Chapter 90: Checkmate

Bol’s eyes snapped to the newcomer. His body went rigid.

A man sat in a foldable chair in the middle of a battlefield, with orange-tinted glasses, a Relaxed posture and a faint smile playing at his lips.

Who is this? Why do I feel like something went wrong?

Bol reached out with his senses, probing the stranger’s Ashe. What he found made his stomach drop.

Third grade Adept. Scholar route.

No. No, no, no.

Scholars were practitioners who sought comprehension of reality through pattern recognition and knowledge accumulation.

Their Route Core processed information differently from Warriors. Where a Warrior’s Ashe carried force and impact, a Scholar’s Ashe carried analysis and understanding.

Most Scholars were disinterested in combat, wars, or politics. They buried themselves in research, chasing discoveries that brought them closer to understanding the mechanics of existence and the path back to the Source.

However, some Scholars, mostly those of sub-routes like Analyst or Strategist, weaponized comprehension itself.

They studied combat patterns, opponent behavior, energy circulation, and decision-making with the same precision others used to decode reality’s laws.

Most of them worked for the Suppression Bureau, serving as tactical commanders, interrogators, or field analysts.

Being in front of such a Scholar meant you had no secrets. You might as well have been naked.

We have been playing his game from the beginning.

“Continue? Why did you stop?” Orel said, his voice low, as if disappointed a circus had stopped. “It was getting fun”

Bol’s mind raced. He thought of the children, The wish they had been chasing for months. Why did it feel like everything went wrong.

“This doesn’t concern the Bureau,” Bol said carefully. “We’re handling a private matter.”

He knew such an expert could only be from the Bureau.

But what is he doing here?

He glanced at Mark’s unconscious body. Was it him? Did the VEB notice something wrong with their agent?

Orel tilted his head. “Private?” Orel replied to Bol’s earlier comment.

“The target is ours. We’ll be leaving now.” Bol kept his dagger low, non-threatening. “Please do not interfere.”

Beside him, Cheryl was trembling. Not from fear. From rage.

Bol had known her for years. He had seen her giggle while breaking minds, seen her skip through battlefields humming nursery rhymes, however he had never seen her like this.

Her control over Makun had failed. Her Puppeteer’s Dominion, the power she had built her entire identity around, had been rejected by an Apprentice.

The humiliation was eating her alive.

She was pissed, She wanted blood.

“Let’s just kill him,” she said, not caring one bit whether Orel was a scholar.

Cheryl, not now.

“Ooh! Your target? Kill me?” Orel adjusted his orange glasses, reclining on his chair. “Hahaha. How funny.”

He turned to look at Makun, who stood bleeding and bruised at the edge of the confrontation.

The boy’s neck was still wet with blood. His scalp was raw where Cheryl had torn his hair. But his eyes were alert now.

“Makun, are you theirs?” the Scholar asked.

Makun shook his head.

“See?” The Orel spread his hands. “He does not belong to you.” Orel said, a smile on his face.

Bol’s expression turned grim. The fact that he knew Makun’s name, the fact that it seemed like they knew each other. Things had turned sour.

There was one thing left. Kill Makun.

Bol moved, this time with his Ashe charged into his body. He was a blur, a blur that aimed for Makun’s neck with his dagger.

If the Bureau wanted Makun, then the Bureau would not have him either. Dead targets told no tales. Dead targets could not be used against the higher ups.

His dagger flashed.

WHOOSH!

“Cheryl! Now!”

Cheryl screamed, launching herself forward, fingers extended like claws. Blood still dripped from her lips, but her eyes burned with hatred.

Two Adepts. One target. One second.

Makun braced himself, Ashe flaring—

“Enclose.”

Orel’s voice was soft, almost bored.

The world cracked.

…

Makun felt the world change.

The Frequency moved, and reality folded inward. He could see colors bleeding and sound muffling.

The parking lot stretched and compressed infinitely, as if space itself was being squeezed through a narrow tube.

His ears popped. His vision blurred. He had no idea what was happening, but he knew things were different.

When his eyes opened, the shelter was gone. The street was gone. They stood in a space that looked like the parking lot but felt hollow. Sealed. Cut off from the world.

A bounded field. The word appeared in his mind.

Makun breathed heavily, his chest heaved. Blood still dripped from his neck and his scalp , where Cheryl had ripped the hair throbbed.

Every part of him hurt.

But he was alive. And the MIO was here.

He looked at Orel, still seated in his ridiculous chair, and felt something complicated. It was relief, yes. But also something else, something that was achored deep into him, he felt Shame.

He had needed saving. Yet again, He had been losing.

I swore I would not be anyone’s puppet. But without them, I would be Cheryl’s puppet right now.

He pushed the thought aside. There would be time for self-recrimination later. after he survived.

…

Bol skidded to a halt, his attack interrupted by the shift. He spun, eyes wide.

Fuck. We’re trapped.

WHOOSH!

A shadow passed behind him.

He twisted, dagger raised—

CLANG!

Metal met metal, as a blade pressed against his, inches from his throat.

Behind it, a woman with half-lidded eyes stared at him with complete indifference.

She had appeared from nothing. It was as if she manifested from thin air. He did not even feel Ashe flowing through her. As if she was a ghost.

Bol’s heart hammered. I did not sense her at all.

If he had not been careful, he would have lost his neck.

He pushed back, disengaging, he skidded away, creating distance. Blood dripped from a fresh cut on his cheek. He had not even seen her draw the blade.

When did she—

Before he could finish the thought, his knees buckled.

The pressure was immense, Mountainous, As if the sky itself had decided to press down on his shoulders. He felt his legs tremble, his spine compress.

Should this really be the Pressure of an Adept?

THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!

Footsteps. Every step sounded like thunder strikes.

A colossus of a man emerged from the haze of the bounded field. His frame was Massive, His expression Grim expression and his eyes fixed on Bol and Cheryl with cold fury.

It was Jorg. The Graviton Sovereign.

Bol had did not recognize his face, but from the pressure he identified him. He had heard stories. A former MIO agent who could manipulate gravity itself. Who could make a man feel like he weighed a thousand pounds or make himself light as air.

The stories had not done justice to the reality. Just standing near him felt like drowning in stone.

“Hahahaha!”

Orel laughed, rising from his chair with theatrical slowness. He walked toward Jorg, hands in his pockets, completely unaffected by the gravity.

“You really thought you had a chance?”

Bol said nothing, he could not. The pressure made speaking difficult.

“From the moment I stepped foot in this city, it was over for you.” Orel shook his head, almost pitying. “You thought you were smart. Deducing he stayed at shelters. Planning to capture him on a Sunday night when no one would notice. Hiding from the Suppression Bureau.”

He stopped in front of Bol, looking down at him with contempt.

“It was so easy to deduce all of this. Child’s play.” He smirked. “And from the moment you contacted that seer, you had lost. Did you really think we would not notice someone poking around ?”

The seer. Zuri. That gave us away.

Bol’s head spun. Every step they had taken. Every precaution. Every clever plan. All of it predicted. All of it accounted for. They had never had a chance.

“It is funny when people think of themselves as smart.” Orel leaned closer. “All that strategy about luring Makun out. About knocking him unconscious and dragging him to your masters. Dumbasses.”

He spat on the ground next to Bol’s knee.

Bol stared at the spit, he stared at the casual disrespect. This was complete and utter contempt.

I am sorry. I failed you. Bol said, reminiscing the promise he had made.

The opponents were two adept warriors of a similar grade to him and Cheryl. Makun was not a match and although Orel could fend for himself, He was still a scholar.

Even If they got out of this, It was not without consequences.

He lifted his head to look at Orel, who had already turned away, already dismissing him as irrelevant.

He knew Scholars were masters of preparation. This one probably had contingencies for his contingencies. Safeguards for every possible outcome. There was no escape, and he knew he could not negotiate

Bol looked at Cheryl, still trembling with rage, clutching her porcelain doll.

He looked at Amelia, silent and deadly, blade still dripping with his blood. He looked at Jorg, an immovable mountain of gravity and fury.

He looked at Makun, the target they had hunted for a week, standing bloody but unbowed at the edge of the bounded field.

we are fucked.

And somewhere deep inside, in a place he did not want to acknowledge, Bol knew this was only the beginning of how bad things were going to get.

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