We left the laboratory through the freight lift.
On every floor, beasts marked with white lines attacked the nearest people. The creatures freed from the archive were torn between their old fear and the Crown's new command.
Styx asked the captains to sever the physical seals. The swarm worked in small groups: some distracted the beast, others found the collar, while a third group injected paralysing venom to give the person time to get clear.
We were saving both sides.
Kane activated the second pulse.
A white wave passed through the walls. The bonded beasts froze, then turned as one towards the tower. Kane could now see through their eyes and choose their targets.
A fire hound on the stairs let its master pass and sprang at Lily. Styx reached the collar in time. The seal cracked, and the hound fell between them, shielding the girl from the next beast with its body.
She had protected a human even after the bond was broken.
Kane had not allowed for a choice like that.
Leon and the Void Dragon kept the lift from collapsing. The beast could have escaped alone, but held the safe passage open until everyone else was out.
The third pulse was already gathering on the tower roof. Kane did not have enough energy for it, so he was tapping into the city hospitals, residential districts and defensive dome.
Unless we shut down the distributor, Skyfall City would be left without power or protection against the Wildlands.
Reports came in from the districts over the emergency channel. At one clinic, the healer beasts all stopped their procedures at once and turned towards the tower. One managed to stop when a patient grabbed its paw. Another broke the bond and ran into the street, leaving its patient on a manual support circuit.
At the freight terminal, the pack beasts threw off their platform. The workers held it with chains, but two of them were trapped under the wreckage. In the wealthy district, domestic predators were breaking down doors from the inside.
You could not call every beast a victim and every human a master. Some people tried to remove the collars. Some beat their animals and demanded obedience. The second pulse did not create cruelty. It gave cruelty a single direction and an excuse.
Lily broadcast a simple message: "If your beast still recognises you, don't give it an order. Show it the way out."
Sometimes it worked.
Sometimes it did not.
Cole suggested storming the roof.
"Not yet," Mira said. "The third pulse feeds on the panic caused by the first. The more beasts resist their masters, the stronger the outer circuit becomes."
"Then what do we do?"
Styx answered:
"Break the circuit."
We did not need to reach a single switch. We needed to sever thousands of smaller lines across the city.
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