the crimson eye's judgement

The officer’s cybernetic eye whirred, focusing a beam of red light directly onto Litus’s chest. "A thief and a freak," the man hissed, his thumb flicking the safety off his pulse pistol. "You’re not going to the Mountain, boy. You’re going to the morgue."

Time seemed to fracture. Litus felt the silver pendant burning in his palm. It wasn't heat—it was a freezing, ancient energy that demanded to be released.

Protect it, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. Destroy them.

As the officer pulled the trigger, Litus didn't dodge. He slammed his glowing blue hand against the floorboards. An explosion of frost and dark energy erupted from the point of impact. The kinetic bolt from the pistol didn't just stop; it shattered like glass against an invisible wall.

The "Cold Flames" licked the walls, turning the air so frigid that the soldiers' breath came out as shards of ice. The officer stumbled back, his cybernetic eye flickering and sparking, unable to process the magical interference.

"Litus, now!" Kael shouted, kicking a heavy crate into the line of fire. Kael’s hands were shrouded in a similar, though dimmer, mist.

Litus didn't look back. He felt a strange weightlessness, as if the Mountain itself were pulling him toward the exit. With a strength he didn't know he possessed, he threw his shoulder against the corrugated metal wall of the barracks. The steel buckled like paper.

They leapt into the darkness of the city's lower slums just as a volley of fire lit up the room behind them. As they fell, Litus gripped the pendant. The hunt had officially begun.