Lucen woke to the taste of iron.

His tongue was thick, dry, sticking to the roof of his mouth as his eyes cracked open against a wash of sterile white light. The ceiling above him wasn't stone or sky, but paneled metal, traced with faint mana lines pulsing steady.

He was in a med-bay. FHA standard issue.

The hum of monitoring glyphs filled the silence, a soft rhythm of magic keeping track of a body that felt like it had been set on fire, drowned, and dragged across glass.

'…Yeah. Still alive. That's good news, I guess.'

The system flickered across his vision before he even tried to summon it.

[Status — Stabilizing.]

[Level: 55]

[Mana Pool: 480/480]

[Corruption Load: 62% — Suppressed via external interference.]

[Condition: Severe Burnout.]

Lucen blinked at the last line. "…External interference?"

"You're welcome."

The voice came from the corner. Varik sat in a chair that was far too small for his frame, forearms resting on his knees, eyes steady as if he hadn't moved since Lucen was dragged in.

Lucen groaned and tried to sit up. Pain lanced down his spine, muscles seizing. He fell back against the cot with a hiss. "Yeah, no, not moving yet."

Varik didn't smile. He rarely did. But his tone carried something that wasn't just iron. "You burned deeper than I thought possible."

Lucen grinned through the pain. "And yet… still devastatingly handsome."

Varik's eyes narrowed slightly. "That stunt nearly killed you. And the city saw it."

Lucen tilted his head against the pillow, smirk tugging wider. "Good. Maybe they'll think twice before sending me paperwork next time."

The door hissed open before Varik could answer. Selindra entered first, her braid immaculate despite the chaos outside, eyes sharp as glass. Behind her came Elira, poised, precise, expression unreadable as always.

The air thickened immediately.

Lucen lifted a hand lazily. "Ladies. Don't tell me you've come to tuck me in."

Selindra's jaw worked, but she held her words. Elira stepped forward instead, gaze falling directly on Lucen, cold as obsidian.

"You revealed corruption use before half the Association's upper ranks," she said softly. No heat. Just fact. "Do you have anything to say?"

Lucen smirked, even as the exhaustion pulled at his face. "Yeah. You're welcome."

Selindra's teeth clicked together. Varik's aura stirred faintly, warning enough that the room didn't snap into violence.

Elira's expression never shifted. "You gained power beyond your level. Temporarily. At a cost. Did you think we wouldn't notice?"

Lucen's laugh was hoarse. "Notice? I was hoping you'd throw a parade."

Elira studied him for several long seconds, then finally glanced at Varik. "He'll be watched. Closely. Until we determine whether he's a liability or an asset."

Varik's voice rumbled, calm, flat. "He's alive. That's enough for now."

The High Director's gaze lingered a heartbeat longer, then she turned and left the room without another word. Selindra followed, her glance at Lucen sharp enough to cut before the door sealed shut behind them.

The silence after was heavy.

Lucen let out a ragged breath, forcing his smirk back into place. "You think she likes me?"

Varik didn't answer.

Lucen closed his eyes, exhaustion dragging him back toward the dark.

But even through the haze, the system refused to stay quiet:

[Warning: Abyssal Corruption Synchronization Increasing.]

[Stability Estimated: 74 Hours Without Intervention.]

Lucen's grin twitched faint.

'Guess the party's not over yet.'

—

Two hours after waking, Lucen was already pulling off the mana-thread leads and pushing himself upright.

His body screamed in protest, muscles brittle with fatigue, but he moved anyway. Rest felt like a leash, and the air in that sterile room was thick with pity.

[Condition: Severe Burnout.]

[Warning: Muscular stability compromised.]

"Noted," he muttered, dragging his coat over his shoulders.

By the time the orderlies noticed, he was gone.

The FHA tower buzzed like a hornet's nest. Elevators were sealed for priority access, hunters and bureaucrats sprinted through corridors, every hallway humming with raised voices.

Lucen moved through it without slowing, shoulders brushing past agents who parted instinctively. Maybe it was recognition.

Maybe it was the lingering taint of corruption radiating from his veins. Either way, no one stopped him.

The noise led him to the high council chamber. The doors weren't even fully shut, raised voices slipped through the crack.

"…uncontrolled corruption!" one man barked.

"…risk to national stability," another hissed.

"…already public. Containment is impossible."

Lucen pushed the doors open with one hand. The heavy slabs swung wide, cutting the noise into silence.

Inside, a half-circle of FHA executives and ranking hunters sat at a crescent table, projections of city maps flickering above. Selindra was there, rigid and unblinking. Elira presided in the center, calm, untouched by the storm of arguments around her.

Every gaze swung to him.

Lucen walked in slowly, steps steady, ignoring the mutters rising like static. He didn't stop until he reached the edge of the holo-map.

"Good meeting," he said. His voice was low, even. "Talking about me?"

A director near the end of the table slammed his fist. "You have no authority to be here—"

Lucen's eyes slid to him. Not a glare, not a threat, just an acknowledgement. The man faltered mid-sentence, throat working, as if the words died on their own.

Selindra's tone was ice. "You're supposed to be in recovery."

Lucen didn't look at her. "I recover faster on my feet."

Elira leaned forward slightly, resting her chin on her hand. "You chose to walk into this room. Why?"

Lucen let the silence hang a second. Then he answered.

"Because you're deciding whether to chain me, exile me, or use me. And I don't like people deciding my fate while I'm not in the room."

That landed heavy. Some of the directors shifted uncomfortably.

Varik wasn't there, not yet, but Lucen could feel his absence like a hole. The one man who might have cut this tension wasn't stepping in, so Lucen had to hold it himself.

Another councilor, voice sharp: "You embraced corruption. Do you deny it?"

Lucen's mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Deny it? No. It kept me alive. Kept your city standing. Without it, you'd be ash by now."

The table erupted in voices again, some furious, some fearful. Elira didn't move, didn't blink.

Selindra's voice cut across the noise: "And if it consumes you next time?"

Finally, Lucen looked at her. His expression was unreadable. "Then I'll make sure it consumes the right people first."

The room froze.

Elira broke the silence at last, voice calm, decisive. "Enough. This debate achieves nothing."

Her gaze held Lucen's for a long moment. A flicker of something unreadable, calculation, interest, maybe even amusement. Then she looked back to the table.

"He remains an asset until proven otherwise. Dismissed."

The chamber erupted again, protests and mutters, but Elira rose, and the decision was final. Hunters and directors filed out reluctantly, their eyes darting between Lucen and the High Director like they weren't sure which was more dangerous.

Soon, only Lucen, Selindra, and Elira remained.

Selindra's voice was tight. "You just made yourself every rival guild's target."

Lucen finally let the faintest smirk ghost across his face. "They were going to hate me anyway. Now it'll be honest."

Elira studied him a moment longer. "You've forced my hand, Lucen. Don't waste the protection that decision bought you."

Then she left, her coat trailing silence in her wake.

Lucen stood alone in the hollow chamber, Selindra's glare still pinning him.

"…What?" he asked finally.

She shook her head once, sharp, and walked past him without answering.

The door shut.

And Lucen was left with the echo of his own system whispering at the edge of his vision:

[Corruption Load: 64%]

[Stability Estimate: 70 Hours.]

'Yeah,' he thought, jaw tightening. 'Not nearly enough time.'

—

Even past midnight, the streets glowed with evacuation lamps, repair drones whining overhead, supply convoys rolling in from the outskirts.

Lucen walked through it all with his coat collar pulled high, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His steps felt heavier than they should've. Each pulse of corruption through his veins left a faint ache in the bone, like his body was carrying an extra weight only he could feel.

[Corruption Load: 64%]

[Decay Rate: 0.1% per hour]

[Time Until Instability: 68 hours]

He exhaled slowly. 'That's not time. That's a countdown.'

He'd kept moving since the council session, wandering the edges of the quadrant where the rupture had been sealed. Even now the ground was fractured, black scars spiderwebbing across the asphalt, faint traces of mana humming in the air.

The smell lingered, ozone, char, something acrid like burnt metal.

Lucen crouched by one of the cracks, pressing his palm close without touching. Abyssal resonance prickled faintly, a reminder of what he'd channeled, what was still inside him.

'If I don't burn it out, it burns me. And I don't think meditation and green tea are going to cut it.'

The system flickered again, sharp across his vision.

[Notice: Abyssal energy detected in bloodstream.]

[Attempt cleanse? Y/N]

Lucen narrowed his eyes. "…Since when is that an option?"

He tapped [Y].

The system stalled. Then lines of red cut across his vision.

[Cleanse Failed.]

[Warning: Abyssal energy integrated with mana channels.]

[Force removal = fatal.]

He let out a humorless laugh. "Figures."

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