EVIL SYSTEM

When Alexander made sure the man was dead, he scanned the entire street with his gaze, checking that there were no security cameras or any unsuspecting onlooker watching him.

Behind a pile of debris, Ben and the others were hiding, gripped by intense fear, to the point of holding their breath to avoid being heard by Alexander.

Even Ben stood still as a statue. He had to admit there was no way he was a match for Alexander. He had no means of competing against a man who could hurl entire buildings at them.

With cold sweat running down their backs, they waited for a minute that felt like an hour until Alexander flew off toward the city center.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief and emerged from their hiding spot.

"Thanks," Ben said to Dante.

He was the only one who reacted to Alexander's arrival, and before any of them understood why, he urged them to hide.

"No big deal." Dante shook his head, brushing off the matter. "What's important now is getting out of the city."

No one objected this time. Though they didn't know why, Dante seemed capable of knowing what would happen in the future.

Something that, while very hard to believe, wasn't impossible.

There were all kinds of gifts in this world.

"So, which route do we take?" Ryuji asked.

Dante's body shuddered, and he stared into the distance at a tall, wide, and sturdy building.

"We have to go through that mall to get out of the city," he said, pointing at the building. "The other buildings have explosives and could go off at any moment."

Dante began walking with a determined stride toward the distance.

"Besides, as you've already seen… the streets aren't safe."

---

They ran through several streets where they only saw chaos and destruction.

"Where's the police?" Roger asked.

Dante shook his head.

"Some are in on it, and those who aren't are out on the streets fighting the revolutionaries and M16."

"Revolutionaries?"

Dante fell silent.

"We need to enter here," he said, pointing to the entrance of the mall's underground parking garage.

"Seriously?" Ben asked. "Can't we just use the main entrance?"

"Impossible." Dante shook his head and walked toward the parking garage.

The others followed but with many questions in their heads.

Dante led them to what seemed to be a service elevator and invited everyone to step inside.

"Why exactly do we have to go into this mall?" Ben asked as he entered.

"We need to get to the top floor," Dante said.

"Why?" he asked again.

"But it won't be easy to get there." Dante ignored his question. "There's a reason this building doesn't have explosives inside."

As if to answer his question, the elevator began making strange noises and stopped suddenly.

"Ben." Dante grabbed Ben and placed him in front of everyone. "Now it's your turn to shine."

Ben raised an eyebrow, unsure what he meant, when the elevator doors suddenly opened.

A machine gun greeted him, aimed at his head. In a reflex, he grabbed the barrel of the weapon and lifted it.

The gun fired, and several shots hit the elevator's ceiling, causing Roger, Ryuji, and the man to duck in fear.

With a yank and a punch, Ben disarmed the man and riddled him with bullets.

As he stepped out of the elevator, he found two other armed men. With relative ease, he took them down and looked back as everyone began exiting the elevator, staring at the bodies on the ground.

Ben crouched down and checked the bodies but couldn't find any tattoos identifying them as members of the M16 gang.

"Who are these men?" Ben asked Dante.

"They're from the revolutionary army." Dante kicked one of the bodies with anger several times before moving forward and heading to the elevator on the other side of the room.

Ben watched, growing increasingly puzzled by Dante's behavior.

This wasn't the same Dante he knew… And he knew from personal experience what kind of situations could truly change a man.

The anger with which he kicked the corpse wasn't normal.

But personally… it didn't bother him.

Though he did hope to see his lively personality return.

Everyone followed Dante and took the other elevator, which was entirely made of glass, allowing them a complete view of the city.

The glass elevator hummed softly as it ascended, a sickening contrast to the hell unfolding beyond its transparent walls. Ben, with the injured man still slung over his back and Ryuji leaning on his shoulder, could barely keep his eyes open. The alcohol still weighed heavily in his veins, though the adrenaline and the magic he had burned to heal himself kept him upright.

Dante, at the front, looked through the glass with that unsettling calm that made him seem like a stranger.

Roger, clutching his bruised arm, muttered curses under his breath. The injured man groaned softly, his broken leg trembling with each movement of the elevator. Ryuji, with his hand pressed against the wound in his abdomen, breathed in short gasps, his face pale but hardened by pain.

Outside, Magnolia was bleeding out.

The city, once a mosaic of lights and life, was now a gutted corpse. From the height of the elevator, the destruction was overwhelming, a nightmare painted with fire, smoke, and debris. To the left, the horizon was split by columns of black smoke twisting toward the sky like the fingers of a furious god. Entire buildings, some of the city's most iconic, lay reduced to skeletons of concrete and steel, their insides exposed to the air. One of them, still in flames, spewed sparks that fell like rain onto the chaotic streets below.

Closer, the mall next to the one they were ascending had a gaping hole in its facade, as if a giant had taken a bite out of it. Shattered glass hung from the edges, reflecting the orange glow of the fires. On the streets, the asphalt was cracked, littered with overturned cars, some crushed like cans, others burning with bodies trapped inside. Ben clenched his teeth upon seeing a wrecked fire truck, its siren still faintly wailing, half-buried under a pile of rubble. The image brought back the metro, the little girl's body split in two, her arms outstretched. He shook his head, trying to push the memory away, but the pain lingered, lodged in his chest.

In the distance, one of the buildings Alexander Crapp had torn from the ground and used as a weapon still stood, but barely. Its structure was bent, leaning like a drunk about to collapse, with shards of glass and concrete falling in slow motion. Around it, the ground was littered with bodies—some motionless, others crawling, leaving trails of blood. Ben saw a woman running with a child in her arms, only to be swallowed by a stampede of people fleeing in the opposite direction. Screams, distant but gut-wrenching, reached the elevator, mingling with the howl of sirens and the occasional rumble of something collapsing.

The sky, which should have been dark in the early morning, was stained a sickly red, lit by the fires and sporadic explosions still shaking the city. A helicopter, likely from the news or rescue, crossed the horizon, but before Ben could track it with his eyes, a fireball engulfed it, and the wreckage spiraled down, crashing into a nearby park. The impact sent up a cloud of dust and ash that rose like a specter, obscuring part of the landscape.

"God…" Roger murmured, his voice trembling as he gripped the elevator's handrail. "This isn't a city; it's a damn graveyard."

Ryuji, despite the pain, let out a bitter laugh. "And we're stuck right in the middle. Just our luck."

Ben said nothing. His eyes were fixed on a distant point, where a half-collapsed office tower revealed its shattered interior. Papers, furniture, and what looked like a human arm hung from the broken floors, swaying in the hot wind. He thought of Judy for a second, whether she was out there, alive or dead, but the thought faded quickly.

Dante, motionless, kept watching the chaos with that expression Ben couldn't decipher. His hands no longer trembled, but his silence was heavier than ever. "This doesn't end here," he said suddenly, without turning. "What we saw in the metro, on the streets… it's just the beginning."

"The beginning of what?" Ben growled, his voice hoarse from smoke and rage. "And how the hell do you know so much, Dante? What are you hiding?"

Dante didn't answer, but the injured man, with a pale face and glassy eyes, whispered, "It's the end… Everything is falling apart…"

The elevator kept rising, and the view expanded, revealing more of the broken city. A bridge, collapsed in the center, let cars plummet into the river like broken toys. Entire neighborhoods were dark, without power, while others burned uncontrollably, the fire leaping from house to house. At a nearby intersection, a group of people looted a store, smashing windows and fighting each other for what was left. Farther off, a smaller explosion lit up the sky, followed by a chorus of screams that faded into the roar of the wind.

Ben felt a knot in his stomach. This wasn't just an attack. It was annihilation. The terrorists or whatever they were had struck every corner of Magnolia, and Crapp, with his colossal magic, had made things worse, sacrificing lives without a second thought. He thought of the key in his pocket, Dante's watch, the whispered words about zombies and futures. Something bigger was at play, something not even he, with all his power, could yet understand.