The air inside the basement of the bureaucracy building grew heavy and suffocating. Dozens of high-caliber assault rifle barrels held by black-armored special forces locked straight onto Zulfa and Naya. The Aethel Corp special envoy—the sharply dressed man in the black suit with a silver serpent pin on his collar—stepped forward slowly, wearing a cold, triumphant smirk.

"You two are absolute pains in the neck, you know that?" the corporate envoy spoke casually, spreading his hands slightly. "Trashing the fifth floor, stealing physical archives, even base-jumping down an elevator shaft. But technical genius won't save you from this armor barricade. Put the red dossier and the cassette down on the floor, or your female partner dies in seconds."

Naya pressed her body against Zulfa's, her face bleached white. She hugged the red leather-bound document dossier tight to her chest, while her other hand gripped the fabric of Zulfa's jacket sleeve in a trembling death-grip. "Zul... what do we do? We're completely cornered," she panicked in a whisper.

Zulfa glared sharply at the envoy, his jaw locking tight. Tucked deep inside his jacket pocket rested his father's audio cassette tape. He knew full well that if the tape and dossier fell into corporate hands, their entire struggle and the truth behind his father's murder would be buried forever.

"Don't ever hand anything over to them, Naya," Zulfa whispered firmly right beside the girl's ear, his eyes remaining hyper-vigilant as he tracked the sniper positions ringing the perimeter.

"Good to know you still have the guts to whisper," the black-suited envoy mocked, waving a hand to signal the special forces squad. "Take them down if they—"

BARRRRR-GH!

Before the envoy could finish his sentence, a deafening, massive explosion violently shook the north side of the bureaucracy building. Thick glass walls and concrete basement support pillars shattered to dust in a heartbeat, showering the room with masonry debris and dense smoke.

Clink! Crash!

Before the special forces could process what was happening, a resistance-operated armored tactical vehicle burst through the ruptured basement wall at high speed, plowing through a row of parked official sedans and skidding to a halt right before Zulfa and Naya.

"Get in! Stop staring!" a fierce voice roared from behind the tactical vehicle's steering wheel.

Zulfa recognized that voice instantly. It was Captain Danu.

"Naya, get inside fast!" Zulfa ordered, shoving Naya toward the tactical vehicle's open side door.

"Damn losers! Shoot them! Don't let them escape!" the corporate envoy panicked, leaping backward while shielding his face from the settling dust.

Dozens of special forces troopers opened fire indiscriminately at Captain Danu's vehicle.

Bang! Bang! Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Heavy-caliber bullets whined through the air, slamming into the resistance vehicle's steel body with ringing impacts and carving deep dents. From inside the driver's cabin, Captain Danu returned fire with a long-barreled assault rifle, dropping several frontline troopers.

"Zulfa, catch my hand! Jump in here, fast!" Danu yelled from behind the bulletproof glass window of the armored cabin.

Zulfa scrambled after Naya, reaching out to grab Captain Danu's hand. Yet at that exact moment, a special forces commander hurled a high-frequency tactical stun grenade straight beneath the chassis of the armored vehicle.

"Stun grenade! Brace!" Danu shouted a warning.

BLAM!

A blinding white flash and an acoustic shockwave detonated violently right beside the vehicle. The blast was so powerful it lifted the side wheels of the armored truck into the air before—Thud!—it flipped sideways onto its roof, smashing against a concrete pillar and venting thick black smoke from its ruined engine block.

"Aghkh!" Zulfa groaned, thrown clear out of the vehicle door by the blast wave, landing hard against the glass-strewn concrete basement floor.

Inside the overturned cabin, Naya let out a stifled cry of pain while Captain Danu fought to kick open a jammed driver-side door.

"Captain! Naya!" Zulfa choked out weakly, struggling to push himself up.

Yet before his boots could take another step, a dozen black-armored special forces soldiers lunged forward. They seized Zulfa's arms and shoulders by force, slamming the youth back down to the floor and wrenching his arms behind his back in tight steel-cable cuffs.

"Argh... let go!" Zulfa grunted, fighting with all his might, but his strength was utterly outmatched by a dozen trained soldiers.

The Aethel Corp special envoy strolled over leisurely, halting right before Zulfa, who lay subdued and helpless on the basement floor pinned beneath the soldiers' knees. The envoy crouched down, gripping Zulfa's chin and forcing the youth to look up at him.

"A truly stellar drama," the envoy smiled cynically. "But at the end of the day, a rat is still a rat."

From inside the wrecked hull of the overturned tactical vehicle, Captain Danu finally kicked the jammed side door off its hinges. With a bloodied temple, Danu leveled his assault rifle straight at the corporate envoy's head.

"Let him go, or your head blows off this exact second!" Danu growled in fury, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Seeing Danu draw a weapon, dozens of special forces troopers immediately swung their rifle barrels toward Captain Danu and the wrecked vehicle, ready to shred Danu to pieces on a single command.

Zulfa, his face pressed against the cold concrete floor, glanced swiftly at Captain Danu and toward Naya peering anxiously from the busted car door—where the girl's hands still clutched the red dossier containing the council member list.

Zulfa knew full well that if Danu pulled the trigger now, this suicidal firefight would kill them all, and the documents and cassette tape would be lost.

With his remaining strength and a ragged breath, Zulfa screamed out a sentence that pierced the basement's chaos:

"CAPTAIN DANU, DON'T SHOOT! TAKE THE DOSSIER AND THE TAPE, RUN NOW!" Zulfa yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Zulfa—!" Naya shrieked hysterically from inside the wrecked car, her tears spilling over as she watched the youth sacrifice himself.

"Go, Captain! Save the documents!" Zulfa snapped, glaring sharply at Danu, before a BISF trooper brought a rifle butt crashing down onto Zulfa's shoulder, sending the youth coughing violently into unconsciousness as his body slumped against the dust-caked concrete.