The iron door closed silently behind him, and the world felt like it was covered by a thick cloth. The stairs extended downward, the walls damp, and the air carried a scent of old cement and rusted metal. Adrian walked ahead, his steps steady as if he had walked this way a thousand times before; Thalia walked beside him, her footsteps light for her age, barely making a sound against the stairs.

  Kieran's wrist was still held by Adrian, the grip not painful, yet it made him acutely aware—he was not a "companion" now, but "being taken away."

  He tried to call the device in his mind, habitually wanting to confirm his location, communication, emotional feedback... but nothing came. That emptiness felt like it was peeling him from the inside out, exposing him to the cold air. Dreadspire was gone, and he no longer belonged to that set of rules.

  This was not freedom. This was weightlessness.

  "Where are you taking me?" Kieran asked, his voice hoarse, still carrying the dull pain of fading numbness.

  Adrian did not turn back, only replied, "Safe house."

  Thalia seemed to think this answer was too dismissive, glancing at Kieran: "The most dangerous place for you right now is not this city, but your original circle of life. The moment you go home, you will leave traces, and Dreadspire will use those traces to pull out everyone connected to you."

  Kieran's throat moved, but he did not respond. He thought of Jasper, Ivy, and that phrase "cut off connections." He had thought he had severed them cleanly enough, but only now did he realize: for Dreadspire, connection was not about willingness, but about having existed.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a narrow corridor, ending with a metal door. Adrian pressed his fingertip against a recess beside the door, and the lock emitted a faint vibration, like bones being realigned. The door opened, and warmth along with dim light rushed out.

  Inside was a simple but clean basement: a folding bed, a folding table, several old computers, and a wall covered with maps and photos. On the wall were neighborhood maps of Caelora, entrances and exits of several docks, and a floor plan of the hospital foundation building—there was even a photo of the Castellan family, printed in black and white, with corners repeatedly turned up.

  Kieran's gaze lingered on the photo for less than half a second before he quickly looked away. That "calibration" prevented him from breaking down immediately, but it didn't mean he could bear the memories that were pinned down.

  Thalia walked to the table, casually as if returning to her own room, opened a drawer, and took out a can of energy drink, tossing it to Kieran. The can felt icy cold in his palm.

  “Drink it,” she said. “The numbness you just experienced was a nerve lock. Once released, there will be side effects: cramps, nausea, low blood sugar. If you collapse here, I don’t want to drag you.”

  Kieran stared at the can, not immediately pulling the tab: “Who are you guys, really?”

  Adrian finally released his wrist and turned to lean against the wall. His posture remained elegant, but that elegance felt more like a form of armor. “You know the answer.”

  “Order of Solace,” Kieran said.

  But Thalia shook her head, as if dismissing an outdated term: “That’s what you Dreadspire like to call yourselves. The name doesn’t matter to you. What matters is—we don’t want you to kill for Dreadspire anymore, and we don’t want Dreadspire to use you to kill more people.”

  Kieran tightened his grip on the can: “So you pulled me out to make me a traitor, an insider?”

  Adrian scoffed, the amusement thin: “The word traitor was invented by Dreadspire to scare people from leaving. You don’t need to betray anyone. You just need to start making decisions for yourself.”

  Thalia took two steps closer, staring into his eyes: “But I need you to do one thing. You promised just now.”

  “I promised to go with you, not to hand over Dreadspire’s core data,” Kieran replied quickly.

  “Then let me be clearer.” Thalia's tone was calm, as if she were adjusting chess pieces. “You need to help me get two things: the data from the retroactive chamber's crystal column and Sabrina's calibration records. Once you have them, you can leave. If you want to disappear, change your identity, or go anywhere—I won’t stop you.”

  Kieran stared at her, trying to find a flaw in the “deal-maker” behind that nine-year-old face. He found none. Her emotions seemed too cleanly cut, as if she were the kind of person who could hide her true feelings.

  “What makes you think I can get them?” Kieran asked.

  Thalia extended her finger and lightly tapped his chest: “Because you are Sabrina's ‘creation.’ Her most trusted weapon. You’ve been in the retroactive chamber.” She pointed to Kieran's temple and further explained, “Just now, I implanted a Trojan in the device. The moment you connect to the retroactive device, the Trojan will activate and retrieve the data from the crystal column.”

  Kieran replied coldly, “But you just turned it off.”

  “I put it to sleep, not killed it,” Thalia corrected him. “As long as you return to headquarters, enter the retroactive chamber, and activate the device, at that moment—the device will wake up—everything will start to operate.”

  “How do you know the organization won’t discover the Trojan?” Kieran felt a sinking sensation. Her plan was not to “help him escape,” but to “send him back once.” To send him back into the throat of Dreadspire to bite off a piece of flesh.

  Thalia shrugged, as if answering a question like “Will it rain tomorrow?”

  “They might discover it,” she said, “but not immediately.”

  Kieran's gaze was fixed on her face, trying to find a flaw behind that nine-year-old appearance. There was none. The rhythm of her speech was too steady, steady enough to seem like it had been rehearsed countless times, even rehearsed for the “failure” branch.

  “Do you think of me as a disposable tool?” he asked softly.

  Thalia neither denied nor admitted it, but instead turned the conversation more directly: “What do you think Dreadspire sees you as?”

  That sentence felt like a dull knife, slowly being inserted into his chest. After adjusting, he thought he wouldn’t feel pain anymore—only now he understood that it just made the pain come later and deeper.

  Adrian had been leaning against the wall and finally spoke. His voice was gentle to the point of being polite, yet every word felt like a weight on a scale: “We know how strict Dreadspire’s inspections are. The Trojan horse is not a ‘program,’ it’s a ‘curse.’ It won’t stay resident, won’t continuously send signals, but at the moment you connect to the crystal column in the backtracking room, it uses the energy surge of the crystal column to ‘cover’ itself for a one-time replication.”

  Kieran scoffed, but his throat felt dry and bitter: “Sounds like throwing me into the fire, betting that the flames are big enough not to burn the paper on me.”

  “Pretty much.” Thalia said calmly.

  She walked over to the Caelora map on the wall, her fingertip pointing at several marked locations: the station, the old port area, the underground entrance to the city center—and a place circled in red.

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  “You have two choices.” She said, “The first, escape right now. You will be found by Dreadspire within forty-eight hours, or dealt with by the cleanup team they send. You could also bet that they will first go after the ‘people you used to know,’ forcing you back with your guilt.”

  Kieran’s gaze darkened slightly.

  Thalia seemed to see his reaction, her lips curling up a little, but without warmth: “The second, you go back once. Return in the way they are most familiar with—‘being retrieved,’ ‘being escorted back,’ or ‘walking into the trap’ will do. Let them think you were just temporarily out of contact, knocked out by ordinary thugs, or that the device malfunctioned. You go back into the backtracking room, let it wake up, extract the data. Then you disappear once more.”

  “Disappear again?” Kieran stared at her, “Do you think I can disappear from Dreadspire a second time?”

  Adrian put his hand into his coat pocket and took out a slender metal box, placing it on the table and pushing it in front of Kieran. The lid popped open, revealing a black ring as thin as a glass shard.

  “Phase Cloaking,” Adrian said. “One-time use. Once activated, you will become ‘unlocatable’ within thirty seconds, including the device in your brain. It’s not permanent, at most ten minutes. But that’s enough time for you to leave the retro room, exit that level, and get out of the core corridor of Dreadspire.”

  Kieran did not reach for it. He knew there was no free escape route in this world; every door had a price tag behind it.

  “Why do you need Sabrina’s calibration records?” he asked.

  Thalia did not answer immediately, as if deciding how much truth to give him.

  Finally, she said, “Because she’s not just ‘training’ you. She’s transforming you. She’s turning people into things that can be shut down remotely.” Thalia looked up at him, “You think your pain today is because you killed someone. It’s not. You’re in pain because you haven’t been fully transformed by her yet.”

  That statement sent a chill through Kieran’s fingertips. He recalled the electric current piercing the back of his neck in the retro room, the moment the colors faded—this was not “calm,” it was deprivation.

  Thalia stepped closer, looking up at him like a child looking at an adult, yet also like a hunter looking at prey: “I want that data, not for revenge. I want to know how many people she has turned into ‘shells.’ I want to know her control range, trigger conditions, and her sources.”

  “Sources?” Kieran seized on that word.

  Adrian continued, his tone still elegant: “Sabrina is not just an engineer. There are people behind her. The ‘rulers’ of Dreadspire, and their fear research system. With the calibration records, we can counteract—at least, prevent you from being able to have your emotions and will cut off by a single command.”

  Kieran's breathing was slow. He looked at Thalia, then at Adrian. Both of them were unnaturally calm, as if discussing a surgery rather than a life.

  He finally asked the most critical question: “How do you know I won’t be executed on the spot when I go back?”

  Thalia's gaze flickered briefly, as if a glimpse of humanity showed itself for a moment, only to be suppressed again.

  “Because Dreadspire is more afraid of you dying outside than you are.” She said, “If you die outside, it means someone can reach you, can shut you down, can make you go off the grid. Dreadspire won’t kill you right away; they will first drag you back, take you apart, find the flaws, fix them, and then put you back together.”

  She paused for a moment and added, as if reminding both him and herself: “They will first ‘repair’ you before they ‘deal’ with you.”

  Kieran's stomach felt like it was filled with ice water. This time it wasn’t a sense of morality or guilt; it was pure survival instinct screaming.

  He finally reached out and picked up the black ring. When the ring touched his palm, a strange coolness spread, as if he were holding a small piece of night in his hand.

  “Alright.” He said, his voice as flat as a knife’s edge, “I’ll go back. But I have conditions.”

  Thalia raised an eyebrow: “Speak.”

  “First,” Kieran stared at her, “you don’t touch Jasper, you don’t touch Ivy. No matter what Dreadspire does, you don’t use them. Aren’t you the forces of light? Don’t use innocent people as pawns.”

  Adrian's lips twitched slightly, as if he found this statement childish, but he didn’t laugh immediately.

  Thalia looked at him, silent for a moment. Her gaze seemed to weigh whether he was pleading or testing her limits.

  “Ivy is not our target,” she finally said, “and neither is Jasper. As long as they are not targeted by Dreadspire, nothing will happen.”

  Kieran coldly added, “Then make sure they are not targeted.”

  Thalia nodded, as if adding the matter to some list: “Alright.”

  “Second,” he continued, “tell me—was my father’s death caused by you?”

  The air instantly grew heavy.

  Adrian's expression darkened slightly, as if the blade had suddenly changed direction; Thalia, however, merely blinked, as if recalling some unremarkable file.

  She looked at Kieran, her tone flat: “It wasn’t us.”

  “Not you,” Kieran bit out the words, “then who?”

  Thalia was silent for two seconds before finally saying, “I don’t know. But I know Dreadspire knows.”

  This sentence is more lethal than any answer. Kieran's throat felt as if something was stuck in it—after his father's death, that case was buried under snow; if Dreadspire "knew," it meant that his father's death might never have been an accident, but rather a result that was tolerated, or even encouraged.

  It is used to make him more isolated and more dependent on the organization.

  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his voice was colder: "Third, after you get the data, you let me go."

  Thalia nodded: "Where to go?"

  "I haven't decided yet," Kieran said, "but I will decide for myself."

  Thalia looked at him for a long time, as if watching someone who had finally started to learn to walk, and then she said, "Okay."

  Thalia picked up a small injection pen from the table and tossed it to Kieran. "Before you go back, take this. It will disguise your 'blank period' as physiological fluctuations caused by a brief device reboot—heart rate, cortisol, pain signal. Dreadspire will think you experienced a regular attack or fainting and won't immediately determine that you are under enemy control."

  Kieran caught the injection pen and was silent for two seconds: "You really know Dreadspire well."

  Thalia said lightly, "Because we have lost too many people to them."

  She walked to the Caelora map on the wall and pointed to one of the spots: "You can't go home tonight. Your residence will soon be marked. We will arrange for you to recover the signal in a 'reasonable' place—an emergency room."

  Kieran frowned.

  “You will appear in the blind spot of the hospital's surveillance cameras,” Adrian continued, his tone steady, “and then the device will reset. If Dreadspire tracks you, it can only trace you back to the hospital. You can say you were robbed, fainted, or woke up here. This is the most common script.”

  “What happens next?” Kieran asked.

  Thalia looked at him: “After that, you return to your ‘normal life’ and wait for our next instructions. You need to regain Sabrina's trust to get close to the retroactive room.”

  Kieran chuckled softly, the humor dry and unsettling: “You want me to go back and act?”

  “You were already acting.” Thalia replied.

  That statement hit like a slap. Kieran tightened his grip on the injection pen, the heat in his palm suppressed. He knew he should refuse, resist, and eliminate these two as targets—but he also knew he couldn't. It wasn't a matter of ability; it was a matter of circumstance. He had no leverage now, only the value of being “used.”

  Moreover, he was even more aware: as long as he returned to Dreadspire, he could do more than just steal information—he could also protect Jasper and Ivy, at least for the time being.

  Adrian walked toward the door: “Let's go. It's time.”

  Kieran stood up, his legs still a bit numb. He held the injection pen and suddenly stopped in front of the door, turning back to look at Thalia: “You asked me earlier if I wanted to live or die. Now I want to ask you—what exactly do you want me to live as?”

  Thalia looked at him, a fleeting moment of fatigue appearing on her nine-year-old face, quick as an illusion.

  “Be yourself,” she said. “Not a tool of Dreadspire, nor our weapon. If you can't do that—then be the best version of yourself: be a mistake that will make Dreadspire afraid.”

  The door swung open, and the cold wind rushed in again.

  At the moment Kieran stepped out with them, the blank noise in his mind remained silent, but he knew—the real countdown had begun. Dreadspire would eventually discover that the "weapon" had once been held by someone else, and once it had been held, it could never return to its original flawless state.

  Thalia added at last, "Kieran, when you return to Dreadspire, you will see many things. You might remember who you were before you were calibrated, you might feel sick, you might be afraid." She paused, her tone suddenly becoming very light, "But don't hesitate in the retrospection room. The moment you hesitate, you die."

  Kieran looked up at her, "Are you concerned about me?"

  Thalia's expression didn't change; she simply replied, "I'm concerned about the mission."

  Kieran pulled the tab on the energy drink and took a sip. The sweetness rushed to his tongue, but he felt as if he had swallowed some kind of decision.

  He knew he was heading towards Dreadspire—towards Sabrina—towards that inverted deep well and crystal pillar.

  This time, he was not going to receive orders.

  He was going to steal the bones they used to control the world.