Reidar, Jake, and Lena made their way through debris-filled streets toward the city's outskirts. Behind them, the fighting continued—church members' screams pierced the smoke-choked air, barely audible over the noise of buildings crumbling to the ground.

Around him, the Vorathid Sky-Hunters were depositing their cargo. The giant insects hovered close to the ground until they dropped the prisoners onto the ground.

Most of the survivors stumbled as they hit the earth. Their legs were too weak from mana deprivation and starvation to hold their weight, and they collapsed.

Reidar dismissed the raven. It dissolved into blue mana mist.

The survivors didn't look at Reidar. Their attention was on the two people who had physically pulled them from the cages. When they saw Lena and Jake approaching, the mood shifted. Several of them scrambled to their feet, their faces lighting up with something that looked like gratitude mixed with disbelief.

A woman with pale skin and matted hair grabbed Lena's arm.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you."

She wasn't the only one. Others crowded around Jake, patting his shoulders, shaking his hand, or just touching his arm to make sure he was real.

"You came back," a man said, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on his face. "We thought... when the guards started screaming... we thought it was just another test."

Jake looked uncomfortable. He wasn't used to this kind of gratitude. He was used to fighting monsters and killing Zealots. Being thanked by a crowd of starving Level 100s was a variable he didn't know how to handle.

Lena stopped a few paces away, keeping her bloodied dagger sheathed at her side. She nodded once.

"We said we would."

The man stepped forward, his eyes wet with tears. He grabbed Jake's hand with both of his, shaking it with desperate gratitude.

"Thank you. Thank you so much. I—we thought we were going to die in there. We thought no one would come."

Jake pulled his hand back and cleared his throat.

"You're safe now. That's what matters."

The survivors gathered around them, speaking over each other in their eagerness to show gratitude. Tears streamed down some faces. Others laughed with an edge that bordered on madness. One man couldn't stop murmuring, "We're alive, we're alive," as though he needed to convince himself it was true.

Behind them, the sounds of destruction continued. A building collapsed, making the survivors flinch, their heads snapping toward the noise. Fear flashed across their faces, but then they looked back at Jake and Lena, and the fear faded, taken over by something fragile and tentative—trust.

"Is it over?" the bearded man asked. "The church—are they gone?"

Lena glanced toward the city, where plumes of smoke rose into the sky.

"Not yet. But they will be soon."

"Burn it," a man said. He was sitting on a rock, nursing a broken arm that hung limp at his side.

He spat on the ground, a glob of bloody saliva hitting the dust. "Burn it all down."

"I hope they scream," a woman next to him said. "They took my brother. They drained him until he was a husk and then threw him to the monsters when he didn't breathe anymore."

Lena's expression didn't change. "They will."

Reidar watched them. There was no poetry in hate. It was a simple cause-and-effect reaction to the torture these people had to go through.

The Church had treated them like livestock, so they looked at the Church like a wound that needed to be cauterized.

Jake shifted his weight, as he was uncomfortable with the conversation. He looked at Lena and tried to change the topic.

"We should give them the food."

Lena nodded. She turned to the survivors.

"We brought food. It's not much, but it'll help."

The survivors' eyes widened.

"Food? You—you have food?"

"From the monsters we hunted on the way here," Jake said. He crouched down and started pulling strips of meat from his inventory. "It's edible. Not great, but it'll keep you going."

Lena retrieved several large chunks of roasted meat from her inventory. The smell of fat and spices hit the air, overpowering the stench of smoke.

"It's from some Iron-Hide Behemoths we killed," Lena said, handing the portions out.

"It's monster meat. It's tough, and the texture is stringy, but it has high mana density. It will give you the stamina to stand and will help you recuperate."

The survivors stared at the food like it was treasure. A younger man reached out with trembling hands, taking a piece of meat and holding it up to the light as if inspecting it for defects. Then he bit into it, chewing slowly, his eyes closing as tears streamed down his face.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you so much."

The others crowded in, taking their shares. They ate ravenously, some of them choking on the food in their haste. Jake handed out water, and they drank just as desperately, spilling water down their chins and onto their torn, bloodstained clothes.

Reidar approached from behind.

"Eat slowly," Reidar said, stepping into the circle. "If you eat too fast, you'll throw it up."

The sound of chewing stopped.

The survivors noticed him. Their eyes went wide, and the chatter died down as they took in his level.

Reidar stood in his black Vestment of Shadows, the Void-Caller's Baton still in his hand.

They saw the gear. Then they looked above his head.

The tag floated there.

—[Reidar Miller—Level 339]—

The bearded man stared at the number, his mouth falling open. He took a step back, his hand instinctively moving to his chest as if he could feel the weight of Reidar's presence pressing down on him.

"Level… three hundred and thirty-nine…" he said.

It was at a higher level than Lira, who had run the facility. It was a number that implied a level of violence they couldn't comprehend.

Reidar stopped a few paces away, looking down at the survivors.

"Are you all okay?" he asked.

The bearded man nodded, still staring at Reidar with a mix of awe and fear.

"We—we're alive. Thanks to you."

Reidar didn't respond to that. He looked at the group, his gaze sweeping over their injuries, their exhaustion, and their fear.

"I need information," Reidar said. He didn't soften his tone, as he didn't have time for it. "I need to know what the Church is doing in the region."

"Do any of you know it, or at least have a vague idea?" he asked.

The survivors exchanged glances. The bearded man hesitated, then took a cautious step forward. He was nervous, his hands fidgeting at his sides, but he nodded.

"I… I know some things. Not everything, but…"

"Tell me," Reidar said.

"They didn't tell us their plans; usually they just boasted or talked among themselves. We were just batteries to them, after all."

The man swallowed hard. "The church has many settlements around here. Small ones mostly. They're all connected to the main base—Ashwick."

Reidar's eyes narrowed.

"But the guards talked," another woman said. She stayed seated with food in her hands. "They complained about the transfers."

"To Ashwick?" Reidar asked.

"To Ashwick."

Reidar nodded. "That's where we are headed, by the way. Tell me about it."

The man's face went pale. "You're going there?" He paused. "That place is… it's fortified. Really fortified. They have walls, guards, mages… it's not like this place." He gestured to the ruined city around them. "This was just an outpost. Ashwick is the real deal."

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