Chapter 37: Chapter 37: Death Resonance and the Traitor’s End

The slums of Bakasa’s Main Gate Sector were a festering wound on the city’s anatomy. Usually, the air here was a stagnant soup of poverty, the metallic tang of stale machine oil, and the smell of unwashed bodies. But tonight, the atmosphere had undergone a violent chemical shift.

The air felt heavy, charged with a static electricity that made the fine hairs on Dayat’s arms stand at attention. A pungent, eye-stinging aroma of burnt ozone dominated the senses, bleeding out from the Railgun MK-I slung over Dayat’s right shoulder. The weapon was no longer a silent hunk of metal; it was alive, emitting a low-frequency thrum—humm-vrrr-humm—that vibrated through Dayat’s bones.

Dayat felt the weight of the cannon like a cross. His bandaged hand gripped the forward handle with such intensity that his knuckles had turned a ghostly white, the blood flow restricted by his own iron resolve.

“Power charge: 72%,” Dola whispered.

Her voice, usually a steady stream of data, was now ragged, punctuated by sharp gasps for air. Dayat risked a glance at her. She was a ghost of her former self. Droplets of clear fluid—biological coolant—streamed down her pale temples like tears, mixing with the grime of the city.

“Master, the stability of the Mithril rails is beginning to falter,” she reported, her blue eyes flickering as if a bad connection was plaguing her system. “The magnetic resonance is reaching a frequency that the local materials cannot dampen. If we do not discharge soon, the feedback will cause a structural collapse of the weapon… and likely, your arm.”

“Hang in there, Dol,” Dayat replied, his voice a low growl. “Just a few hundred more meters. We’re almost at the gate.”

They moved through the darkness, a small group of outcasts against an empire. But the empire was waiting.

Suddenly, the darkness of the narrow, filth-ridden alleys ahead was shattered. A dozen magical light orbs, glowing with a sickly, swamp-gas green, shot into the sky. They hung there like malevolent eyes, illuminating the jagged rooftops and the empty market stalls with a ghoulish radiance.

“HALT!”

The voice was like a rusted blade scraping across bone. Dayat stopped.

There, perched atop a weathered wooden platform once used for the auctioning of slaves, stood Valmir. He looked like a man possessed. His right hand was a club of white bandages, but his left hand held a silver, rectangular device with a crystal antenna that pulsed with an irregular green light.

Surrounding the platform, thirty elite Viperion guards had formed a phalanx. Their steel tower shields were interlocked, a wall of cold, unyielding metal.

“You’re going nowhere, you sewer rat!” Valmir spat, a string of bile-laced saliva hanging from his lip. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and frantic. “I’ve spent the last hour weaving a web of Mana sensors through every rat hole in this sector. You didn’t think you could just walk out, did you?”

Valmir raised the silver device. “This is the ’Silence of the Machine.’ I’ve calibrated it to the exact resonance of your bride’s core. One press of this trigger, and a feedback wave will turn her processor into molten slag. And since you’re so… connected to her, your brain will likely follow.”

Bara stepped forward, the heavy soles of his boots crunching on the gravel. He unsheathed his greatsword, the blackened steel catching the sickly green light.

“Dayat, handle that cockroach,” Bara said, his voice deep and steady despite the odds. “Lina and I will hold off these armored dogs. Just make sure you don’t miss.”

“Be careful, Bara,” Lina added, her hands already weaving the complex patterns of a protection spell. A circle of shimmering white light erupted beneath their feet, providing a fragile sanctuary against the darkness.

Dayat didn’t answer. He was staring at Valmir, but he wasn’t seeing the man. He was seeing the scorched skin on Dola’s shoulder. He was seeing the way her metal fibers had been exposed, shivering in the cold air as they struggled to knit her flesh back together.

Back on Earth, Dayat was a student who would apologize to a chair if he bumped into it. He believed in rules, in order, in the sanctity of life. But Earth was a million light-years away. In this world, the only rule was the logic of power.

His naivety evaporated, turning into a cold, dark smoke that filled his lungs.

“Dola, analyze that device,” Dayat commanded. His voice was no longer his own; it was the voice of a man who had already crossed a line. “What is its breaking point?”

Dola’s eyes flashed with a surge of processing power. “The device operates on a 400 Terahertz frequency to interrupt artificial Mana conduits. It is a precision instrument, Master. And like all precision instruments, it is fragile. It is not shielded against large-scale electromagnetic feedback. If you can channel your anomalous energy directly into its receiving frequency… the resulting Critical Overload will be catastrophic.”

Dayat smirked. It was a dark, mirthless thing. “Don’t fire the Railgun yet. Let’s give him a ’Guerilla’ surprise first.”

Dayat reached for his tactical belt. With a surge of focus, he manifested a small, black, box-shaped object with a curved front plate.

An M18A1 Claymore Mine. But Dayat had modified the internals in his mind.

“Bara! Fall back!” Dayat roared.

He hurled the mine into the middle of the street, skidding across the cobblestones toward the shield wall.

“What is that?! A bomb?!” Valmir shrieked. “Shields up! Aegis formation!”

The guards huddled closer, their Mana-reinforced shields glowing with a blue protective light. But Dayat hadn’t manifested shrapnel.

BOOM!

The explosion was dull, a concussive pop rather than a roar. From the shattered box, a massive, dense cloud of orange-red powder erupted.

“ARGHHH! MY EYES!”

“I CAN’T BREATHE! IT’S BURNING!”

It wasn’t magic. It was three hundred grams of the world’s most concentrated habanero chili powder, mixed with ground silver particles that acted as a Mana-dampener. The guards, who were trained to resist fireballs and lightning, were utterly defenseless against the biological reality of capsaicin. They collapsed, clutching their faces, their shield wall crumbling into a heap of coughing, blinded men.

“YOU BASTARD!” Valmir screamed, his own eyes watering from the edge of the cloud. “YOU ASKED FOR THIS! DIE ALONG WITH YOUR TOY!”

Valmir slammed the trigger on the ’Silence’ device.

A wave of distorted green energy surged through the air, heading straight for Dola. She groaned, her body spasming as the frequency began to tear at her internal logic.

“DOLA! NOW! REVERSE FEEDBACK!”

Dayat didn’t pull the trigger of the Railgun. Instead, he manipulated the energy flow. He opened the emergency exhaust valves at the rear of the Mithril barrels. The purple-gold energy that had been building up for the shot didn’t have a proyektile to push, so it looked for the path of least resistance.

Dayat pointed his left hand directly at Valmir, his arm acting as a biological antenna.

“Taste the justice of physics!”

The anomalous energy shot out from Dayat’s palm—not as a beam, but as a jagged arc of pure, unrefined electricity. It followed the path of Valmir’s green wave, riding the frequency like a shark following a scent.

ZZZZZZTTTTTTTT—BOOOM!

The collision was instantaneous. Dayat’s wild, chaotic energy hit the delicate crystal circuits of Valmir’s device. The silver box didn’t just malfunction; it became a bomb.

The explosion was a brilliant flash of emerald and gold. It detonated right in Valmir’s hand.

“AAAAAAARRRRGHHHH!”

Valmir was catapulted off the auction platform. He flew through the air like a discarded ragdoll, crashing into a stack of heavy wooden crates. His face was a mask of scorched flesh and silver shrapnel, blood pouring from the ruins of his eyes.

Dayat didn’t stop. He walked forward, the Railgun still humming on his shoulder, its barrel glowing a dull, angry red. He stepped through the cloud of chili powder, his own eyes protected by a thin film of manifested goggles.

He reached the crates where Valmir lay whimpering, his hands clawing uselessly at the air.

“He… help me…” Valmir’s voice was a pathetic wheeze. “I… I have money… I can tell you Alaric’s secrets… just don’t… don’t…”

Dayat looked down at him. There was no pity. No satisfaction. Just the cold realization of a job that needed to be finished.

“Your money can’t fix the scars on my wife’s shoulder, Valmir,” Dayat said. His voice was as flat and cold as a tombstone. “And it certainly won’t buy back the lives you’ve hunted.”

Dayat aimed the glowing muzzle of the Railgun directly at Valmir’s head. The capacitor charge hit 80%. The air around the barrel was beginning to warp from the heat.

“Master…” Dola’s voice came from behind him. She was leaning on Lina for support. “That blow was enough. He is no longer a threat. If you fire now… you are no longer the man who came from Earth.”

Dayat looked at Bara, whose arm was bleeding from a lucky dagger strike. He looked at Lina, whose face was pale with exhaustion. Then he looked at Valmir—the man who would sell his own mother for a promotion.

If I let him live, he will come back. He always comes back.

“I’m not a student anymore, Dol,” Dayat hissed.

He didn’t fire a full shot. He didn’t want to level the city block. Instead, he performed a manual steam-release bypass. It was a high-pressure discharge of only 5% of the Railgun’s potential.

A tiny, silver-flecked bolt of energy streaked from the barrel. It moved at the speed of sound, a surgical strike of pure kinetic force.

BAM!

The shot pierced Valmir’s skull and obliterated the crates behind him, leaving nothing but a smoldering hole in the wood and a silence that felt heavier than the explosion.

Valmir was dead. The traitor’s journey had ended in a slum alley, under a sickly green sky.

Silence descended upon the market sector. Even the guards who were still conscious stopped their groaning, staring at the figure of Dayat with a new, primitive fear.

Dayat stood tall, his breathing heavy, the heat from the Railgun singeing the hair on his arm. He felt a weight lift from his chest, but in its place, he felt a hardening of his soul. He had taken a life. He had become a killer.

“Dayat…” Bara approached slowly, his sword lowered. He looked at Valmir’s body, then back at Dayat with a mix of grim respect and slight apprehension. “You… you actually did it.”

Lina turned her head away, unable to look at the wreckage of what was once a human being. She reached out and gripped Dayat’s hand, her fingers trembling. “You did what you had to do for us. Thank you.”

“Power charge: 85%,” Dola’s voice cut through the heavy emotion. She sounded more stable now, as if the destruction of the jammer had allowed her systems to recalibrate. “Master, I am detecting a massive displacement of Mana at the main gate. The seismic sensors in my feet are picking up the rhythmic thud of a heavy battalion.”

Dayat reslung the Railgun, the metal clicking into place. “Gravion.”

“Affirmative,” Dola replied. “And he is not alone. He is bringing the Gravity Mages. They are preparing a ’Mass-Collapse’ spell to seal the sector.”

Dayat looked toward the looming silhouette of the gate, where the sky was turning a bruised purple. He could feel the gravity already beginning to tug at his clothes, the air becoming thick and hard to breathe.

But this time, the fear didn’t paralyze him. He had the Railgun. He had friends who had bled for him. And he had a wife who was ready to rewrite the laws of this world by his side.

“Let him come,” Dayat said, his eyes reflecting the purple glow of the horizon. “He thinks he’s the master of gravity. It’s time to show him the master of mass and acceleration.”

Dayat checked the interface one last time. “Bara, Lina, get the carriage ready. We aren’t running through rat holes anymore.”

He turned to the gate, a faint, dangerous smile playing on his lips.

“Plan C… The Brute Breakthrough starts now.”

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