YiChen slid down beside his father.

  The cold tiles pressed through his back; his body convulsed with each breath. Sweat soaked his shirt, fabric plastered to skin like a shroud.

  He lowered his gaze. His hands still trembled, knuckles blanched, webbing split raw between thumb and finger. Even curling into a fist made the muscles scream.

  Hollow.

  His spirit was gone—wrung dry, pulp pressed past the last drop. When he reached inward, his dantian answered only with a knife-edge sting. The forbidden art he had invoked to tear death away from his father was already exacting its toll.

  And only then did it strike him: since noon, he had taken nothing but a sip of water.

  No food.

  No rest.

  From the instant he’d stepped out of his home, there had been only—

  Fighting.

  Running.

  Searching.

  Guarding.

  Every breath dragged forward by willpower alone.

  Now—even swallowing felt impossible.

  His gaze snagged on the bedside table.

  A bag of cream bread.

  A plastic-wrapped apple.

  A bottle of water.

  Offerings, left behind by a family who would never return.

  For a moment he froze, reverent, as if staring at relics from a severed life. Then he reached out. Plastic tore with a crackle absurdly loud in the hush.

  One bite.

  Crumbs scraped his throat, saliva stung, his stomach clenched so sharply pain bent him forward. So this was what exhaustion meant—when even chewing demanded the last scrap of strength.

  He forced his eyes shut. Swallowed. Then drank deep. Cold water slid down, and in his chest he swore he heard a long, ragged sigh—

  Still alive.

  The bread was gone. Half the bottle emptied.

  Footsteps stirred outside.

  YiChen’s fingers twitched, tightening around the axe.

  Faces appeared in the doorway.

  The ponytailed girl stood at the front, cheeks streaked with dust, eyes rimmed red. Behind her, more than twenty others pressed together—worn, ashamed, pleading.

  No one spoke.

  Not until YiChen set the bottle down on the table. Its surface trembled in the lamplight, ripples chasing each other into silence.

  “Speak.”

  The single word was quiet, but it cut like steel.

  The ponytailed girl bit her lip.

  “…Downstairs. There are still people trapped. My mom—she’s in Orthopedics, fifth floor.”

  “My dad too!” a young man burst out, voice frayed raw. “He can’t move—his leg’s broken—”

  “And my daughter—” a woman’s cry cracked, “she’s only seventeen. I… I can’t…”

  One by one, their voices rose. Fragile. Desperate. Every syllable a lifeline, thrown not into the void, but onto him.

  The ward stilled again.

  YiChen said nothing.

  He rose.

  The axe clicked into his palm—an iron verdict.

  His gaze swept the crowd. When he spoke, his voice was steady, resolute:

  “To the fifth floor. You—” his chin jerked toward the young man—“carry him.” He pointed to his father.

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  “The rest of you, search every bed. Gather food. Medicine. Anything you can carry.”

  His eyes were clear, unwavering.

  “Then follow me.”

  ———————

  The iron fire door slammed shut behind them with a hollow clang.

  In the stairwell’s gloom, the axe pulsed faintly—silver veins crawling like living light across the blade, as though awake, as though watching.

  The fifth floor was not the sixth.

  Here there were no locked ICUs, no sealed wards. Only a nurses’ station crouched at the center, four corridors stretching outward like the spokes of a wheel. Patient rooms yawned open on either side, curtains swaying in the draft—lungs still breathing though the heart was gone.

  “Stay close.”

  YiChen’s voice rasped across the silence—low, hoarse, ground raw by exhaustion he no longer bothered to hide.

  The fire door cracked open. Tar-black mist spilled through like a tide.

  Dozens of fiends drifted low along the halls, gray husks pulsing with threads of stolen soul-light. They fed openly, whispers scraping the plaster like claws dragged over bone.

  The nearest froze. Its head snapped toward them.

  It shrieked—high, jagged, like glass shattering inside the ear—then lunged.

  The axe came down.

  Silver flared, cleaving the dark. The fiend ripped apart, its core bursting to ash. YiChen’s wrist twisted. His left hand clawed outward, spirit burning raw along his fingers. He clamped down on the chest of the second—

  Pop.

  The soul-core burst in his palm. Smoke scattered like crushed ice.

  “Third room, left side!” the ponytailed girl’s cry cracked behind him.

  YiChen pivoted, boot slamming into a treatment cart. Metal screamed as it skidded down the corridor, smashing into three wraiths, scattering them like shredded cloth.

  From the rooms came voices—

  Cries of relief as some found their loved ones.

  Broken sobs as others met only empty beds.

  Joy and despair clashed in the air, hammering YiChen’s skull like nails driven into bone.

  Until—

  “Come on, you bastards! Back in the day I dropped punks with one punch!”

  A roar, coarse and defiant. Each curse landed with the thud of fists.

  YiChen kicked open Room 307.

  Inside, a burly man with his right arm bound in plaster swung his left in wild arcs. Knuckles glowed faint red, cracking two fiends hard enough to drive them back.

  “Down.”

  YiChen’s axe swept once. Two fiends burst apart together.

  Seven survivors huddled in the corner, beds shoved into a crooked barricade. The man’s cast was split with fractures—he had clearly been using it as a club.

  “Finally, someone alive!” He spat blood, grinning wide. “These things hate yang energy! I pissed on one—it squealed like a pig on fire!”

  A woman stumbled in behind YiChen, knees striking tile. She didn’t feel it.

  “Xiao Wen! My baby!”

  In the corner, a seventeen-year-old girl clung to her grandmother, both pale but alive. The woman collapsed forward, crushing them into her arms, sobs tearing raw through her throat.

  “It’s over… you’re safe… rescue’s here…”

  Others broke too. One pressed palms together, muttering fevered prayers. Another buried their face in their hands, sobbing like a child. The taut string of terror finally snapped.

  They thought it was over.

  YiChen stood in the doorway, axe tip still steaming with black mist. This room was safe—for now.

  But faint cries still echoed deeper in the corridor. Thin. Desperate. On the edge of breaking.

  He lifted the axe, sliding it across his back, and turned.

  “Wait!” the woman gasped, clutching her daughter as though she might vanish. “Where… where are you going?”

  YiChen’s profile was lit only by the faint glow of the blade. His voice came low, ragged, but steady:

  “There are others.”

  And without another word, he stepped back into the dark.

  ——————

  The corridor reverberated with a chorus of shrieks—high, jagged, swelling like glass ground beneath steel.

  A cloud of gray mist shot from the corner. YiChen slipped past by a breath. His axe swept in a silver diagonal—

  Shhhk!

  The wraith burst apart midair, scattering like burnt paper.

  From a nearby ward came muffled gasps. Two patients lay half-dead, their souls siphoned through black tendrils. YiChen kicked the door wide. The axe arced once—silver flared, and the fog unraveled.

  One. Two. Three.

  Again. Again.

  His body moved like a machine wound past its limit. Every swing scraped fire through his muscles. Every breath shredded his lungs raw. Yet he did not stop.

  Stopping meant death—someone else’s, or his own.

  At last the final cloud split beneath his blade.

  YiChen bent forward, one hand braced to his knee. His breaths came sharp, ragged, tearing down his throat. Seconds bled away before he forced himself upright again.

  And then—he felt the eyes.

  He turned.

  The burly man stood frozen. His mouth half open. His gaze fixed on YiChen’s back—on the T-shirt soaked through, clinging like a second skin, the axe sagging heavy in his grip. His shoulders quivered faintly, not with fear, but with exhaustion.

  A pillar of stone. Already cracked. Refusing to fall.

  And in that instant the man understood.

  The one who had saved them was no invincible war god.

  Not a saint. Not a general.

  Just a man.

  A man battered, hollowed, nearly broken—

  yet still dragging himself forward, alone.

  The man’s throat tightened. Words scraped out, low, trembling:

  “…How many times have you fought like this?”

  He swallowed. “One body can’t hold out forever. You’ll burn out.”

  YiChen didn’t answer. He only turned his head slightly, gaze falling on him.

  No pride.

  No plea for sympathy.

  Only exhaustion. Quiet. Cold. Like the bottom of a well.

  Something snapped in the man’s chest. Heat surged.

  He bared his teeth, splitting the blood on his lip into a grin.

  “Then let me swing. You point, I’ll hit.”

  He thumped his chest with a fist, voice cracking but firm:

  “These hands aren’t soft. Afraid of ghosts? Hell no. If they want a fight—tonight we’ll make them choke.”

  For a heartbeat, the corridor stilled.

  YiChen gave the faintest nod. No thanks. No pleasantries.

  He flipped the axe sideways in his grip, voice stripped to iron:

  “There are two more rooms ahead.

  We go together.”