Chapter 71 The Necklace Shows Its Might

Chapter 71 The Necklace Shows Its Might

The necklace flew out of Cole's inner jacket pocket on its own and hovered in the air in front of him.

A deep blue light poured from the carved runes, so intense it washed the entire corridor in blue.

Caught in the light, all three prototypes faltered — their movements thrown off by the involuntary spasms of muscles forced into motion by chip-driven current.

Cole moved.

Blade angled downward, he drove off his back foot and crushed a chunk of concrete under his boot, launching himself at "Leah" like a bullet.

He drove the knife upward into her chest. The moment the tip hit her heart, he twisted the blade half a turn, widening the wound.

"Leah" let out a scream.

Her body began to fall apart from the wound outward — the whole of her collapsing inward into black smoke, like a sheet of paper burning from the center out, curling away until there was nothing left.

Cole didn't stop to watch her dissolve.

He was already turning toward "Old Eric."

Elena had her back against a pillar, her right shoulder still bleeding, but she'd picked up the sniper rifle with her left hand and used the moment "Old Eric" stumbled to take aim.

In the brief stillness between one breath and the next, she pulled the trigger.

The bullet entered through the back of "Old Eric's" skull and came out between the eyes.

The prototype's head snapped forward. The shotgun dropped from its hands. Its knees buckled and it went down.

It was already dissolving before it hit the floor — black smoke pouring from the bullet holes, then the face, the torso, the limbs, all of it breaking apart into a dark, wet residue.

Only "Marcus" was left now.

"Marcus" saw how things were going and ran.

It was fast — sprinting toward the blown-out gap at the far end of the corridor.

Gunnar pulled himself up off the ground.

His sternum was cracked, and every breath made him wince. His left leg had twisted when he'd slammed into the wall, and he was limping badly.

But he grabbed the hunting knife off the floor, pushed off his good leg, and cut in from the side to intercept "Marcus's" escape route.

He threw his whole body sideways into "Marcus's" legs, wrapped both arms around its knees, and used his weight and momentum to bring it crashing down.

"Marcus" hit the floor, rolled, and kicked Gunnar in the face with its free leg.

The blow knocked Gunnar's nose sideways. Blood sprayed from his nostrils. He didn't let go.

He switched the hunting knife to his left hand and drove it into "Marcus's" thigh, the tip punching through muscle and sinking into the concrete floor, pinning the leg in place.

"Go to hell, you fake!"

Gunnar roared, yanked the last grenade from his belt, pulled the safety pin, shoved the grenade into "Marcus's" mouth, and let go, rolling clear.

The grenade went off inside "Marcus's" skull.

A muffled blast. The prototype's head was incinerated from the inside. Its body convulsed once, then came apart in black smoke and was gone.

Gunnar lay flat on his back, breathing hard, nose bent to one side, the blood on his chest already dry.

The chaos fog in the corridor began to clear.

It pulled back into the cracks in the walls like a receding tide. The dark ripples on the concrete floor faded. The corridor returned to its normal gray-white.

Cole closed his hand around the necklace.

The blue light had gone out.

"Assess casualties." He put the necklace back in his inner pocket.

Elena leaned against the pillar, pressing her left hand over the wound on her right shoulder. Her expression hadn't changed much — but her lips were pale and her forehead was damp with cold sweat.

Two soldiers helped Gunnar up off the ground. He kept his left leg off the floor.

With the three elite prototypes dead, the black fog at the end of the corridor cleared completely, revealing a door.

Nearly ten meters tall. Black obsidian. Covered in relief carvings.

The central figure was a wolf — Fenrir.

Two dark red gemstones were set where the wolf's eyes would be, glowing faintly in the dark.

Cole walked up to the door and looked up at the carving.

Then the necklace flew out of his pocket again on its own. The chain hung in the air, pendant forward, and pressed itself against the wolf's forehead.

Blue light flared, bleeding into the dark red of the gemstones.

The chaos runes on the door began going dark one by one, starting from the outermost edges and spreading inward toward the center.

The obsidian doors slid slowly apart.

The moment a thin gap opened between them, a powerful suction force rushed out from inside.

Cole felt the floor drop away beneath him. He lurched forward, pulled toward the opening.

Someone called his name from behind — Sophia.

He had just enough time to turn and grab her wrist before he was pulled through.

Then everyone was pulled in.

The doors slammed shut behind them.

Inside was absolute darkness.

Only a single point of purple light pulsed at the center — distant, faint, like the pupil of something enormous.

The air was thick with the smell of blood and ozone.

A sound came from the dark.

It was the sound of a wolf that had been caged for over twenty years — a low, guttural exhale dragged up from deep in its throat at the first scent of flesh and blood.

Then came Odin's laughter.

"Welcome to my coronation, Alpha." His voice came from the darkness. "You're right on time — the ceremony is about to begin."

The distant purple light suddenly blazed to life.

It lit up what lay ahead.

Cole saw it then — a massive hexagram carved into the floor, an Array Core, with a cross standing at its center.

A man was bound to the cross, iron chains wrapped around his limbs and chest, a conduit pulsing with purple light driven into his chest.

The man's face was in shadow, but Cole didn't need to see it. He could already feel it — the resonance of his father's bloodline.

Then Cole saw Odin standing behind the cross.

The old man wore black ceremonial robes. He stood at the edge of the altar, hands clasped behind his back, a twisted smile on his face — the smile of someone who had been waiting half a lifetime for this moment.

"Cole Thorne." Odin stepped out from behind the cross. He looked to be in his mid-fifties — hair white but thick, face carved deep with age, heavy nasolabial folds, sunken eyes. "You're finally here."

He stopped, standing between the cross and Cole. "I've been waiting for this day for twenty-two years."

Cole tightened his grip on the knife. The crystal core's resonance roared through his chest. The wolf-tooth pendant pressed against his skin. The Hel necklace was warm in his pocket.

Odin noticed the necklace. A faint smile crossed his lips. "I know that necklace. It belonged to Clara — Hel's mother. I spent three months hunting her through the Albanian highlands. She'd hidden the necklace and her daughter together in a cellar, then ran out herself to draw my people away. Brave. But stupid. She didn't know I could smell the Night Kin bloodline."

He paused. "Do you know what Clara's last words were?"

Cole didn't answer. The knuckles of his left hand, wrapped around the knife, cracked twice.

"She said, 'My daughter is a free bird.'" Odin's voice was almost gentle. "Then I spent twenty years putting that free bird back in its cage. I wouldn't let her die — every time she got close, I gave her new blood. Night Kin blood. Her own. Mixed from different donors. She hated me so much she couldn't even save up the strength to kill herself. But she never flew out of that cage. Not once."