Chapter 6 SAFE ZONE 17

“Still me,” I repeated, staring Scar dead in the eyes while my hands kept shaking. “You gonna stand there all night deciding whether to swing that axe or not?”

Scar’s fingers flexed on the handle once, twice, then he let out a long breath. “Safe Zone 17 is two hours east. Food. Water. Maybe a quiet corner to figure out your mess. You slow me down, I leave you.”

“Lead the way, big guy,” I said, forcing a grin I didn’t feel. “Just don’t expect me to thank you every step.”

We started moving again, slipping through the vines and ruins side by side. The silence stretched until it felt like a wire about to snap. After twenty minutes I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You really think I’m turning into that thing? The Emperor?”

Scar grunted. “Doesn’t matter what I think. Matters what you do when the blackouts get longer.”

Before I could snap back, it hit me.

A flash of memory that wasn’t mine slammed into my skull. A woman, no, a mother, cradling a small boy’s body. His chest had been cut open. Veins harvested. Her screams tore through my mind. “My baby… they took his light. He was only eight. Eight!” The grief drowned me. My knees buckled. I grabbed a rusted pole to stay upright.

“Chen?” Scar’s voice sounded far away.

Tears burned my eyes. Not mine. Hers. “He smiled at me that morning,” I whispered, voice cracking like it belonged to her. “Said he’d bring back spirit fruit for supper. They drained him like cattle… for power.”

I shook my head hard, slamming my fist against my temple. “Get out! That’s not me! I never had a kid. I never…”

Scar watched me, face hard. “Soul fragments. Every vein you pull brings pieces of the dead with it. Gets worse the bigger the pull. You good?”

I wiped my face with a bloody sleeve and pushed off the pole. “Yeah. Peachy. Let’s just get to this safe zone before I start crying over more strangers’ ghosts.”

We pushed on. Scar moved like he knew every shadow. I stuck close, testing small veins along the way, tiny pulls from dying moss just to keep the edge. Each one gave me a spark of strength, but now I waited for the grief after. It always came.

“You see a lot of this?” I asked after a while. “Vessels. Blackouts. All of it.”

“Enough,” Scar said. “Previous one… he had a wife. Kid on the way. By month four he didn’t recognize them anymore. Woke up one morning standing over their bodies. Smiling.”

I swallowed. “And you didn’t kill him fast enough.”

“No. I didn’t.” Scar’s voice went flat. “That mistake won’t happen twice.”

“Comforting,” I muttered. “Real comforting, Scar.”

The safe zone came into view sooner than I expected. High walls made of scrap metal and glowing formation stones. Torches and spirit lanterns flickered along the top. Normally these places felt almost safe. Tonight they didn’t.

Shouts echoed from inside. People screaming.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, picking up speed.

Scar cursed under his breath. “Stay sharp.”

We slipped through the half-open gate behind a group of panicked traders. Inside was chaos. Families huddled together. Merchants packing carts in a frenzy. A man in torn robes ran past us yelling, “The veins are collapsing! The ground’s shaking! We’re all dead if it spreads!”

I felt it then. A deep, sick wrongness under my feet. Like the world itself had a fever.

The system window exploded into my vision, bright red.

[Localized Vein Collapse Detected.]

[Host is the only viable stabilizer within range.]

[Required Extraction: Major Network Vein.]

[Warning: High Soul Cost. High Resonance Risk.]

Scar grabbed my arm. “Whatever that thing just told you, ignore it. These collapses happen. People die. You jump in now and you feed that Emperor faster.”

A woman nearby clutched her daughter, sobbing. “My husband works the outer veins! If it collapses now he’s gone! Someone help us!”

Another man shouted from the watchtower, “Formation masters say it’s accelerating! Ten minutes until full breach!”

I looked at the terrified faces. Kids crying. Old people praying to dead gods. The ground trembled again, harder. Cracks spiderwebbed across the central square. Golden light leaked out, unstable and dying.

“Chen,” Scar warned, voice low and dangerous. “Don’t.”

I pulled my arm free. “You said the world’s collapsing anyway. What if I can slow it down? Even a little?”

The mother’s eyes met mine. Desperate. Hopeful. “Please… if you can do anything…”

The system pulsed hotter.

[Stabilization Possible. Begin Extraction?]

Power hummed under my skin, calling me. Begging me. The Emperor’s satisfaction from earlier stirred again, deeper now. Like it was waking up to watch.

I stepped toward the biggest crack in the square, heart hammering. “I have to try.”

“Kid…” Scar started, hand dropping to his axe.

“Stay back!” I snapped. “If this goes bad, you know what to do.”

I dropped to one knee and slammed both palms against the broken ground. The system roared in my head.

[Major Vein Extraction Initiated.]

The world screamed.

Power unlike anything I’d ever felt tore upward through my arms. It wasn’t a trickle. It was a flood. Golden-blue energy exploded into me, raw and ancient. My body lit up from inside. Muscles swelled. Bones creaked. Every meridian in my body burned like it was being remade.

“Yes!” I shouted, laughing through the pain. “This is it! This is what I was made for!”

The ground shook violently. Spirit vines whipped around me like living things. People screamed and ran. I could feel the collapsing network fighting me, trying to drag everything down into nothing.

Scar’s voice cut through the roar. “Chen! Pull back! It’s too much!”

I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t. The power felt too good. Too right. It filled every empty part of me I’d carried for twenty-four years. Hunger. Fear. Loneliness. All of it burned away in the surge.

But somewhere deeper, under the euphoria, I felt it watching. Waiting. Pleased.

The Emperor’s voice whispered, soft and warm like an old friend:

“More.”

My vision started to flicker at the edges. The screams of the crowd mixed with the screams of the dying veins. The world itself felt like it was breaking open around me.

And still I pulled harder.

[Dragon Emperor Resonance Rising Rapidly.]

The last thing I heard clearly was Scar cursing my name as the light swallowed everything.