Taboo Online

Red Hound’s order sent Thalen toward the leader’s right side while he circled left.

The branded leader lifted one shoulder.

Luke caught the intention.

"Behind him. Spine cable!"

Red Hound flashed the rear-danger signal.

A thick black line snapped away from the harness and swept toward them. Red Hound dropped beneath it while Thalen turned with the warning already understood.

The Rootkeeper reached the back of the harness and drove his ceramic cutter into the coupler beside the leader’s spine.

Black light burst from the connection.

The branded leader arched against his restraints.

At the same moment, the gate narrowed.

The figure on the other side pulled its hand back before the collapsing edge touched it.

"One connection down," the analyst reported.

Red Hound closed on the rib brace.

The leader turned toward him.

Truth Behind Motion caught the sudden intention to pull him closer.

"Don’t get near his chest!"

Red Hound stopped.

The warning came just in time.

The brace attached to the leader’s ribs tore outward, dragging two lengths of black cable with it. Both whipped across the chamber at waist height.

Red Hound jumped back.

One cable struck the ceramic guard along his forearm and turned him sideways, but it failed to penetrate.

Thalen went after the moving brace rather than the prisoner.

His cutter struck the joint once.

The second blow opened a crack.

The third separated the brace completely.

The branded leader sucked in a sharp breath as another section of the machinery went dark.

The silver-gray passage contracted farther. The figure beyond it now had to lean toward the opening to remain visible.

"Two contacts severed," the analyst said. "Only the marked hand remains."

Luke looked at the leader’s palm.

It remained pressed flat against the center of the frame. Black brands covered the man’s fingers and wrist, climbed his forearm, and continued across half his chest.

Cold tightened inside Luke’s right wrist.

The field medic immediately checked the monitor attached to his sleeve.

"Report."

"Cold at the wrist. Nothing above it."

"Any pull?"

"No."

That distinction mattered.

The dead residue was reacting to active Ruinborn current exactly as it had during the other operations. It was not guiding Luke toward anything, communicating with him, or trying to take control.

Lauren rested a hand against his left shoulder.

"Don’t let the sensation distract you."

"I’m not." The answer came too sharply, and Luke exhaled. "Sorry. I know what it is."

She left her hand where it was.

Inside the chamber, Red Hound studied the branded arm.

"If we remove his palm from the frame, the anchor breaks?"

"All remaining Earth-side current is entering through that contact," the analyst confirmed.

The branded leader laughed quietly.

"You should try."

Red Hound looked toward Thalen and gave the signals for marked arm, restrain, and alive.

The Rootkeeper moved first.

He caught the leader’s branded forearm with both hands.

Black lines flared across the skin.

Thalen’s ceramic guard absorbed the first pulse, but the force still drove him back half a step. The leader strained against the harness and tore his free hand out of one restraint.

Red Hound closed in.

The leader swung.

Luke saw the punch before the man fully committed to it.

"High right!"

Red Hound stepped inside the attack and caught him above the wrist.

Together, Red Hound and Thalen forced the branded arm away from its strongest position.

The harness shook violently.

Behind them, the passage widened again.

The faceless figure raised both hands toward the opening.

"Foreign response increasing," the analyst warned. "Break that contact now."

The branded leader planted one foot against the frame.

Luke watched the tension shift through his hips and shoulders.

For a second, the movement seemed wrong. The man was not bracing to fight harder.

He was preparing to run.

"He’s going to break contact and go for the gate."

Red Hound glanced toward Luke. "He wants through?"

"Yes."

Once Luke said it aloud, the choice made sense.

The leader had lost the Ashline stabilizers, the relay network uncovered during the hunt, his three elite allies, the captive workers, and every prepared route outside this chamber. If he could no longer maintain the passage from Earth, escaping through it was the only useful move left.

The branded leader ripped his marked palm from the frame.

Every remaining Earth-side brand dimmed at once.

The gate immediately began folding inward.

Silver-gray light buckled around the figure on the far side. It slammed both hands against the narrowing boundary, and the foreign pressure held the aperture together for one final heartbeat.

That was all the branded leader needed to try.

He lunged.

Thalen intercepted him.

The Rootkeeper drove one shoulder into his chest and turned both of them away from the collapsing passage.

Red Hound caught the branded arm before the palm could reach the frame again.

The leader fought hard enough to tear another restraint from the harness, but the effort he had spent maintaining the gate had already taken too much from him. His movements were slowing, and blood continued running from several connection points along his body.

Thalen forced him facedown against the platform.

Red Hound twisted the marked arm behind his back.

"Gauntlet."

A responder came through the doorway carrying the segmented ceramic restraint the Bureau had prepared for his hand.

The branded leader tried to close his fist.

Luke caught the intent.

"Hand!"

Red Hound flattened the palm against the floor before the fingers could form another pattern.

The responder locked the ceramic segments around the leader’s hand one after another, isolating every finger before sealing the wrist.

The moment the final section locked, the last resistance on Earth’s side disappeared.

Silver-gray light folded inward from every direction.

The tall figure lunged toward the shrinking passage.

Its branching fingers reached the boundary just before the opening became too small to hold them.

For one instant, the smooth darkness beneath its crown seemed to face directly toward Earth.

Then the gate snapped shut.

Nothing crossed.

The pale towers disappeared, the foreign light vanished, and the entire chamber fell into the ordinary darkness of a ruined underground furnace.

Only the smell of burned metal remained.

Luke waited for the familiar cold in his wrist.

It was gone.

Several seconds passed.

Nothing returned.

The medic checked the sleeve.

"The residue is still present."

Luke looked down at his hand. "I know."

"But there’s no active response."

Below them, Thalen kept the prisoner pinned until Red Hound finished locking another ceramic restraint around his free arm.

The branded leader turned his head enough to look toward Luke.

"You closed one door."

Luke was exhausted, and he had no interest in finding a clever answer.

"Yeah."

Red Hound tightened the final restraint.

"And you’re staying on this side of it."

The branded leader said nothing else.

For the first time since Lethariel, all four Ruinborn elites were alive and in custody.

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