Chapter 172: The City Wants Them Dead

The Ashcroft Family had barely finished securing the district when another wave of screams rolled through the streets.

Reinhard stood beside the broken window of the shopping complex, watching smoke rise above the rooftops as gunfire and collapsing buildings echoed through Marvello. Their immediate surroundings were safe for now, but the rest of the city was descending into chaos by the second.

Emily stepped beside him. "We should keep moving. There are still people out there."

"I agree," Reinhard replied, turning toward the others. "But we’re not leaving everyone here unprotected. We’ll move the civilians toward the western shelter first, then continue toward the center."

Maki glanced at the hundreds of people gathered inside the complex. "If the western shelter is still standing."

Reinhard gave her a small smile. "There’s only one way to find out."

Lily pushed herself away from the bench where she had been resting. "Then let’s go before another building decides to fall on us."

They began guiding the civilians through the streets, keeping the group together as much as possible. Some people were injured, others carried children, and several were too frightened to understand what was happening around them. Reinhard stayed near the front while Yuna watched the rear, Maki monitored the surrounding structures, and Lily moved between the civilians to ensure nobody became separated.

They had barely reached the next intersection when a woman suddenly pointed toward Emily.

"That’s her!"

Emily stopped as the woman’s expression changed from confusion to recognition.

"That’s the Ruler!"

Several heads turned at once. Within seconds, more voices joined the accusation.

"She caused this!"

"She brought the Black Moon!"

"She awakened too quickly!"

"She’s the reason Marvello is dying!"

The murmurs quickly became shouting as more people recognized Emily.

"Kill her!"

Reinhard stepped closer to Emily, his expression changing. "Well, this is becoming unpleasant."

Lily looked at him in disbelief. "That’s your response?"

"I was beginning to wonder when someone would blame us."

"They’re trying to kill us."

"I noticed."

Another voice rose above the crowd. "Don’t let Reinhard Ashcroft escape either!"

Reinhard raised an eyebrow. "Oh. They remembered me."

Lily stared at him. "You’re actually happy about that?"

"I would have felt ignored otherwise."

Maki’s lips twitched, although she quickly hid her amusement behind her hand.

The crowd surged forward before anyone could say anything else. Several civilians carried metal pipes and knives, while others wielded broken furniture. A few had obtained ordinary firearms. Those weapons posed little threat to Awakeners like Reinhard, Emily, or Yuna, but their bullets could still kill the ordinary people caught between the attackers and their targets.

A gunshot cracked through the street.

Reinhard’s perception immediately caught its trajectory. He stepped sideways, allowing the bullet to pass between his fingers before flicking it away. Another shot came from farther back, but Maki created a spatial barrier that redirected it into the pavement.

"Everyone stay behind us," Reinhard ordered as he moved forward.

Yuna expanded her Mana Domain across the intersection, saturating the surrounding area with Mana and making it harder for the charging civilians to advance. The delay gave the Ashcrofts enough time to protect the injured people behind them.

"Everyone, stop!" Yuna shouted. "We’re trying to help you!"

A man swung a metal pipe at her anyway. Yuna caught the weapon with one hand and pushed him backward with controlled Mana.

"Stay away from my family!" he shouted.

"We aren’t here to hurt them," Yuna replied.

He raised the pipe again, but Yuna released it and stepped aside rather than retaliating.

Meanwhile, Lily rushed toward a family hiding beside an overturned vehicle. "Come on, there’s a building over there. Get inside before someone gets hurt."

The mother pulled her child closer and stared at Lily suspiciously. "Are you going to take him?"

Lily froze before lowering her hands. "What? No. I’m trying to save you."

"You’re lying!"

"I’m literally standing here trying to save you!"

The woman backed away, so Lily took a slow breath and changed her approach. "Okay, look at me. I’m not going to touch you, and I’m not going to take your child. Just follow me when you’re ready."

The mother remained frozen for several seconds before finally taking her daughter’s hand and following Lily toward the building.

Reinhard watched the interaction while keeping his perception spread across the surrounding area. The civilians weren’t mindless creatures. They were frightened, suspicious, angry, protective, and desperate, but their emotions had become distorted enough to turn ordinary decisions into dangerous ones.

He finally understood why the Black Moon was so dangerous.

It didn’t need to control people. It only needed to make them trust their worst instincts.

The Ashcrofts pushed deeper into the city, encountering the same pattern wherever they went. People accused strangers of attacking them, families barricaded themselves inside buildings, and civilians fought over supplies while others desperately searched for missing relatives. Gunfire occasionally cut through the streets, forcing the family to protect ordinary people from weapons that couldn’t harm the Awakeners themselves.

"Roof," Reinhard suddenly warned.

Emily looked up just as a man raised a firearm from the second floor of a damaged building. She lifted one hand and distorted the space around the weapon, turning its barrel harmlessly toward the sky.

"Right building," Reinhard continued.

Maki reacted immediately, creating a spatial barrier as a relic projectile burst through a shattered window.

"Behind you."

Yuna turned and intercepted an incoming attack with her Mana Domain before it could reach a group of civilians.

"Lily, move."

Lily jumped aside as a burning vehicle crashed through the intersection where she had been standing moments earlier.

Once the vehicle stopped, she stared at Reinhard. "You’re getting really useful."

Reinhard smiled. "I’ve always been useful."

"That wasn’t a compliment."

"I chose to take it as one."

Emily shook her head, although she couldn’t completely hide her smile.

For several minutes, Reinhard’s Advanced Mana Perception made the difference between disaster and survival. He could detect Mana gathering inside buildings before abilities were released, sense civilians preparing to fire weapons, notice unstable structures before they collapsed, and identify crowds beginning to surge before they reached the family.

"Three people inside that store," he said.

Maki changed their route and guided the civilians around the building.

"Two on the roof."

Emily moved before the attackers could fire.

"Mana gathering ahead."

Yuna redirected her Domain.

"Lily, right side."

Lily pulled two children away from the street just before a section of damaged wall collapsed.

The family moved almost seamlessly through the chaos. Reinhard warned them before danger arrived, and they had learned to trust those warnings without hesitation.

But as they moved deeper into Marvello, his perception began revealing a problem that even he couldn’t solve.

Thirty hostile Mana signatures became seventy, then more than a hundred, and finally over two hundred. Every building contained disturbances. Every street had people running, fighting, hiding, or preparing to attack someone. A Mana fluctuation appeared on one side of his perception while a collapsing structure threatened civilians on another, followed by gunfire from a third direction and a crowd surging from a fourth.

Reinhard’s expression grew serious.

His ability wasn’t failing. It was simply showing him too much.

He could detect the danger, but there were too many dangers for one person to answer them all.

"Reinhard?" Emily asked.

He remained quiet for a moment before looking toward his family. "I can’t cover the entire city."

Emily studied him, but before she could answer, his expression softened.

"But I don’t need to."

He raised his voice and began giving orders. "Yuna, take the eastern street and keep civilians away from the fighting. Maki, block the intersections and give them a safe route forward. Lily, get anyone trapped in the buildings out of the combat zones."

They immediately responded.

"Got it," Yuna answered, turning toward the eastern street.

"Already moving," Maki replied as she created a series of spatial barriers.

Lily pointed toward a nearby building. "I’ll handle the civilians."

Reinhard looked at Emily. "Stay with me."

She smiled faintly. "I wasn’t planning on leaving you."

The family separated, each taking responsibility for a different part of the rescue.

Yuna moved through the eastern street, using her Mana Domain to slow two groups of civilians before they could collide. Both groups were shouting accusations, and several people had already raised weapons.

She planted her feet and extended her hand, forcing the people holding weapons to lower their arms. She then controlled their movements, slowing those rushing forward without injuring them.

"Stop moving!" she shouted. "Look around you! You’re not fighting monsters. You’re fighting people who are just as frightened as you are!"

A man ignored her and charged with a raised pipe. Yuna redirected his momentum, making him stumble past her, then caught him before he struck the ground. When another person threw a metal object at her, she pulled it away with electromagnetic force and sent it skidding down an empty alley.

She continued separating the most aggressive people, giving everyone else room to retreat without feeling cornered.

Maki reached an intersection where a damaged building threatened to collapse across an evacuation route. She placed reinforcement seals on its supporting pillars, stabilizing the structure long enough for civilians to pass. She then secured the road barriers so the fleeing crowd couldn’t accidentally push them into the street.

Lily gathered frightened civilians and guided them toward an intact building. Her spectral swords intercepted loose debris and deflected attacks from nearby Awakeners, but she kept them away from anyone who wasn’t actively threatening the group.

Emily remained beside Reinhard, using Aeon carefully whenever an attack threatened civilians. When several Awakeners blocked their path, she distorted the space around their weapons, making their strikes miss, while Reinhard used Spatial Pull to separate the most dangerous attackers from the crowd.

For the first time, Reinhard wasn’t personally solving every problem. He was trusting the people around him to handle them, and they did.

Eventually, the family reached another district that was still relatively intact. A large group of civilians had gathered inside a reinforced shopping complex, and the Ashcrofts immediately began securing the building. Maki sealed several entrances, Yuna stabilized the surrounding streets, and Lily helped move injured people toward the safest interior rooms.

Emily knelt beside a little girl whose arm had been scraped by broken glass. She gently cleaned the wound before smiling at her. "Does it hurt?"

The girl nodded.

"Then you’re going to have to be brave for a few seconds."

The girl looked at her curiously. "Are you really the Ruler?"

Emily smiled. "Yes."

"Are you going to save us?"

Emily glanced toward the broken windows and the burning city beyond them before looking back at the girl. "We’re going to try."

The girl smiled.

For the first time in several minutes, the Ashcrofts could breathe.

Lily dropped onto a nearby bench and rubbed her legs. "We actually did it."

Maki looked around the building before nodding. "This district is secure for now."

Yuna glanced toward the streets outside. "There are no immediate threats."

Emily stood and looked at the civilians gathered around them. Families were together, injured people were receiving treatment, and children were no longer running through the streets alone.

She smiled softly. "We saved them."

Reinhard looked at her and nodded. "Yes, we did."

Then an explosion shook the city.

Everyone turned toward the windows as a tower of flames rose several streets away. Before the smoke could settle, another explosion followed, then another. Reinhard’s perception expanded toward the disturbances, immediately revealing new Mana signatures.

Lily slowly stood. "But we just stabilized this area."

Reinhard didn’t answer.

A building collapsed in the distance, and another caught fire. Somewhere beyond the surrounding buildings, a powerful Awakener released an attack, followed by several more Mana signatures appearing around the battlefield.

Emily stared at the destruction. "We can’t get there in time."

Reinhard looked across Marvello.

They had saved one district, but another had already fallen into chaos. Then another.

The Black Moon above them seemed larger than when they had first arrived, its dark presence spreading farther across the sky as more fires appeared beneath it.

Reinhard’s expression hardened. They were rescuing people, but the disaster was spreading faster than they could move.

For the first time since entering Marvello, he stopped looking at the people directly in front of him and considered the city as a whole.

His voice was quiet when he finally spoke. "We’re losing ground."

Above them, the Black Moon remained silent. Then its surface shifted.

Reinhard noticed it first. The darkness above Marvello rippled, as if something had moved behind its surface.

Emily followed his gaze. "Reinhard..."

He stared upward. A thin crack had appeared across the Black Moon.

"That wasn’t there before."

The crack slowly widened, and something dark began to seep through it. At first, it looked like smoke. Then Reinhard’s expression changed.

It wasn’t smoke.

Something was leaking out of the Black Moon.