Claus cleaned his knife and his face distorted with displeasure. Even though he had managed to catch one of the most wanted of The Ashes codenamed Snake, he had slipped though his hands in the end. How proverbial.

"I was too careless, he is a snake indeed." He mumbled while remembering his negligence. He had not expected the criminal to look so young and he ended up being surprised by his resolve. His way of escaping him was not fitting someone in his teens and he had managed to make a fool out of Claus. He had to admit that Snake had some guts considering he had gone through no training and had started as practically an innocent boy.

  He rewound their encounter in his brain to the beginning and paid attention to the information he had gathered. He had thought about the little information about The Black Tower. It might have been just a piece of misinformation, but the clues piled up and Claus did not believe that the tower held no answers about the current situation.

  His cover was that of a high ranking Moth, but his true identity was far from simple. He had been tasked with gathering intelligence after the higher ups stopped treating the portals as a playground combined with a treasure trove. The change in their behavior was sudden and he presumed that some serious threat started emerging that was related to the ruined place. His clearance was not high enough to ask directly, but a man of his experience was able to read indirect signs and make his own conclusions. He was sure that there was something that was a threat to Earth itself in this place and he had to start treating his job more seriously.

  After meeting with a Moth that would be carrying back a bag with all sorts of documents he had randomly scavenged in the sky scrapers, he decided to head directly to The Black Tower for its thorough investigation. He checked the supplies the courier had left with him and looked out of a building that served as one of the meeting places of the army.

  There was the image of a black tower that was overshadowing everything in its vicinity. He stared at it while remembering Snake's words.

"The Black Tower is the only place left." He worded slowly what the boy had said before fleeing from him. He could read people and had an impression that what Snake had said was not entirely false or fabled just for the sake of survival. Most of the times, lies an propaganda focused on main points and details were the real tells that could reveal the truth,

"Why he was so quick to talk about the only place left, there are two towers tight? I believe he chose the black one as his first target, not daring to go too deep into the ruins at first. If he has already visited one of them, it had to be this one." Claus thought aloud and shortly arrived to a clear conclusion that Snake had tried to mislead him and his real target was the second tower, The Azure Tower.

"The last hope is really a tower, but the words he added then after a pause, The Black Tower, are a bunch of lies." He nodded slowly, persuaded by his memory of the encounter.

"That has to be it, in addition a strange ruckus had been reported around The Black Tower in the past. For some reason, Snake thinks that the only hope left is The Azure Tower, completely scratching the other one. He has probably been there or knows someone who visited that place." He nodded slowly and decided on his next mission target. Still, he activated his teleportation tattoo, because a basic resupply package was not enough for longer missions and The Azure Tower was at the far end of the city.

  He needed more supplies and reinforcements. Real reinforcements, not the random civilian mob at the main Moth camp. The mob that was too afraid to even do what Snake had done, giving up on all scout missions around The Black Tower after seeing the crowd of knights there.

* * * *

"I have heard that your brother has joined us too. You are one desperate family." A man with missing teeth laughed at a teen next to him, a sight to behold as he looked like an old man despite not being even forty, a sign of a wild life full of adventure, drugs, crime and everything that a law abiding citizen would imagine under the term irresponsibility.

"Hmph." Zach grumbled when he heard about his brother Lucas that had been missing for some time and pushed his messy brown hair to the side. No one had said it to him directly, but it was logical that his chances were minimal considering that he had gone missing during his first trip towards the base. He did not know why his brother had not told him anything and joined the organization on a whim.

  He had no chance to warn him, as he was partially stuck in this place and met with other people with a similar fate. They were not the same as The Ashes that were simply unable to go back, they were too afraid because they were criminals and police kept close watch on their homes. The most probable situation was that they would be caught and went to jail the moment they used their tattoos to return to Earth. He would still use the option if death was the only alternative, but he was hesitant to proceed until that moment came. That was also the reason why they had not carried on and tattooed themselves with The Curse. Not being able to return was different compared to having difficulties with returning back.

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  Consequently, his silly brother had probably went after him thinking that he had a great success, because he had stayed inside much longer than was the norm.

"Stupid idiot, stupid!" His brother had always been too easy going and naive for his own good.

"Have you prepared the explosives, morons? They are about to exit the subway!" A shout came that returned him to reality and he focused back on the job he and his toothless comrade had been tasked with.

"Yeah, yeah. The tower will fall directly on their heads, just press the button." Zach looked at the explosive device they have stolen in the main camp. As of late, their deeds escalated and if they failed to eliminate the group, they would most likely became outlaws even here after the group would have reported their wrongdoings at the main camp.

Their only option was to silence them before that happened.

  After they installed the device, they turned around and walked to the hiding place where they would be waiting for the right timing. Even if they were to detonate the explosives at the right moment, the tower would take out only some of their enemies. They planned to pretend to be an accidental passers by that would come to the rescue. It should lower the target's awareness enough to get close to them.

It looked like a perfect plan.

"Hide quickly, they are coming! Come, he . . ." The hand that waved at them from behind the cover suddenly disappeared and their comrade roared loudly mid-sentence. The injured man fell onto the others and the loud shouts coming from the group were followed by a detonation from behind Zach's back. The resulting shock wave pushed violently into his body and threw him onto the ground, making him feel dizzy.

He sluggishly realized that there was a Lurker among them and in the ensuing chaos, someone had accidentally triggered the explosives.

  While lying on the ground, he could vaguely hear the panicked shouts of his comrades that ran in all directions, because the attacker that snatched the unlucky man's hand was still not full and the loud explosion did not seem to bother him much.

"A Lurker! Run to the tunnels!" One of the Moths panicked and bolted towards the subway's entrance only to lose one of his legs a few seconds later. It was a scene of mayhem where in the background, the tower slowly fell to the ground, its fall accompanied by loud screeching noises. Its fall had been slowed by the thick steel cable hanging along its side, turning the abrupt crash all had expected into a gradual demise as if the tower fought not to lie down onto the street.

Dust was everywhere.

"I have to hide quickly!" Zach thought and used the nearest structure that could serve as a hiding place, the ruins of the tower which they had just demolished.

  Crawling deep under the rubble behind him, he heard the shouts gradually dying down, but he knew it was just the beginning. Especially when someone smart pulled out a gun and started shooting at the thin air, hoping to hit the attacking monster.

"They are done." Zach tried to optimize his position, as he was most likely going to spend some time under the rubble. He hoped that there would be no one trying to hide in the rubble as well, compromising his hideout in the process.

  Naturally, it was only a matter of time before a knight arrived and the shouts died down. He had no idea who escaped where or how many people have died, because he had no courage to stick out his nose to look. It was in general a very bad idea to actively look around when the adversary possessed an ability bordering with invisibility. The monster had much greater chance to spot him compared to his meager detection ability.

"That's it." He sighed in his mind. They had failed to intercept the group that witnessed their crimes and he doubted that none of the Moths would be able to return. While he sat under the rubble his status was probably slowly changing into a criminal even here in this world.

Suddenly, he had a feeling that he heard a groan and his heart skipped a beat.

"Have someone managed to reach the rubble? Blasted bastard! Die already instead of groaning." His thoughts raced, filled with images of him being detected by the local monstrosities due to some survivor who decided to join him at his hiding place. Listening further, he heard a groan again, but it was not loud. Whoever it was, he was probably trying to keep his voice down.

"He is close and his condition can get worse any minute." Zach tapped his pocket with his right hand, ensuring that his knife was still there. He began to slowly move under the rubble, searching for the survivor with the intention of silencing him forever.

  The process was tedious and very slow, as any sound might attract the knights and Lurkers that were surely still around. Those pests reacted to noise and blood and here were both of those. He was more afraid of a Lurker, because the knights usually wandered off if they were unable to find the source of the sound, but the Lurkers liked the smell of blood. It was logical, they were mainly scavengers, but the knights had never been seen to eat anything.

Which was odd.

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused back on his surroundings. He started to hear a continuous sound of breathing right in front of him, but the lack of light and the omnipresent dust prevented him from spotting his target with his eyes. After a while he had finally found a pile of dust that was moving slowly up and down.

"Found you!" Zach whispered and took out a knife out of his pocket. He began to move forward among the dust that was slowly settling down onto everything around him, like a grim messenger of death that was about to occur.