Chapter 29 Protocol: truth

The ruins of the old Executioner memorial were quiet.
Too quiet.
Riven stepped over cracked stone, Cipher and Kira flanking him. Tony, Vincent, and Mark waited behind, eyes scanning the desolate terrain.
Cigar stood alone in the center. No guards. No weapons raised. Just the ember of his cigar burning in the dusk light.
"You found me," he said without turning. "Didn't think you'd get this far."
Riven didn’t waste time. "Talk. Now. No riddles. No evasions."
Cigar nodded slowly, then turned to face them, the wind tugging at his coat.
"You want the truth?" he said. "Fine. But once you hear it… you’ll wish you hadn’t."
His eyes lingered on Kira, then drifted back to Riven.
"It didn’t start with you. It didn’t start with the Council. It started the moment the first rift opened."
He took a drag, smoke curling into the dying sky.
"Soon the world would see it's end. As cracks in reality are forced open by something — someone — outside our world. His army will pour through, twisted things not meant for Earth. We call them monsters. But they are soldiers. Scouts. The first wave of an invasion. For us it's the future but for some, it's an horrible past.


And earth wasn’t ready for it. The military couldn’t stop them. Everyone and everything destroyed. So the Council began work on a countermeasure by bring the Execution Code to our time because the future was already destroyed. And now the execution code a system designed not just to fight, but to evolve. Something that could keep growing until it stood equal to the threat."
Only the council and and death protocol knows this. And with that they began testing the code.
Riven’s jaw clenched. "And the first test subjects?"
Cigar’s eyes darkened.
> "Fifty entered. Only three survived. Steven Rael. Joe Kessen. Sasha Miri.
Steven was the Rift Maker. He could tear reality itself. Joe turned his body into an arsenal of blades. Sasha could bind even the rifts themselves with threads of pure Code.
Kira swallowed hard. "And then?"
Cigar exhaled smoke, bitter.
> "Then came the mission that broke them. The Council opened a rift to another this world so they would strike first. To stop the Demon King before he ever reached our world. Steven tore reality open… and they stepped through.


But they never returned."
The group went still.
Cipher’s voice was low, tense. "So the Council betrayed them."
"No," Cigar said. "They gambled everything on them. But when the Rift closed… Earth was left with nothing. No heroes. No hope. Just the Execution Code. So the Council shifted their strategy. They began implanting the Code into children. Fragile, innocent, but more adaptable than adults. The hope was that if the Code awoke through trauma, it would forge weapons who could one day stand against the coming storm."
Riven’s fists tightened. "And we’re those weapons."
Cigar’s gaze locked on him.
> "No, Riven. You’re something more. You awakened the Code fully. You’re evolving beyond what even Steven could do. But that evolution comes with a price. Every time you level up… you weaken the Endgate. The barrier holding the Demon King back.


The Council calls it preparation. I call it gambling with the world’s soul."
The words hit like a hammer.
Kira’s voice shook. "Then what am I?"
For the first time, Cigar’s tone softened.
> "You… you’re our mistake and our miracle. A second-generation hybrid like Sasha, something new. The Executioner who can die and rise again. A weapon meant for a war that hasn’t fully arrived."


The group was silent, crushed beneath the weight of his words.
Cipher finally asked, voice taut: "And the Shadow Council? What do they want?"
Cigar’s face went grim.
"They know everything. Somewhere beyond the Rift. The Demon King, his Army's are a plotting to take over our world. And this is how we stop them"
Riven stepped forward, his eyes burning. "Then help us stop them."
That was when Cigar’s expression changed — from weary to cold.
"I already did," he said.
From the surrounding shadows, soldiers emerged — dozens of them. Death Protocol’s elite. Armored. Silent. Surrounding the group.
Riven’s eyes widened. "You—"
"I told you the truth," Cigar said, stepping back. "And this is the only way."
He turned his back on them.
"I’m done choosing sides. Let the system decide who deserves to survive."
And then he walked away.
As the soldiers opened fire.

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