitchy artifacts plagued his vision for a second before returning back to normal. A red hexagon popped up and stayed on his HUD, directing him toward his updated objective.

  New waypoint. Find the artefact.

  “So… you’re not giving me another one of those shock collars?” Dan said.

  Judith blinked at him. “Why? Do you want one? I thought Ada’s logic made sense. We can’t have you fighting with such a heavy handicap against these Church fanatics. Especially not the cult master. But don’t worry, you don’t have any other choice but to follow my instructions so I’m not worried. Even if you do try to run, you can’t outrun Ada. Actually, she’s a big fan of playing tag.”

  Ada’s brow furrowed and she awkwardly stared off to the side.

  “Run along now,” Judith said. She gathered energy in her palm then disappeared.

  Dan huffed at her constant teleportation. “I bet that gets really annoying when she does that.”

  “I’ve learned to tolerate it. Even expect it,” Ada said, shrugging her shoulders. “I was once using the bathroom and she popped into the stall with me and hounded me to hurry up.”

  Dan jerked his head at her. “That’s fucking nasty.”

  Ada drew her katana and pointed the blade toward the waypoint. “Let’s get going. I’m sure Judith wants us to stay on task rather than reminisce about the past.”

  Dan walked toward the blown out section of the building and jumped down a dozen meters onto the streets. Ada’s leap and landing was much more graceful, as she flipped and landed behind him.

  He attempted to reach Li through the private channels but didn’t get an answer. He assumed that Li’s shock collar was still on and it was blocking any outside communication. Having very little weapons and being cut off from the rest of the team, plus being paired with a dubious ally, Dan marched on and focused on the red hexagon on his HUD.

  Judith somehow found out about his attempted calls to Li and her voice suddenly popped into his mind.

  “Not to worry Dan. My sweet soothing voice will keep you appraised. It’s time you diversify the company you keep,” she said through a private channel.

  “Whatever you say you creep,” Dan said.

  “Is that any way to talk to me? I am showing you that I fully intend on keeping up my end of the offer. You fetching this aretfact will only be a taste of the power I can give you.” She abruptly cut the call.

  Dan and Ada walked through the broken section of the city. Looking around, this area was somehow even more war-torn than what he had seen earlier. Numerous buildings and Kodak jeeps and tanks were blown apart from explosions or were caved in from agents being thrown into them, as indicated by the sprawled and dangling limbs of corpses protruding from a few of the buildings.

  He walked around a crater that could fit an entire tank. As he continued moving through this shithole, Dan had to exercise even further caution when he came across pools of green sludge in the roads. Whatever those substances were, they emitted toxic smoke that irritated his nose even from several meters away.

  “What the hell happened here?” he said.

  “This particular sector of the city doesn’t have many civilians living in it,” Ada elaborated. She tugged at his arm, redirecting him away from the toxic sludge pools. “Even before the invasion of the Church, this area didn’t have its infrastructure maintained. So Kodak agents would just come out and treat this area as their personal playground. Training exercises, fights and mock battles, even joyrides if they could get their hands on vehicles.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare for some bystander just passing by,” Dan said.

  “There weren’t many to begin with in this particular sector, though with recent rumors and sightings of cult activity here, that’s when the quality of life deteriorated even further. People going missing, innocents found on bloody altars used as sacrifices, and more vandalism depicting perversions of religious art.”

  “Yeah, I saw some of the talent earlier today. That crucifixion on the wall was super inspiring.”

  “Religion and worship of any kind is banned in Kodak territory,” Ada said. “That vandalism is probably more of the Church’s way of taunting us.”

  Ada led the way down the street. Dan’s footsteps crunched as he stepped on all sorts of bullshit like broken glass, shell casings and various debris. So far, he was surprised they hadn’t encountered any enemies while moving towards the next objective. They reached an unguarded checkpoint at an intersection. A few abandoned Kodak jeeps and various, tangled strings of barbed wire blocked their way.

  The Bloodknight simply performed a few casual diagonal slashes and chopped the barbed wire apart, clearing a path. She then stepped aside and pointed her katana through the open path, gesturing Dan to go ahead of her. He gave an amused huff before walking through the severed barbed wire.

  While following the red hexagon, Dan looked over his shoulder at the only other company with him. Ada mostly focused on scanning the roofs off to the sides. She still held her katana in one hand while keeping her hand on her thigh that carried a handgun ready to be drawn.

  “How did you get so strong at your age?” he finally asked.

  Ada’s gaze snapped onto him and she gave him a look as if he asked what color the sky was. She furrowed her brow but then relaxed. “Oh, you’re from a different shard. Normally I shouldn’t be telling you but since you’re our prisoner and Judith is confident in her efforts to get you to take up her offer, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what she allows me.”

  “Wow, how generous,” he said.

  She didn’t speak for a few seconds, most likely conversing with Judith nonverbally on what she was allowed to tell him. “The artefact we’re searching for. The one Judith promises can give you a power boost. It’s a piece taken directly from the meteorite that crashed in the Dead Zone. That’s the only method that an agent can bypass several levels in a short time frame.”

  “So that’s how you’re at your current level? You and the other Bloodknights got exposed to these artefacts during training and that’s how you leveled up so fast? And since they’re from that meteor, does it give you your magic abilities and corrosia reserves?”

  “It’s the source of all magic,” she said. “I think that answers your question. The Church of Nanotology has complete control over the Dead Zone and knows more about that meteor than anyone in the world. That’s why their our priority threat. We don’t have many aretfacts to go around so there aren’t as many Bloodknights as Judith desires. You should feel privileged that she’s extending you this opportunity. Not many people have caught her interest as much as you have.”

  “I feel like royalty already,” Dan said flatly.

  “You should. And if you value your life, you will accept her offer.”

  Dan looked back at Ada and didn’t see a shift her facial expression. She was dead serious.

  “You know, you’re a lot different from all the other Kodak agents I’ve met.”

  Her head tilted slightly. “In what way?”

  “You seem a lot more… calm and less bloodthirsty. You strike me as the type who would rather stay inside and read a book than being an agent and killing whoever you meet.”

  Ada blinked at him than ran her hand through her dark hair. “Since you’re being honest, I’ll return the favor. I haven’t encountered many agents from the Alpha Corporation outside of depictions during training simulations. Most of the enemies I’ve witnessed and fought against were either followers of the Church or the occasional Kodak agent outside of the Bloodknights that Judith wanted eliminated.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t know this for certain, but if you keep your eyes and ears open, there’s some animosity between the Bloodknight sect and the rest of Kodak-Cresh. Anyways, you’re one of the first Alpha agents I’ve seen up close.”

  “And… what do you think?”

  Ada gave him a smile that threw him off. It was a genuine smile rather than the predatory grins and slasher smiles he had been accustomed to from Kodak. “Your eyes are a unique shade of hazel. It’s not everyday I encounter someone who has beautiful eyes and is supposed to be my enemy. And your physique is on par with what I expect from an agent of your caliber.”

  Dan briefly stopped in his tracks. “Uhh… thanks?”

  The Bloodknight’s smile then faded. “Would you believe me if I said that I never wanted to become an agent in the first place?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Ada looked both ways before she set her eyes on a vacant building. It appeared to be some cafe that had its front entrance blown up. Debris and a few corpses of robed cultists and Kodak agents spewed out of the opening like the structure had puked them out. She pointed her katana toward the cafe before she walked over. Dan followed behind her.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  The two stepped over the smashed furniture and corpses at the front and walked through the giant hole that served as the establishment’s new entrance. Ada walked to the front service desk and leaned her back against it.

  “Judith told you I was a washout,” she began. “I had spent training for six years together with my best friend, Cammy. Her and I weren’t related by blood, but we knew each other since we were toddlers. We were practically sisters.”

  Dan widened his eyes hearing that Ada’s Bloodknight training lasted six years. He recalled the Alpha Corp’s training and the use of the flash training to speed up the process. Dan became an agent in mere months then was put into an elite team and received further training and drills along the way from his seniors.

  “You guys got recruited together?” he asked.

  Ada nodded. “I failed my final test, so I was held back. This mission to find and kill that cult master is my chance to prove myself as a full Bloodknight and Judith will consider my training complete.”

  “So how did you fail exactly? Was it a screw up on some practice mission?”

  Ada stared down at her feet and kept her arms crossed. She finally looked up at him. “The other agent with you, the one in the silver armor. He’s your teammate right? How close are you to him?”

  It was an odd question for her to ask. Dan was initially hesitant on telling Ada, fearing that she could feed that info back to Judith and somehow that twisted bitch would use his friendship with Li further manipulate him into joining her. But Dan figured that Judith already knew about their close friendship from her infiltration into the Combat Games and his inability to hide his emotions.

  “I’d stake my life for him, no questions asked,” Dan answered. He briefly recalled during the fourth round of the Combat Games where Li fell unconscious and he instructed Angie to take care of him while he ventured on alone to earn the team more points. “If he had some crazy plan to get us out of a messy situation, I’d be the first on board. And he would do the same for me.”

  Ada’s expression was blank, but Dan saw a brief flicker of something else in her eyes.

  “For your final test before becoming a full agent, did you have to kill your closest friend and training partner to pass?”

  Dan took two steps back away from the Bloodknight. Having recruits in training fight each other to the death to pass and become agents was ridiculous. Such a thing wouldn’t be practical. How could a shard expect a recruit to turn their weapon on their comrade?

  “Don’t tell me you and Cammy…”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Ada dropped her gaze back to her feet.

  “We were found by Kodak-Cresh after agents from the Church had attacked the far East sectors. Those were the few areas that Kodak still allowed previous cultures to be preserved. The place Cammy and I grew up in used to be a land called Korea. We got noticed by Kodak because we managed to kill a few of the invading Church agents.”

  “The hell? But you were just kids back then right? How the hell did you manage that?”

  “Both of us were thirteen at the time. Cammy always had a knack for improvising and making custom tools. That eventually evolved into her making home-made traps to help ward off petty thieves from stealing from her family’s garden.”

  Dan recalled the times before he became an agent. Everyday was a constant struggle for him and his mom. And each day, they had to get a bit more creative to avoid gangs and other asshole who would try to steal what little they had.

  “I remember our first kill together,” she continued. “A Church agent wandered into her backyard and stepped into a bear trap. The trap clamped shut and the both of us jumped out of some bushes and ruined his day. Cammy had two knives, one in each hand while I held the biggest rock I could carry. We stabbed and clobbered him to death.”

  “That sounds super lucky. The Church fanatics we just fought could shoot lightning and energy balls at us. That guy was probably a newbie.”

  “Either way, we didn’t have time to celebrate our first kill together,” she said. “We heard more of them coming to her house and we had to run for it. We ran into a few Kodak agents a few blocks away and they took us under their protection. Everything weas a blur after that. The next thing I remembered was the two of us being escorted to meet the woman I know today as Judith. She asked us why we were both covered in blood and Cammy bragged about our kill. She was intrigued and asked us if we wanted to learn how to become strong while protecting our lands from invading forces.”

  “Let me guess. You weren’t convinced by her recruitment pitch but Cammy ate it up and wanted to join?”

  Ada nodded slightly. “If I got separated from Cammy, I would have nowhere else to go. My home was already destroyed by a stray rocket along with my parents and brother in it. So wherever Cammy went, I followed.”

  Dan thought about how he was recruited into the Alpha Corp. He was mortally wounded after a gang encounter and Michael Cynosa just so happened to be in the area. Shortly after waking up with his wounds healed and seeing a stats screen roll in front of his eyes, he was given a choice to either join or die. Even if the shard had let him refuse the offer to join, he would be going back to his shitty life of trying to survive on his own in the streets of New York.

  “So you took up Judith’s offer. And how was training up until your final test?”

  “Intense. Everyday was nothing but hard drills to strengthen our bodies. Hundreds of situps, pushups and twenty kilometer runs everyday. Then we had mock gladiator matches where we fought each other, learned from each other’s mistakes and improve. Cammy and I got used to our new routine of eating, training and sleeping. It wasn’t what I imagined my life as a little girl, but we were safe and protected from invading forces. No matter what situation you found yourself in, life was always better when spent with friends.”

  Ada hadn’t made eye contact with him for a while. He could sense what was coming.

  “Just before our final test, we were exposed directly to the artefacts from the meteorite. Judith would tell us that this will even the playing field against the Church of Nanotology. My artefact was a strange crystal I had to stab myself with. After jabbing myself, I didn’t feel much of anything. Not at first. Then, our final test came to become full Bloodknights.”

  Ada’s hands were on her knees and she was shaking. Dan took a few steps to the desk and leaned next to her.

  “Every Bloodknight candidate had to fight a one on one battle to the death against their closest partner. The winner would become a full Bloodknight and the loser would face oblivion,” she said, keeping her tone neutral. “They said it would further teach us to prioritize your own growth in power and not allow personal attachments to derail you from your potential.” She swallowed. “I was paired against Cammy.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s fucking brutal.”

  “I-I couldn’t go through with it,” Ada said, lifting her head and glancing at Dan. “How can you fight someone who knew you since you were a toddler? I did something they didn’t expect. I threw and forfeited the entire match.”

  From every past encounter Dan had against Kodak agents, he knew backing down from a fight was generally frowned upon for them.

  “Cammy was furious at me. Since neither of us fulfilled the conditions of the test, we both failed on the spot and were imprisoned to await further action. She broke into my cell and yelled at me, said I was ruining this opportunity for her to ascend and become truly powerful.” Ada opened her mouth but no words came out. Then she grabbed his hand and clamped tightly.

  “She attacked me. She gave me no choice but to defend myself. Something awoke inside of me and that’s how how I learned the warp dancer ability.”

  “Warp dancer?”

  “It’s the move I used against you when we fought,” she said. “I attacked her with speed I never knew I had. Cammy didn’t see it coming. I kicked her across the face and sent her flying out of my cell. When I ran out and checked on her—” Ada tightened her grip on his hand. “Her neck was snapped from my kick. I held her in my arms until the guards forced us apart.”

  Dan and Ada stood in silence for a moment. He had no idea what he could say to her. Dan had lost people he cared about before. But never once was he in a situation where he was forced to kill a comrade.

  “I guess I technically succeeded in defeating my training partner, though Judith didn’t count it. Since I lacked the conviction to do so in an official match, I still couldn’t become a full Bloodknight. But she still extended some generosity to me and gave me another chance to prove myself. This mission is my chance.”

  “That’s awful,” Dan muttered.

  While Ada stared at the ground, an unsettling idea formed in his mind. Ada’s relationship with Judith was eerily similar to his relationship with Michael. Both of them were found by these senior agents and had no choice but to join their respective shards. Michael and Judith took up mentor roles to him and Ada and pulled strings to put them into their respective positions within both shards. But there was no way Michael could ever be as much of an asshole as Judith. I fucking hope not, he thought.

  “Hey Ada,” he said softly. He wanted to be careful about how he framed his next question. “Why did you tell me all this? I’m still your enemy after all.”

  “That’s true, but it doesn’t feel like it,” she admitted. “After Cammy died, I had no one. Judith was too busy being top dog within the Bloodknights and I wasn’t the most outgoing during training. It was just easier to have Cammy as my only friend. But once I lost her, I was alone. I’m not sure how to say this, but you seem easier to talk to compared to the average Bloodknight.”

  “So you’re not friends with Natalia?”

  Ada shook her head. “No. We’re nothing more than just acquiantences.”

  Dan noticed Ada still hadn’t let go of his hand. It was awkward sitting in a destroyed cafe holding hands with an enemy agent. An enemy agent who had opened up to him about her past and her reluctance to be an agent in the first place.

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, my recruitment wasn’t exactly normal either,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “I took a machete to the back while fighting some gangsters,” he said. A smile formed under his mask. “A man named Michael Cynosa found me and injected me with a serum to save my life.”

  She blinked at him and her expression turned inquisitive. “I heard that name mentioned before.” Her gaze shifted towards the blown out windows of the cafe. “We should get back and find that artefact. I don’t want to explain to Judith there was a delay because we sat down and talked about our feelings.”

  “Yeah, we can’t have that,” Dan deadpanned. “Judith wouldn’t appreciate the fact that we’re people at the end of the day.”

  Ada silently nodded and they both stood up from the desk and walked through the blown out section of the cafe.

  Something grabbed his shoulder and hje turned around. Ada gave him a warm smile, or at least as warm as a Kodak agent could get. “Hey. Um, thanks for listening to me.”

  He genuinely wondered if the day could get any weirder. “No problem. It… looked like you needed that off your chest.”

  The duo returned to their trek through the streets. Dan was surprised that nothing ambushed them at the cafe and still nothing in sight apart from remnants of explosions and dead agents sprawled along the ground.

  The red hexagon on his HUD shifted and pointed him toward an ornate-looking building. Even though Ada had explained religion had been banned from Kodak territory, the building looked like a church. The white, almost radiant color scheme along with the textured windows stood out from the drab and dark brutalist architecture of everything in the block. The domes that sloped and shot upwards and the overall Gothic era structuring made him think of the old church buildings of the past he found in old library books.

  He followed the waypoint toward the entrance of the building. He walked past a destroyed fountain in the front and stepped through the high doors the tripled his height. Ada followed behind him.

  He only got a few steps in and his body was hit with a wave of energy. It was the same sensation he got from the strange tunnel in the underground subway.

  “You feel that too, don’t you?” Ada said.

  “Yeah. I know there’s nothing good that could be going on in here.”

  Since the waypoint insisted that whatever he was looking for was further inside this building, Dan took his only remaining pistol from his side mount and walked cautiously. He wished he still had his looted HoA rifle.

  Dan and Ada stepped through another giant set of doors that were left half open. Dan squinted at the blasting of energies ahead. The interior of the place was exactly like a typical church. The pews on the entire right side of the church had been removed and in their place were crates along with numerous weapons laying on top or leaning against them.

  The sanctuary at the front was what drew his eye. He counted six robed figures all in a circle, their hands blasting violet energy into a giant bowl. That was the source of the oppressive sensations. Dan saw the same ornate gold pieces attached to their robes. While their robes weren’t white like the cult master, they were a shade of light grey.

  The six figures stopped whatever ritual they were performing and turned to face his direction. From this distance, Dan couldn’t see any of their faces through their hoods. All he saw was darkness with glowing eyes of various colors staring back at him and Ada.

  “Uh oh,” Dan whispered.

  Updated objective: Eliminate the six Church agents blocking your path.

  Judith’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Looks like I’ll get to see how you and Ada will fare against this threat. This should be good.”

  Sign up for the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) team to follow regular updates on the official Amazon launch in 2025.