Loop Nexus, Lakefront metropolis
Terra, Gaea Solar system
Neutral Free Zone
January 14th 219
The pain dragged her back into consciousness.
Emily's left ear rang with a shrill, needling whine—an agonizing trill that meant her eardrum had ruptured. It would take time to repair itself, time she no longer had. Dust hung thick in the air, drifting like ash in the aftermath of violence. The containment pods around her flickered in and out of view through the haze, warped and distorted by the heatwaves rising from fractured floor panels.
She tried to shift her weight, but agony surged like wildfire through her nerves, anchoring her in place. Her eyes dropped to her abdomen. A blade—translucent and humming with coalesced blue Mana—had skewered her clean through. And worse, the ceiling above had partially collapsed, burying her legs in a tangle of broken stone and metal that pressed with merciless weight against her hips.
Instinctively, her hand reached for the sword, but the moment her fingers grazed it, her nerves screamed. The weapon pulsed with a will of its own—cold, resolute, and defiant—repelling her touch as if it scorned her weakness. Blood pooled beneath her, a dark halo that stretched out with creeping finality, spreading like a shadow claiming the light. She could feel her strength leaking away, second by precious second, her limbs trembling and numb, her body still reeling from the electric blast that had paralyzed her earlier.
She knew the cost of inaction. If she didn't remove the blade, her regeneration would never initiate. And if her body didn't begin to heal… then she would die. Not immediately—but close enough.
Teeth clenched, she fought the spiral of panic worming through her chest. Regret surged with bitter heat. She should have trusted her instincts. They had screamed at her to strike—kill first, ask later. No mercy. No hesitation. But she had faltered, wanting answers. For Leon. Always for him.
Dammit, Leon.
Her breath hitched as her vision began to blur at the edges, a halo of darkness slowly tightening its grip. She was slipping. Fast. Her heart thundered, her will roared—but her body was a crumbling ruin.
She had to act. Now. Move. Do something. A snarl curled her lips, more defiant than desperate. Where the hell was Leon? Had he even noticed she was missing? Had her attacker been a member of the Fallen Star? The thought twisted in her gut—but before it could take form, a violent cough wracked her body.
Blood splattered from her mouth, staining her chin and pooling along her collarbone. The pain was different now. Not just sharp—but foreign. Twisted. It scraped at her insides like broken glass, wrong in a way she couldn't name.
It had been years since she'd truly felt pain. Her inner wards—meticulous constructs etched into her psyche to numb her to suffering—had collapsed. She didn't know how. She didn't understand how. But now the floodgates were open, and she was drowning in sensations she had long since forgotten. Raw, searing, relentless.
Another flare of agony arched her spine, and a broken breath tore from her lungs. Her thoughts spiraled back to Leon. If she could just reach him—if she could just call him—
Before the dark took her completely…
Emily wasn't afraid to die.
Paladins were taught to meet death with dignity, to stare into its eyes without flinching. But for her, it had never just been about training—it was faith. She believed in Irkalla, in the veil beyond, and the quiet stillness that awaited. She had made peace with the inevitability.
But not now. Not yet.
Her gaze drifted downward to the pendant resting against her chest—a modest charm etched with Irkalla's sigil. Its glow flickered erratically, like a dying star gasping against the darkness. A whisper of something colder than air brushed her skin, coiling along her spine. Death was here. She could feel it. Waiting. Watching.
Still, even as it loomed closer, Emily Legens held tight to her mask—composed, aloof, unshaken. That was who she was trained to be. That was who she needed to be.
But inside, her soul howled.
"Fuck… Leon." The name slipped from her lips, fragile and wet with pain. "Leon, help me…"
Her voice was barely more than breath, trembling as the edges of her world began to blur, her vision breaking apart like shattered glass.
****
When Leon was younger, his mother would bring him to Planet Terra. It was more than a destination—it was home for her. A cradle of memory. She had been born there, raised among its fractured skies and stubborn soils, and she wanted her son to understand what that meant. They visited often during the summers, when Terra's sunlight softened the world into something almost gentle.
She would take him back to her hometown with the quiet pride of someone bringing a piece of herself to light. Terra was different. Different in ways Leon hadn't known how to articulate as a child. Across the Neutral Zone and the Federation's border-worlds, humanity lived entwined with the Odyllic—the lifeblood of the cosmos. Cultivation was familiar, ever-present. The arcane and Mystical force were mundane.
But not on Terra.
There, the Odyllic was a forgotten myth. The world was severed from the pulse of the supernatural. To a child like Leon, it was as though they'd stepped sideways into a dreamscape where something vital had been silenced. Terra felt hollow in its absence. Raw. Human in a way that unsettled him.
Still, the memories endured. His mother would guide him through the bustling streets, the dazzling lights of Broadway illuminating the nights like stars pressed against the ground. They wandered through museums that held no magic, only echoes of human hands, and afterward, they would sit in the shade of old trees and eat ice cream that melted far too quickly. Leon had cherished those moments—not for the places, but for her.
At the park, he'd watch other families laugh, children climbing on statues, parents chasing toddlers with mock outrage. The air would hum with their joy. He would stare, feeling a heat coil in his chest—not warmth, but something thorned and buried deep. He didn't understand it then. But as he grew older, he recognized that ache: it was longing. Envy. Anger. A resentment he didn't want to name. Only his mother's presence could soothe it. When he turned to look at her, she would smile—and just like that, the feeling would vanish, dissolved like fog in sunlight. But he always noticed it. The way her smile never reached her eyes. That quiet sadness, etched beneath the surface. A grief she never spoke of. One she carried alone.
Leon had always hated that look in her eyes. That quiet sadness. It haunted him more than he ever let on—knowing his mother carried a pain he couldn't reach, a sorrow he couldn't ease. And back then, he'd been powerless. Just a kid. A brat who could barely tie his boots, let alone shoulder someone else's burdens. But her silence had etched itself into him. It stayed there, gnawing at the edges of his happiness like rust beneath polished steel.
After his acceptance into the Ascendant Academy, the Terra trips stopped. He buried himself in training, in rigorous study, in the relentless climb toward perfection. He'd be the best of the best—the pride of the Paladins. Not because he craved glory, but because it gave him purpose. Control. Maybe, in some distant way, he thought if he became strong enough, he'd never have to feel helpless again. He did rise. He did excel. But none of that mattered now.
Because now, he was back on Terra—and Emily was dying. Her mental call had seared into his mind like a whisper made of fire, a faint but undeniable cry laced with her essence. He had dropped everything. Without pause, he deployed his Zodiak—the compact, star-forged device already syncing with her last known imprint.
The coordinates led to a masonry field house on Terra's outskirts. The building didn't exist on any registry. Leon had hacked into the local Terran datanet, expecting blueprints, tenant logs, something—but found nothing. Just a digital void, as though the place had been scrubbed clean or never existed to begin with.
That was the first sign something was wrong. As he approached, he extended his awareness. Emily's Mana signature flickered at the edge of his senses—faint, fragmented. Dimming by the second. That could only mean one thing. Time was running out.
"Emily..." Leon hissed under his breath, his voice tight, the edges fraying into a curse.
He didn't wait. He kicked through the door and swept inside, instincts driving him like a storm through the shadowed halls. The building stank of decay. The air was thick, fouled by the iron sting of blood and something deeper—rotting, chemical, wrong. It clawed at his nose and throat, clung to his skin. Blood splashed the walls, stained the cracked floors, but there were no bodies. No movement. Just silence.
Something had happened here. Something brutal. But he couldn't stop to investigate—not now. All that mattered was reaching her. The trail led him deeper into the building, to a collapsed chamber where the stench was suffocating, the air heavy with copper and ash. The ceiling was shattered—someone had fallen through. Power still buzzed in the room like ghost-static, crackling along the edges of his awareness. Pods, scorched and broken, lay scattered like twisted sarcophagi.
And there—at the heart of the ruin—was Emily. She lay broken beneath jagged debris, her lower body crushed beneath fallen masonry. But that wasn't what made Leon's breath catch, what made his heart lurch against his ribs. It was the blade. A sword of cerulean Mana pierced clean through her torso, glowing with malignant life. Energy surged along its length, pulsing with a cruel rhythm as it fed shock after shock into her limp form. She convulsed weakly beneath its grip.
Leon didn't think. Didn't speak. He moved.
Leon froze. The blood beneath Emily shimmered—then began to flow backward, inching toward her in slow, broken streams. But it wasn't enough. Most of it stayed on the floor. She was too weak.
"Emily… what in Irkalla's name happened here?" he muttered, forcing himself to move. He dropped to her side. Her lips parted—only blood came out.
"Don't talk," he said, eyes scanning her injuries. Then he grabbed the Mana blade.
It fought back—its will lashed out, electricity biting into his palm. He gritted his teeth and pushed through. Emily writhed beneath his hand, her glare meeting his. She wanted him to pull it.
"Damn it, Emily…"
With one brutal yank, Leon tore the blade free. Her body arched, a choked scream spilling from her bloodied lips. The sword dissolved into light—its pattern locked in Leon's mind. Blood poured from the open wound. Leon clamped his hand over it, pressing hard.
"Stay with me," he said, voice like stone.
"How… did you find me?" Emily rasped.
"You called for me."
He summoned golden light to his hand. It surged into her flesh, cauterizing the wound with a hiss. Emily clenched her jaw, trembling, but made no sound. When the burn faded, she sank back, pale and shaking. Leon cleared the rubble pinning her down. The bleeding had stopped, but she was drained. Her healing would take sometime. Then she met his gaze.
"I didn't call you. I don't even have my Zodiak."
"It wasn't from your Zodiak," Leon said. "It came from your mind."
Confusion flickered across her face. She hadn't meant to reach out—she'd done it instinctively, without knowing. Leon's jaw tightened. She was that close to death.
His eyes swept the room. "So. This the intel you pulled from the Erlking's memories?"
Emily nodded weakly. No explanation. No apology.
"I thought I'd check it out before—"
"Before I got involved," he finished, his tone sharper than intended. He helped her sit up, his mind flashing back to the mission that had cost them everything. She was only here because of me. Because she still had his back. And yet, he couldn't shake the anger. Or the fear.
"This was reckless," he said quietly. But his grip never loosened.
"Vuelo's intel was right," Leon muttered bitterly, cursing the old hag under his breath.
"What happened here?" he asked, glancing around the ruined lab. "To you? To this place?"
Emily gave a clipped recount of the Erlking's intel, her arrival, and the ambush.
"Necromancy," Leon spat. The word felt foul in his mouth. It was one thing for the Dark Sidhes to dabble in Infernal magic—but this? Necromancy inside a Divine Federation facility? It was a direct violation of Federation law. And then there was the matter of Terra.
"Did you see anything linked to Vishan Priyham?" he asked, eyes sharp.
"No. And I still don't understand how the Erlking ties into all this," Emily said, frustration tightening her voice. "Why would a Beastman from the Hidden World be connected to the Federation?"
Once Emily regained her footing, she led Leon to the basement, explaining how the attack had unfolded. But the room below was empty—just rusted lab gear and a cracked containment pod.
"Pocket Spaces can move," Leon murmured, examining the mess. "This one's portable. They took it with them."
"Maybe," Emily muttered, unconvinced. She brought him back upstairs, pointing to a console. "Ginny hacked the mainframe and downloaded what she could. She's still breaking the encryption. Whatever the Federation's hiding—whatever the Erlking's angle is—it's in there." She handed him an orb, cold to the touch.
"Cold as Irkalla, right?" she said.
Leon nodded, frowning. Vuelo or Ginny—who really knows what's going on with Vishan Priyham?
"Shit," Emily whispered, eyes locking on the floor.
Leon followed her gaze. Wedged in a crack was a white crystal shard, glowing faintly as it drew Od from the air. Then he saw the runes—celestial script slowly ticking down.
Emily's voice was low but urgent. "We need to leave. Now."
Time slowed.
A dreadful certainty clenched in Leon's chest as instinct and intuition collided—something far worse was coming. Without a second thought, he seized Emily and triggered his Flash Warp. A surge of golden light erupted around them, bending the air with its radiance. In the blink of an eye, they launched from the building like a cannonball tearing through the veil of space.
The instant they breached the outer wall, the facility behind them exploded. The sound followed half a second later, swallowed by the roar of flames surging outward in a hellish tide. Fire twisted into the sky, a cyclone of heat and fury devouring the structure with indiscriminate wrath.
But Leon was faster. Faster than sound. Faster than the fire. He cradled Emily against his chest, body wrapped around hers as they careened through the air and crashed into the distant grass. They hit hard, tumbling in a blur of limbs and impact. Dirt and debris kicked up around them as they rolled to a stop, breathless and tangled together.
"That was way too close," Leon panted, grinning despite himself. "Pretty sure I just broke my top speed."
"You don't say." Emily groaned, shoving him off with what little strength she could muster. Her body trembled, legs wobbling as she forced herself upright, still weakened from the blood loss.
Leon rose with her, turning toward the blaze. "You think that was cleanup?" he asked. "Or were they trying to kill us?"
Emily didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on the earth beneath their feet, face tightening as unease crept in. A low rumble began—so faint it could've been imagined. Then it deepened, rising in volume and violence. The ground groaned and cracked, jagged fissures snaking outward in all directions. The burning wreckage behind them lurched—and began to sink.
The earth opened wide, swallowing the building whole. Leon took a step back, eyes wide as the terrain collapsed inward like a dying lung. Odyllic energy surged outward in shockwaves—first contracting, then expanding in volatile pulses that tore across the field. The very fabric of the air seemed to shimmer, folding in on itself in chaotic distortion.
"Leon..." Emily's voice trembled. He turned to her—then followed her gaze upward.
A black hole had unfurled in the night sky, silent and ominous, a sphere of devouring void rimmed with flickering bands of unearthly light. It pulsed at the edges, warping starlight, dragging everything inward with its impossible gravity. It loomed above them like the eye of a god—open, watching, waiting.