Soulbound: Dual Cultivation

Chapter 552: Patricia

The moment Patrick forced his way into the inner section, the air changed.

It wasn’t just guarded space.

It was controlled suffering.

The structure was larger than expected, a converted storage block divided into long rows of reinforced rooms, ten on each side, their heavy doors locked with crude locking mechanisms, and what lay inside them made everything else they had seen in Rus feel restrained by comparison.

People.

Packed.

Not organized, not contained, but crammed together in numbers that made no sense for the space provided, bodies pressed against bodies in rooms that could barely hold a fraction of them comfortably, and yet over a hundred were forced into each one, their conditions stripped down to survival alone, no order, no dignity, only exhaustion, fear, and the hollow stillness of those who had stopped expecting anything better.

Patrick froze for a fraction of a second.

Not out of fear.

But recognition.

"This is where they keep them..." he muttered under his breath, his jaw tightening as his eyes moved rapidly from one room to another, searching, hoping, dreading.

The moment didn’t last.

Because the guards saw him.

There were about ten of them stationed within this section, positioned near the central corridor between the rows, and unlike the scattered patrols outside, these ones reacted instantly, their weapons already drawn as they surged toward him without hesitation.

Patrick moved first, stepping into them before they could fully surround him, striking one down with a fast, decisive blow to create space, but unlike the earlier encounters, this was not a situation he could control through speed alone, because the numbers closed in quickly, coordinated, pressing him from multiple angles, forcing him to defend rather than advance.

A strike came from his left.

He blocked it, countered, but another came from behind, forcing him to twist out of position as a third guard moved in from the front, their formation tightening around him with practiced efficiency, not elite, but enough to overwhelm someone fighting alone in confined space.

He drove one back, then another, but each movement cost him ground, and within seconds, he was no longer dictating the flow of the fight, he was reacting, adjusting, trying to prevent being pinned completely as the circle tightened.

One of them caught his arm.

Another went for his side.

Patrick broke free with force, but the delay cost him again as a blade grazed past his shoulder, not deep, but enough to disrupt his rhythm, and for the first time since they entered the compound, the situation slipped out of his control.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay standing as another wave pressed in, but it was clear now.

He could not take all ten.

Not like this.

Not fast enough.

The prisoners inside the rooms had begun to react, shifting, some standing, some pressing closer to the openings, their eyes wide as they watched the sudden violence erupt in the middle of their confinement, but none dared interfere, because they had seen what happened to those who tried.

Patrick deflected another strike, but his footing slipped slightly under pressure, and in that brief opening, two guards moved in at once, one aiming to restrain, the other to finish it.

Then the air behind them burned.

It wasn’t gradual.

It was immediate.

A surge of heat tore through the corridor, sharp and overwhelming, forcing the guards to break formation instinctively as flames erupted into the space with controlled violence, not wild, not reckless, but precise enough to avoid spreading into the rooms while still hitting its targets with devastating effect.

Lucas entered.

Not walking.

Advancing.

Fire moved with him, not engulfing everything blindly but striking in directed bursts that tore through the cluster of guards before they could recover from the sudden shift, one engulfed entirely before he could even turn, another thrown back as flames burst against his chest, the rest forced to scatter in panic as the confined space turned against them.

Patrick staggered back a step, catching his balance as the pressure around him vanished almost instantly, replaced by heat and the crackling aftermath of controlled destruction, and he looked up just in time to see Lucas step fully into the corridor, his expression focused, his movements already transitioning into the next sequence of attacks.

Within seconds, the fight was no longer a struggle.

It was a purge.

The remaining guards attempted to regroup, but the environment no longer favored them, every movement they made now exposed, every attempt to coordinate broken by the speed and precision of Lucas’s attacks as he cut through them one after another, leaving no time for resistance to rebuild.

Then it stopped.

Silence followed.

Broken only by the faint sound of fire dissipating and the uneven breathing of those still standing.

Patrick exhaled sharply, steadying himself as he looked around again, this time with clarity rather than shock.

The rooms.

The people.

The scale of it.

His eyes moved rapidly from face to face.

Searching.

Hoping.

Fearing.

"They’re here," he said, his voice lower now, but edged with urgency. "They have to be here."

Lucas didn’t respond immediately.

His gaze had already shifted to the rows of rooms, assessing not just what they saw, but what came next. Because the alarm had already been raised.

And this place, now that it had been exposed, would not remain unguarded for long.

The silence after the guards fell did not last even a moment, because the people inside the rooms had already begun to react, their voices rising all at once in a chaotic wave of desperation, hands reaching through gaps, bodies pressing toward the doors, pleas spilling out over one another as they realized that something had changed, that the ones holding them were no longer in control of the space.

"Open it!""Please, let us out!""We’ll die in here!"

The cries overlapped, raw and frantic, filling the corridor with a kind of noise that made thinking difficult, but Patrick was not listening to any of it as he moved from one door to another, his voice cutting through the chaos as he shouted names, again and again, louder each time, pushing past the desperation around him with something far more personal driving him forward.

"Patricia!""Mother!""Patricia, answer me!"

His voice cracked slightly under the strain, but he did not stop, his hands already reaching for the nearest door, forcing it open as bodies inside surged forward, people stumbling over themselves as they rushed out into the corridor, not waiting, not thinking, just reacting to the sudden chance at escape.

Lucas stood still for a moment in the middle of it all.

Not frozen.

Focused.

He closed his eyes briefly, shutting out the overwhelming flood of sound, the cries, the movement, the chaos that threatened to drown everything into noise, and instead he narrowed his attention, isolating, filtering, listening not to the loudest voices but to the faintest ones, the ones that struggled to be heard beneath everything else.

Breathing steady.

Mind clear.

Then he heard it.

Weak.

Strained.

But real.

A female voice, barely carrying through the noise, calling out a name that cut through everything else.

"...Patrick..."

Lucas’s eyes snapped open.

"There," he said immediately, turning toward one of the rooms further down the row. "That one."

Patrick didn’t question it.

He moved.

Crossing the distance in seconds, shoving aside those rushing past him as he reached the door and tore it open with force, the hinges protesting as it gave way, and the moment it did, more bodies surged forward, scrambling out into the corridor in a desperate rush for freedom.

Then he saw her.

"Patricia!"

She was weaker than he remembered, thinner, her face drawn from exhaustion, but it was her, unmistakable even in the state she was in, and for a moment everything else around him blurred as he reached her, catching her before she could collapse under the sudden movement. ƒгeewebnovёl.com

"Patrick..." she said again, her voice faint but filled with disbelief.

"I’m here," he said quickly, holding her steady. "You’re safe. I’ve got you."

She clung to him weakly, her strength barely enough to hold on, but she didn’t let go, and for that brief moment, the chaos around them didn’t matter.

Lucas didn’t interrupt.

But he didn’t relax either.

"Your mother," he said sharply, pulling Patrick back to the urgency of the situation.

Patrick nodded immediately, the moment grounding him again as he helped Patricia lean against the wall for a second, just enough to stabilize her before turning back toward the remaining rooms.

"I’m coming," he told her quickly. "Stay here. Don’t move."

There was no time to wait for a reply.

Behind them, the sound of reinforcements had already reached the compound, heavier footsteps, more organized, more dangerous, and this time they were not walking into confusion, they were coming in prepared.

Lucas didn’t hesitate.

If they were going to escape, they needed more than speed.

They needed chaos.

He moved quickly along the row of doors, his hands working through the locking mechanisms with force and precision, breaking them open one after another, not caring for subtlety anymore, only results, and as each door gave way, more prisoners flooded out, their fear turning into something sharper, something more desperate as they realized they were not just being released, they were being thrown into a moment of opportunity.

The corridor erupted.

Bodies surged forward in every direction, the confined structure unable to contain the sudden flood as people pushed past one another, some falling, some rising again, all moving with the same instinct.

Escape.

Then the guards arrived.

They came in force this time, pushing into the section with weapons drawn, expecting resistance, expecting control, but what they found was something else entirely, because the moment they entered, they were not facing a small group of intruders.

They were facing a crowd that had been broken, starved, and caged for too long.

And now released.

The first line of guards tried to form up, to contain, to push back, but they were overwhelmed almost instantly as the mass of prisoners collided with them, not organized, not trained, but driven by something far more dangerous, desperation and rage combined into raw force as they surged forward, grabbing, pushing, dragging the guards down under sheer numbers.

Weapons fell.

Formations broke.

Cries turned from command into panic.

Lucas stepped back slightly, watching it unfold with sharp awareness, not surprised, not hesitant, because this was exactly what he intended, the kind of disruption that no disciplined unit could easily recover from in confined space.

Patrick barely spared it a glance.

He was already moving again.

One hand steadying Patricia, the other pushing open the next door, his voice rising once more above the chaos.

"Mother!"