The containment zone fell in under four minutes.

  Tancred did not rush.

  Rushing implied uncertainty.

  He walked.

  The first soldier fired without warning. The bullet struck Tancred in the chest and flattened, dropping to the ground like it had hit steel.

  Tancred broke the man’s neck with one hand and kept moving.

  Another squad opened fire. Tancred stepped into them, fists moving with brutal economy. Throats crushed. Chests caved. Spines snapped. Blood sprayed across shattered concrete and slicked the ground underfoot.

  Someone screamed orders.

  Someone else screamed for mercy.

  Neither mattered.

  A man with gravity distortion powers tried to crush Tancred inward.

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  Tancred stepped forward anyway.

  Bones groaned.

  Blood leaked from his nose.

  He grabbed the man’s head and slammed it into the ground until the distortion stopped.

  Then once more, to be sure.

  Tancred straightened. His breath was steady.

  Pain registered.

  It did not alter outcome.

  Across the zone, an awakened woman hurled fire in wild arcs, setting debris and people ablaze. Tancred moved through the flames, skin blistering, coat burning away.

  He reached her.

  She tried to speak.

  Tancred punched through her chest and tore her heart free.

  The fire died with her.

  Tancred dropped the organ and crushed it underfoot.

  Around him, the zone went silent.

  The monsters had already fled.

  The soldiers were dead.

  The awakened lay broken.

  Tancred stood alone in the wreckage, chest rising and falling slowly.

  This was what hesitation avoided.

  This was what restraint postponed.

  This was what an ending looked like.

  Miles away, Elira felt it.

  A sudden stillness.

  A release of pressure.

  Something vast and deliberate had passed through the world and left scars where it touched.

  She closed her eyes.

  “Someone chose,” she murmured.

  William read the casualty list with shaking hands.

  No survivors.

  No explanation.

  Only rumors spreading faster than facts.

  A man who walked through bullets.

  A butcher who killed monsters and people alike.

  A line drawn in blood.

  William looked out at the city.

  “This is what happens,” he said softly, “when ideology meets fear.”

  And somewhere, Tancred Wilmot wiped blood from his hands and wondered how many more endings the world would force him to deliver.