Filth caked Elias's boots as he dragged himself out of the drainage pipe. Wet mist clung to his dirty-blonde hair, mixing with the foul stench of the undercity sewers. Behind him, Jasper squeezed his massive frame through the rusted iron grate, swearing under his breath. Jasper grunted, wiping a streak of black grime from his forehead. "Remind me why we didn't just blast our way through the main gates?" "Because blasting things gets attention, and attention leads to overtime," Elias replied, his voice flat. "I am not pulling a double shift of running from the law today." Wet mist swirled around them as they stepped into a narrow, dead-end alleyway in the lower wards of the capital. The towering stone walls of the surrounding tenements blocked out most of the moonlight, leaving them in near-total darkness. Seven figures suddenly emerged from the dense fog, blocking both ends of the brick passage. They wore matte-black armor that absorbed the dim light, their faces entirely concealed behind featureless silver masks. No insignia decorated their heavy chest plates, but the lethal aura they radiated spoke louder than any badge. Cold iron clicked in the quiet night as they drew their weapons. Matte-black metal glinted as they raised dual-pronged short swords that looked more like massive, razor-sharp tuning forks than traditional blades. They spread out in a flawless tactical formation, cutting off every possible avenue of escape. "Executioners," Jasper growled, his massive fists clenching as his knuckles popped like firecrackers. "The High Arbiters really don't want us enjoying our weekend. I was looking forward to that premium dwarven stout, too." Silently, the lead executioner raised his weapon. He struck the flat of his blade against his steel gauntlet. A high-pitched, metallic ring echoed through the brick alley. Suddenly, the other six executioners struck their blades in perfect unison. The sound intensified instantly, transforming from a simple ring into a grinding, heavy vibration that seemed to rattle the very fillings in Elias's teeth. It felt like a physical weight pressing down on the air itself. Inside his chest, Elias's S-tier Light soul brand flared with agonizing heat. He gasped, clutching his chest as a wave of nausea washed over him, his vision swimming with golden static. "Ugh!" Jasper gasped, dropping to one knee as his S-tier Dark soul brand burned pitch-black against his collarbone. "What the hell is this? My mana... it's locking up!" Elias tried to summon a standard light blade, but his magic fizzled out like a dying lightbulb. The golden particles dissolved into nothingness before they could even form. The warm, radiant energy that usually flowed effortlessly through his veins felt completely frozen. "They've mapped our frequencies," Elias hissed, his jaw tight as he forced himself to stand straight despite the pounding headache. "Every soul brand has a unique energetic resonance. They are vibrating their weapons at the exact frequency of our magic to neutralize it from the inside out." "You're telling me we're out of gas?" Jasper spat, struggling back to his feet, his muscles trembling from the strain. "Worse," Elias said, dodging a sudden, silent lunge from the nearest executioner. "We're back to being ordinary mortals. No gravity manipulation, no light speed. We're just two guys in an alley." Steel whistled through the damp air, barely missing Elias's nose. He threw himself backward, his back hitting the wet brick wall. Without his S-tier physical enhancement, his reflexes felt sluggish, heavy, and terrifyingly human. Another blade sliced toward his throat with mechanical precision. Elias ducked, his heart hammering against his ribs. He grabbed the executioner's wrist, using the man's own momentum to slam his helmeted head against the brick wall. A sickening crunch echoed, but the executioner didn't even flinch, simply spinning to sweep Elias's legs. Jasper roared, throwing his massive body into the fray. He tackled two of the executioners at once, his sheer weight sending them crashing into a pile of wooden crates. Splinters exploded into the air as they hit the ground. "No magic, no problem!" Jasper yelled, his fist connecting with an executioner's jaw with a dull, fleshy thud. "I've been dealing with heavy lifting my whole damn life!" Despite his impressive strength, the lack of his gravity-manipulation magic made Jasper slower. An executioner slipped behind him, driving a armored knee directly into Jasper's kidney. Jasper groaned, stumbling forward as pain flared up his spine. "Behind you!" Elias yelled, rolling out of the way of another downward slash. He grabbed a broken wooden plank from the shattered crates and swung it hard, shattering it over the attacker's helmet. Heavy wooden fragments rained down, but the executioner barely wavered, raising his blade to strike again. Mindless, highly-optimized machines—that was what these guys were. They didn't feel pain, they didn't hesitate, and they didn't make mistakes. They just kept swinging their vibrating blades, maintaining the harmonic dampening field that kept Elias and Jasper's god-tier magic locked away. "We're getting systematically dismantled," Elias analyzed, ducking under a horizontal swing that shaved off a few strands of his dirty-blonde hair. "They are operating on a perfect defensive loop. If we don't break that frequency, we're dead." "How do we break it?" Jasper asked, blocking a coming blade with his bare forearms. The steel sliced open his skin, and red blood dripped onto the muddy cobblestones. "Leader," Elias said, pointing his chin toward the figure standing at the back of the alley, who was constantly striking a larger tuning-fork blade to maintain the core vibration. "He's the anchor. We take him down, the field collapses." "He's too far back," Jasper grunted, throwing a wild right hook that sent one executioner spinning, but another immediately took his place. "They're boxing us in. I can't get a clear run at him without getting skewered." "Then we use the old corporate launchpad protocol," Elias said, a grim smirk touching his lips despite the sweat stinging his eyes. "Are you serious?" Jasper laughed, though it sounded more like a growl. "That was for skipping out of the office through the second-story window!" "It worked then, and it will work now," Elias snapped. "Get ready!" Elias planted his feet firmly into the mud, bending his knees and interlocking his fingers to form a stirrup. He braced his shoulders, locking his joints to prepare for the massive impact. Jasper didn't hesitate. He trusted Elias with his life—they had survived five years of grueling corporate exploitation together on Earth, and they weren't about to die in some godforsaken alleyway now. Three executioners lunged at Elias, their blades humming with lethal, magic-canceling energy. "Now!" Elias screamed. Jasper took three massive, thundering steps forward, the cobblestones cracking under his weight. He slammed his heavy boot directly into Elias's cupped hands. With a guttural roar, Elias channeled every ounce of his physical strength, lifting upward with his legs and back in a perfect, explosive motion. He launched Jasper into the air like a human cannonball. Jasper soared over the heads of the front-line executioners, his massive frame cutting through the wet fog. Directly ahead of him, the leader of the executioners raised his vibrating blade, trying to adjust his stance to block the incoming projectile. Too late. Jasper extended both of his massive legs forward, locking his knees. Metal buckled with a horrific screech as Jasper delivered a devastating, dual-booted dropkick straight into the leader's chest. Shattered ribs and cracked armor exploded outward as the leader was sent flying backward, crashing through a heavy wooden door and into the dark interior of an abandoned warehouse. High-pitched ringing instantly stopped as the master tuning-fork blade shattered against the stone floor. Instantly, the heavy dampening field dissolved into nothingness. Elias felt the S-tier Light magic rush back into his veins like liquid fire. His soul brand glowed with blinding, brilliant gold, illuminating the dark alleyway like a miniature sun. "My turn," Elias whispered. Blinding white energy exploded from his palms, creating a shockwave of pure light that instantly vaporized the weapons of the remaining executioners and sent them crashing to the ground, unconscious. Jasper stood up in the ruins of the warehouse doorway, cracking his neck. The S-tier Dark magic swirled around him in lazy, gravity-defying black wisps, crushing the debris around his boots into fine dust. "That felt good," Jasper grunted, shaking out his bruised, bloody fists. "Really good." Elias walked into the shattered warehouse, his hand glowing with a soft, guiding light to dispel the darkness. He kept his guard up, his eyes scanning the debris. Bleeding and groaning, the leader of the executioners lay amidst the splinters of the broken door. His silver mask had cracked down the middle, half of it peeling away to reveal the skin underneath. "Let's see who's behind this corporate hit job," Jasper muttered, stepping up beside Elias. Elias reached down, grabbing the edge of the broken silver mask. Golden illumination from Elias's hand shone directly onto the leader's face. Elias froze, his heart stopping for a terrifying second. Looking closely, he realized the man lying there was not a native of the 5 Heavenly Realms. Thinning, greased-back hair, wire-rimmed glasses resting askew on his nose, and the exact, soul-crushing sneer that had haunted Elias's nightmares for a decade on Earth stared back at them. It was Mr. Henderson. As the leader's mask falls off, Elias gasps in horror as he recognizes the face of his former corporate manager from Earth, smiling with a twisted, hollow grin.

Chapter 20: The Sound of Your Soul