SHIZUMI GENERAL HOSPITAL
The halls echoed with distant footsteps and the soft beeping of heart monitors. Outside, the city continued its slow recovery, but inside—there was still unrest.
Sylvia pushed open the hospital doors, her coat trailing behind her. Torren walked beside her, bruises hidden beneath a clean shirt, flames dimmed, for once.
Raiden Jin and Kaede Arashi trailed behind them, quiet and alert. They hadn't spoken much on the way here from the Accord HQ, but none of them needed words to feel the weight hanging in the air.
Room 3C.
Sylvia opened the door carefully.
Inside, the fluorescent light flickered softly over Rina Takamura—wrapped in bandages from the waist up, IV lines trailing from her arm. Her breathing was shallow, but steady.
Her eyes opened as they entered. "Sylvia... Torren..."
Sylvia crossed the room in two strides. "You're awake."
Torren grinned, though his voice cracked a little. "Damn near died out there, Rina. You trying to beat me in the 'most scars' competition or something?"
Rina gave a weak laugh that turned into a wince. "I'll catch up eventually."
But the warmth in the room evaporated when Kaede asked the obvious question.
"Where's Alaric?"
Rina's expression faltered. She looked between them, confused.
"I… I don't know. When I woke up, he wasn't here."
Sylvia's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean 'wasn't here'? Wasn't he unconscious? He shouldn't be able to even stand."
Rina shook her head. "I asked a nurse, but… they said he checked out."
Raiden's jaw tightened. "Checked out?"
Sylvia was already moving. She stormed into the hallway and grabbed the nearest nurse. "Where is Alaric Vale? He was in Room 3C."
The nurse blinked. "I… I'm sorry, ma'am. That patient discharged himself two hours ago. No further information was given."
Kaede muttered, "That doesn't sound like Alaric."
They scattered.
Raiden and Kaede checked the rooftops and old training zones. Sylvia swept through the rebuilt Black Dragons compound. Rina, despite her injuries, tapped into internal security feeds through her comm device, scanning camera logs for his movement.
Nothing.
Not a single trace.
Sylvia cursed under her breath and slammed her fist into a wall, the sound echoing across the compound.
Then her earpiece crackled.
It was Torren.
"I think… I might know where he is."
Sylvia straightened immediately. "Where?"
"I don't know for sure, but… remember that place he used to go after missions? That old overlook near the city edge? Where he and Hakan used to train at night?"
Raiden turned toward the voice. "You think he'd go there in this condition?"
"I don't think he cares," Torren said. "You didn't see him after the fight. That look in his eyes… it wasn't just pain. It was something else."
Arashi chimed in softly, "He's not trying to recover. He's trying to remember who he is."
Sylvia's eyes darkened.
"Then let's go find him."
They moved fast. The hunt for Alaric wasn't about rescuing a teammate—it was about bringing back a brother before he lost himself completely.
OUTSKIRTS OF SHIZUMI – ABANDONED TRAINING GROUNDS
The wind screamed across the broken plains outside Shizumi, sweeping through shattered ruins and cracked stone.
Sylvia stood at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the old battlefield—her eyes wide, breath caught in her throat.
Kaede Arashi and Raiden Jin flanked her, both silent.
Torren took a step forward and turned to face them. "This is it."
"You're sure he's here?" Raiden asked.
"Positive," Torren said, his voice low. "This place used to be his fallback. When he wanted to push past his limits… he came here."
The group moved quickly, weaving between fallen pillars and broken archways—once a training site, now a graveyard of effort and obsession.
Then they heard it.
Boom.
A dull, thunderous impact rolled through the earth.
Boom.
Another. Closer. Rhythmic. Violent.
"Something's hitting the ground hard," Kaede muttered.
They sprinted toward the sound, scaling a collapsed stairwell and leaping onto the upper platform overlooking the center of the ruined arena.
What they saw stopped them in place.
Alaric Vale stood alone in the heart of the wasteland—bare-chested, soaked in sweat, his body littered with half-healed bruises and wrapped hands that dripped blood.
He was surrounded—fifty or more humanoid dragon warriors, summoned by someone... or something. Not for a fight. For a challenge.
They lunged at him, one after the other. Claws, fists, tails—full force.
Alaric moved like a man possessed.
He absorbed the force of incoming hits—his hands glowing faintly with kinetic distortion—then unleashed it tenfold in palm strikes and spinning counters that sent the dragons flying like missiles.
He gritted his teeth, blocking a strike with his forearm and returning it with a kinetic burst kick that shattered the earth beneath him.
"Come on!" he roared. "You think pain scares me?!"
Another dragon lunged from behind. Alaric ducked and slammed both palms into its chest. The air rippled. The beast was blasted backward, skidding through stone like a skipping stone on water.
Sylvia's eyes trembled. She took a step forward instinctively—but Kaede grabbed her shoulder.
"Don't," Kaede whispered. "He's in it. He's not training. He's fighting something… in himself."
Torren stepped forward, eyes locked on the chaos. "He's been doing this alone...?"
Raiden narrowed his eyes. "Not just fighting. He's mastering it."
Another blow came—this time from two dragons at once. Alaric crossed his arms, absorbing the twin impacts. Then his eyes flared, and he released a shockwave of built-up force, the kinetic blast rippling outward in a dome of violence.
Half the challengers dropped instantly.
He staggered, bleeding from his mouth, panting heavily.
But instead of stopping… he shouted to the sky.
"Damn you!"
"Damn you for not being strong enough!"
"For not protecting them!"
He slammed his fist into the ground again. Another pulse cracked the stone beneath him.
Sylvia's hand rose to her lips, her breath catching.
"Rina nearly died because of me…"
He looked down at his fists—torn, bruised, shaking.
"I'm supposed to be their leader in Hakan's absence! I'm not supposed to be the one dragging behind!"
One of the remaining dragons—massive, armored, snarling—charged. Alaric didn't flinch. He braced himself, took the blow full force to the ribs—redirected it with a twist of his torso and elbowed the dragon's skull with a surge of rebound kinetic energy.
CRACK.
The beast crumpled.
Still, Alaric didn't stop.
He forced himself to his feet, even as blood poured from his side. He lifted his hand, focused, and channeled every stored vibration into his leg, launching himself skyward and crashing down with a spiraling kick that cratered the arena.
The final dragon fell.
Alaric stood in the silence, chest heaving, eyes wild.
Then he turned to the ruins.
And kept training.
He struck the air again and again—punches, kicks, kinetic disruptions—as if trying to beat something invisible. A ghost. A memory.
"You let them down," he growled.
"You watched Rina bleed. You made Sylvia cry. You weren't strong enough!"
He punched again—air shimmering with the recoil.
From above, Sylvia's tears fell silently. Kaede held her back.
"Let him finish."
Raiden stayed quiet. Even he seemed... impressed.
But Torren had had enough.
Without warning, he lunged forward and dropped into the arena.
"Alaric!!"
Alaric spun, his eyes burning—not with rage, but with something more dangerous.
Resolve.
"I'm not done yet."
"I don't care," Torren said, standing tall. "You're not doing this alone."
Dust still hung in the air from Alaric's last strike.
He turned slowly, chest rising and falling, fists clenched at his sides, as Torren stepped through the broken earth, walking toward him without hesitation.
"I told you," Alaric rasped, his voice barely human from the strain. "I'm not done."
Torren didn't answer right away. He walked until they were just a few feet apart—until he could see the bruises that hadn't healed, the fresh cuts, and the smeared blood across Alaric's chest.
He looked at him—not as a comrade, but as his brother.
"You really think punishing yourself like this is going to make you stronger?"
Alaric's jaw tightened.
"You think I care about that?" he said. "Rina nearly died. Sylvia's still trying to hold this team together. And I—"
His voice cracked. He looked away, ashamed.
"I couldn't even protect her. I couldn't stand my ground. I froze."
"You didn't freeze," Torren growled. "You stood until your goddamn bones cracked."
Alaric didn't respond.
Torren took another step forward, eyes blazing.
"I saw what you did out there. I watched you get torn apart—and still get back up. Every time. You didn't break. You burned."
Alaric shook his head.
"You don't get it. I'm supposed to be their anchor. I'm the Vice-Captain of the Black Dragons, Torren. The one people look to when Hakan isn't around."
He pointed at himself—blood running down his arm.
"But all I see when I look in the mirror… is a fucking shadow. Someone trying to fill shoes that don't fit."
Torren stepped up, grabbing him by the front of his tattered shirt.
"Then stop trying to fill them," he barked. "You're not Hakan."
"You're Alaric."
"The guy who trained with broken ribs and a collapsed lung just so he wouldn't fall behind."
"The guy who shielded me with his body in the Warpath Sector even when he was half-dead."
"The guy who carried Rina out of the fire while bleeding from a dozen wounds."
"You think you're weak? You think Hakan would've picked a coward to watch his people while he's gone?"
Alaric stared at him, teeth gritted, eyes wet.
For a long moment, silence settled between them.
Only the wind, carrying the scent of ash and blood.
Then, slowly, Alaric's knees buckled—and he dropped to the ground.
Not from pain.
But from the weight.
He sat there, slumped, his face in his hands.
"I just wanted to be strong enough," he whispered.
Torren crouched beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"You are."
"No, I mean really strong enough. Not just to fight—but to hold everything together. To be the one they don't have to worry about. To carry this team forward even if we're bleeding and broken."
Torren's grip tightened.
"Then carry us. Not because you have to—but because you know we'll carry you too."
A pause.
"I never said it," Torren added, voice rough. "But I look up to you, Alaric. We all do. You're our spine."
Alaric exhaled, a tremble in his breath.
"…Then I can't break again."
"You won't," Torren said, smirking faintly. "Because if you do, I'll just beat the shit out of you until you pull yourself together."
That pulled a half-laugh from Alaric.
It wasn't much.
But it was real.
From up above, Sylvia watched with red-rimmed eyes. She didn't cry this time.
Because for the first time since the battle—
She saw her Vice-Captain again.
And he was still standing.
Alaric sat on the cracked earth, still catching his breath, sweat clinging to his skin. His hair hung low, soaked. The scent of smoke and raw stone still hung in the air.
He looked up as footsteps approached.
Sylvia. Kaede. Raiden Jin.
They stepped into the broken circle of scorched dirt, weapons at their sides, not drawn—just there, like part of them.
Sylvia gave a long, quiet look at Alaric. Her eyes were no longer wet, but her voice was soft.
"You're still the most stubborn idiot I've ever met."
Alaric gave her a faint, exhausted smirk. "Takes one to know one."
Torren helped him to his feet, and the five of them now stood together for the first time since the blood-soaked battle that nearly broke them all.
Kaede glanced at Raiden, then at Sylvia. Her voice was calm, but urgent.
"You need to hear what's happening."
Alaric furrowed his brows, standing straight now despite the pain in his body.
Kaede continued.
"The Accord had a full summit. Every major guild. Every major power. We were all there."
Sylvia stepped forward, folding her arms.
"They showed us something—footage. An island… gone. Erased. Not destroyed—erased."
Alaric's expression darkened.
"By who?"
"Aurelian," Raiden said, voice like a drumbeat. "An elven warlord from beyond this world. Beyond this realm, apparently. And he's not alone."
Sylvia nodded.
"There's a woman too. Someone… worse, maybe. No records of her. No origin. She's just… there."
"They're not attacking randomly," Kaede added. "They're moving with purpose. Hitting cities that aren't even strategic. Places where the towers aren't even active. Which means..."
"They're not after power," Alaric muttered, "...they're after someone."
Raiden gave a subtle nod. "Or something."
"And that's why the Accord is done waiting," Torren said. "They're gathering the strongest—those who can fight, those who've survived. They're calling us to counterstrike."
Sylvia added, "We're not just reacting anymore. We're baiting them out."
Alaric's gaze sharpened.
"You mean…?"
Kaede stepped forward, expression grave. "We're spreading out. Drawing attention. You'll be told soon—where to go, what zone to cover. We'll all be sent to different hot zones. Some of us are heading back to Cape Town. Soren's going to California. Others are being deployed around the globe. We're splitting the board."
Torren ran a hand through his hair, the fire in his eyes simmering.
"They're hoping this gets them to reveal more of their forces. Maybe even Aurelian himself."
"And you're telling me this now because…?" Alaric asked, voice low.
Sylvia stepped right in front of him.
"Because we're not going without you."
Alaric looked at her, quiet.
"You saw what happened," he muttered. "You saw what I became."
"I saw you stand when no one else could," Sylvia replied sharply. "And I saw you rise again."
Torren nodded. "You're the damn heart of this guild, Alaric. And if we're going to war again, I want my brother at my side."
Alaric's fingers twitched, clenching slowly.
He looked around at the faces—Kaede's calm strength, Raiden's steady presence, Torren's fiery loyalty, Sylvia's piercing resolve.
And for the first time in a long while… he didn't feel like a shadow.
He felt like a blade, reforged.
"…Where am I going?" he finally asked.
Sylvia smiled faintly.
"Wherever they send us. But this time… you don't go in broken."
"You go in ready."
Alaric exhaled, the pain still there, but now behind steel.
"…Then let's finish what they started."
California. The Panamint Range. Wind howling through scorched rock. The sun itself seems hesitant to shine here.
But beneath the blistered earth, something was breathing. Slowly. Powerfully.
And in the deepest chasm of Death Valley, where even nature had retreated, a structure not of this world pulsed with ancient, violet runes—a portal gate. Half-submerged in obsidian, half-built of twisting Eldorwynian metal, alive with dark elven sigils.
At the center stood Seraphina Nyxthalia, her cloak of living shadows flowing around her, her eyes glowing like twin eclipses.
She whispered into the silence, voice low and sweet like venom laced with honey.
"Soon, my kin will cross. And the veil will shatter."
Behind her, two towering figures stood at attention. Luxarion Graves, once the celestial beacon of humanity, now corrupted—his light dimmed into a burning void. His face calm. Empty. Controlled.
Beside him, Dimitri Volkov, the black knight of cold precision. Void-cloaked, blade humming with death-energy. His breath was still. His soul, absent.
Seraphina turned slightly, her gaze passing over the portal, which flickered and buckled with pressure.
She raised her hand—an orb of pure darkness forming above her palm, crackling with the essence of the Eldorwyn rift.
"They still think Aurelian is the danger," she said softly.
"They still believe the Monarch has not awakened."
Her voice curled with cruel delight.
"Let them waste their time. Let them throw their champions into the fire."
She stepped forward, letting the obsidian kiss her boots as she approached the heart of the gate—where the magic was concentrated. Her fingers traced the elven glyphs.
"Aurelian… my beautiful puppet," she purred.
"Keep stirring the storm. Make them react. Make them fear. And when the right soul cries out for power... I will know."
She turned to Luxarion and Dimitri.
"Hold this gate. Let no one approach. The elves of Eldorwyn must cross unhindered. The Ascension begins here."
Both nodded in unison, their wills no longer their own.
Seraphina knelt before the portal, her fingers weaving invisible runes into the air. The desert trembled beneath her, the sky above dimming unnaturally.
"Come, my brothers and sisters," she whispered to the void.
"Your queen calls you. Cross the threshold. Bring our war to this world once more."
Behind her, runes surged. The gate pulsed like a second heart. And somewhere, beyond sight, in a realm of ancient forests and buried cruelty—
Eldorwyn stirred.
The dim glow of multiple monitors cast harsh shadows across the steel walls of the Accord's satellite HQ. Soren sat in a cramped tactical room, lit only by the blue-white glare of data projections. His fingers moved rapidly, switching between screens, eyes scanning endless streams of information with mechanical precision. Sleep was a luxury he hadn't tasted in days. Not when the world felt like it was slipping into a shadow no one else could see.
Dozens of holographic windows were open around him—maps, graphs, coded transmissions, energy readouts.
A single phrase hovered above them all:
SIGMA-BLACK: MULTI-REALM INVASION PROTOCOL
Soren leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the desk.
"Cape Town…" he muttered. "Void polarity surge… and three days later, a reversal spike."
He spun one of the tablets, layering the data over Earth's leyline map. His eyes narrowed as he tapped and dragged two pulses together—Cape Town and... something else.
"Same energy signature. Same wavelength. Same void trace. But this one's weaker... dampened."
He expanded the second signal's location.
Death Valley.
A barren wasteland. No signs of life. No electromagnetic activity. No satellite drift, no weather interference. It was just... quiet. Too quiet.
Soren narrowed his eyes.
"That's not natural," he whispered. "That's not just a dead zone. That's active suppression."
He reached for another file—an old geomantic archive dated nearly sixty years back. It recorded fluctuations in tectonic energy, magnetic lines, and atmospheric pressure. Back then, Death Valley had registered baseline anomalies: minor, inconsistent, and dismissed as noise.
But now...
"It lines up," he breathed. "Every sixty hours, exactly. A refresh. The damn cloak refreshes on a cycle."
He slammed his palm on the desk and stood.
"Someone's hiding out there. And they're refreshing their veil before satellites catch it."
His eyes flicked to a different monitor. Energy burst patterns from the Elysium Breach—nearly identical in shape to what he'd seen for half a second over the Panamint Range.
"Cape Town was loud. This… this is precision. Controlled magic."
He grabbed his comm and opened a secure channel.
"Zara. Arham. Ready the jet. We're heading to California."
"Where in California?" Zara's voice came back, laced with fatigue but still sharp.
"Death Valley. And bring heavy gear. Void gear. Everything."
"Are we under attack?"
"Not yet," Soren said, grabbing his coat. "But something's already there. And I need to see it with my own eyes."
He closed the channel and moved, footsteps echoing through the metallic halls as he disappeared into the hangar.
The air shimmered with heat. The sun was dipping low, casting long shadows across the cracked earth as Soren stepped out of the jet alone, his grey coat dragging dust behind him. His eyes scanned the empty rock formations. The silence out here wasn't natural—it was surgical. Intentional.
He took a few steps forward, squinting at a jagged cliff wall.
No wind. No erosion. No animal sounds. Not even insects. The desert, normally harsh and alive in its own way, felt... hollow.
"A place where nothing changes," he muttered. "In the middle of a place that changes everything."
His fingers brushed against the cliffside. Smooth. Perfect. Untouched by time or nature.
"That's not just stone. That's shielding. A glamour."
He stepped back, drawing his combat blade—not to fight, but to test. With one controlled stroke, he sliced the edge of the cliff.
There was a spark.
A ripple spread out from the gash, like a pond disturbed by a single drop.
And then—crack.
The rock shimmered.
The illusion shattered.
Before him now stood a massive fissure—an opening carved into the mountain itself, leading into darkness. Inside, no lights. No torches. Just shadow. And yet, he felt it: pulsing energy, layered deep inside the rock like a heartbeat.
Soren stepped inside.
It was pitch black. But he didn't need light.
As his boots hit the cold stone floor, he heard it first—low growls, guttural hissing, the click of claws against stone. His eyes adjusted slowly.
He was in a massive underground hall.
On the far end: hundreds of dark elves. Not the scattered remnants like in Cape Town. These were soldiers. Organized. Armored. Chanting in unison.
And then there were the creatures.
Monstrous beasts, their forms twisted and unnatural—some with six limbs, some with bone-forged armor and burning eyes. Dozens of them. Crawling. Lurking. Breeding in pits. Feeding on each other.
He ducked behind a jagged rock, surveying the movements.
"This… this is an army."
He reached into his coat and activated a silent recorder.
"No one knows this exists. Not even the Accord."
But he didn't speak into it. Not yet.
At the far end of the cavern, standing near a glowing portal of dark flame, was her.
Soren's eyes narrowed.
"Its her ," he whispered.
Seraphina stood tall, raven-black hair spilling over her shoulders, speaking in a language he didn't recognize. But it wasn't just her. On either side of her stood two beings Soren did recognize.
His heart clenched.
Dimitri Volkov. Luxarion Graves.
Their eyes were vacant. Their presence... subdued. But they were alive. And controlled.
"No..."
He pulled back behind the stone, his breath low, his mind racing.
"She's using them. She's drawing the dark elves in from the other realm. This isn't an attack... it's a summoning."
He looked down at the dust beneath his feet. Magic-infused runes carved into the floor—ancient, complex. This place wasn't just hidden.
It was built for one purpose.
To bring something through.
But Soren didn't call the Accord. Not yet. Not until he knew more.
Not until he could stop it himself—or at least stall it.
He backed away slowly, vanishing into the shadows as the chanting grew louder behind him.