Tạ Vọng and Vân burst out through the emergency exit on basement level B4 the exact moment the EMP pulse swept past. The air outside the tunnel was heavy and suffocating, thick with the acrid stench of scorched metal. Tạ Vọng froze in the middle of the narrow, shadowed alley, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Everything had unfolded too fast - so fast that even his war‑scarred mind still struggled to fully process the truth.

For three years, Thiên Di had been his "eyes." No matter where their mission took them, her voice - calm, occasionally edged with dry sarcasm - had always hummed in his ear over the comms.

Now that channel had fallen utterly silent. Nothing remained but the harsh static of interference.

Deep down, he already knew: she had triggered the self‑destruct sequence. Her final resort, meant to turn every piece of tech she carried into useless scrap.

Tạ Vọng lifted a hand to his ear, fingers tightening around the ruined earpiece. He called her call sign - once, twice, ten times - until his throat went raw. No reply. Only the wind whistling through the gaps between the towering skyscrapers.

Vân stood beside him, her hands trembling around the grip of her rifle. "Tạ Vọng, we have to move. The Black Tiger syndicate is rebooting their defenses. If we stay here, we die right alongside her."

He didn't glance at her. Instead, he tilted his head upward, staring toward the summit of the eighty‑story tower, now swallowed whole by darkness. His thoughts spiraled: What did I do? I drew up the plan. I promised no one would get left behind.

He clung to the hope that Thiên Di always had a backup, that she was already waiting safe at some pre‑arranged rally point. And all the while, self‑loathing coiled tight in his chest - for his own complacency, for letting her end up in that position.

It felt as though someone had severed one of his senses; the world around him warped, turning distant and alien.

"She never lets herself get cornered," Tạ Vọng whispered, his voice rough and hollow. "She did this to save us... but why did it have to be this way?"

He began replaying every detail of the mission in his head, and slowly the brutal truth dawned: Thiên Di hadn't been forced into a trap. She had walked into it by choice.

From the very start, she'd known the tower was a death‑trap. She had deliberately let Cerberus track her signal, drawing every last bit of enemy fire onto herself - all to clear an escape route for him and Vân.

Her sacrifice wasn't an accident. It was an extreme tactical decision. Respect and agony tangled sharply inside him. She had been far more than a teammate; she was the only person alive who truly understood the weight he carried. Losing her, Tạ Vọng realized just how alone he truly was in this fight.

Tears were a luxury no soldier could afford. He didn't weep. He only felt as if something heavy had been gouged out of his heart, leaving a cold, hollow void.

Without warning, he turned away from their planned escape route. His steps led him straight back toward the looming black silhouette of the tower.

He didn't need more intel anymore. He needed to find Thiên Di - whether it was her remains, or even just a trace she might have left behind.

"Scrap Route Bravo," Tạ Vọng ordered Vân, his tone flat and frigid. "We're going back. If she bet her life to buy us this chance, I won't let it be wasted. Every single one of them who touched her... will pay with their entire system."

Vân stared at him, stunned. In his eyes burned a feral, lethal fire she had never seen before. This was no longer the gaze of a commander trying to preserve his team. It was the look of a beast cornered, turning to hunt its hunters.

_____

Author's Note:
Grief didn't weaken Tạ Vọng. It forged him into something far more ruthless.

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Once the chaos of emotion settled into a terrifying stillness, Tạ Vọng ceased being a soldier who followed orders and stuck to blueprints. He became a storm, marching straight for its eye.

The eighty‑story tower stood in the city's heart like a steel‑and‑concrete corpse, a giant tombstone piercing the sky. Power had died completely after the EMP blast; only stray sparks occasionally spat from ruined outlets, briefly illuminating twisting ribbons of black smoke.

Tạ Vọng didn't even glance at the elevators - they were nothing but iron coffins now. He and Vân climbed upward along the external fire‑escape stairs, where metal plates had warped and melted from the heat, fused to cracked, crumbling concrete.

Every floor door, once secured by electronic locks, was now useless. Tạ Vọng fell back on the oldest, most brutal field skills: prying hinges loose, driving a crowbar into gaps until the metal screamed and gave way.

After clearing each floor, he paused for exactly three seconds. Not to catch his breath, but to listen. He hunted for anything - a faint electronic beep, a dying signal, or even just a lingering warmth in the stagnant air.

When they stepped onto the sixty‑fourth floor - where Thiên Di had made her final stand - the scene unfolded like a dead zone.

Central server racks smoldered, circuit boards melted into shapeless lumps. Her workspace was overturned: chairs toppled, monitors shattered into glittering dust. The fire‑exit door was bent outward, twisted and buckled from the sheer force of what had happened inside.

Tạ Vọng sank to his knees in the debris. His fingertips brushed against a charred fragment of plastic - all that remained of the communication wristband she never took off. He understood then: Thiên Di hadn't been trapped or overwhelmed. She had fought until her very last breath, and even taken the time to manually disable every camera in the building, denying the enemy any record of her end.

He was still tracing the fragment when Vân grabbed him hard, yanking him behind a concrete pillar. A thin red laser swept silently through the gloom. The Black Tiger syndicate had already sent in their Cleanup Crew - tasked with recovering or destroying every piece of sensitive hardware.

Tạ Vọng didn't retreat. He chose to strike first.

He used the tower's absolute darkness as his armor. No gunshots - sound traveled too easily, would give them away instantly. Only a military‑issue combat knife, and a body trained to move like a phantom between pillars and wreckage.

What followed was a symphony of vengeance. Tạ Vọng cut down every enemy soldier not for strategic gain, but to make them pay for every second of loneliness and pain Thiên Di had endured here.

Deep inside the ruined main control room, Tạ Vọng found what she had left behind. No note, no final message - just a startup sequence, buried deep within the supposedly fried backup systems.

He plugged his ruggedized field device directly into the central port.

Lines of code scrolled, resolving into a detailed map: every blind spot, weak point, and patrol route across the entire Black Tiger network within the city limits. In her final seconds, instead of saving herself, Thiên Di had run one last comprehensive scan - stripping her enemies bare.

He stared at the flickering screen, pale blue light painting his hard, unyielding features. He hadn't found her alive, but he had found her legacy.

_____

Tạ Vọng's vow:

He stood slowly, looking out over the city through the jagged remains of the window. "She is not gone," he told Vân, his voice eerily calm, stripped of all pain. "She has become part of this system. And from now on... this system is our weapon."

His infiltration mission had changed purpose entirely. He hadn't come back just to search for someone lost - he had come to accept the gift she had entrusted to him. The real war, he realized, was only just beginning.

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