The orange hue of the setting sun spilled like diluted blood across the cracked stones of Rinascita's fountain plaza.
The water barely trickled now—contaminated, sluggish—as if even it had grown weary of witnessing the city's descent. The cries of distant fighting echoed faintly from the eastern barricades, accompanied by flickers of magic and the grotesque, mechanical screech of unnatural things.
A man with ocean-blue eyes strolled past the fountain, smoke curling from the corner of his lips as he nursed a half-burned cigarette. His coat fluttered slightly with the breeze, dark and understated, and his steps made no sound on the stone.
He did not glance at the injured civilians being carted past him or the blood smeared along the walls. War hung in the air like smog, but his expression remained calm. Detached. As if he were above it all.
Then he stopped.
A figure had appeared ahead, just past the fountain's shadow.
Azrael's eyes didn't flicker. His expression didn't shift. But his words fell like stone.
"Arius."
The man across from him turned, lazily plucking the cigarette from his mouth and discarding it with a flick of his fingers. It bounced once on the stone and extinguished itself in a puddle of stagnant water.
"Good evening," Arius said, almost cheerfully.
Azrael didn't return the greeting. "Why did you beat up Aaron… and wipe out the Valhalla squad?"
His voice held no emotion—just frigid inquiry, the kind that came with intent rather than curiosity.
Arius blinked. Shrugged. "I don't know what you mean."
Azrael stepped forward, just enough for the dying light to catch the crystalline veins lining the side of his neck. His broken eyes shimmered like fractured glass—eyes that saw too much and felt nothing.
"I know you were the masked killer," he said flatly. "The one who struck down the deserters before the war. You're the reason the cursed girl was vilified in Rinascita. You seeded her reputation... just so you could 'save' her later."
Arius tilted his head slightly, the corner of his lips tugging upward. No words came. Just silence—and that damned smirk.
Azrael's voice didn't rise. It only grew colder. "You laid out the traps. You told me you had no interest in victory… but it's obvious now."
Arius raised an eyebrow. "Obvious of what?"
"You're working with Aldric. Everything… was staged to ensure my downfall."
A pause.
Arius's face, normally unreadable, twitched. Just a fraction. But Azrael caught it.
The silence thickened between them like fog.
"I think you're overthinking things," Arius said smoothly.
Azrael didn't give him time.
"You were the one behind the artificial rain," he said, his voice sharper now, layered with something dangerously close to anger. "The one who nullified healing across Rinascita. You gave the grotesques their moment. You let them slaughter."
Arius sighed, long and quiet. "So you caught me."
His gaze slowly drifted to Azrael's face. "But looking at you now… You're as dead as you are lost."
Azrael didn't reply. His body remained motionless, a shadow cut from stone.
They stared.
No words. No tension. Just the eerie stillness of two monsters who had seen too much of war—and perhaps too much of each other.
Then Azrael turned his back to him. "Signing a deal with a monster won't guarantee your victory."
Behind him, Arius gave a low chuckle. "I am the devil, Azrael. Don't worry about me."
The crystal-veined man walked off without a glance back, his silhouette eventually swallowed by Rinascita's burning streets.
Arius watched him go, head slightly tilted, as if still studying how a man like Azrael hadn't cracked apart yet.
But then, his eyes shifted toward a building to his left—partially crumbled, but still standing. The hospital.
A memory flickered.
A woman's voice. A promise made half-heartedly.
Arius muttered under his breath, "Right… Isaac's wife. I did make her a promise."
And with that, the devil changed his course.
----------------------------------------
Across the ruined plaza, just beyond the fountain where Arius had once stood, a solitary figure sat hunched forward on a weathered bench. Isaac's hands were clasped together tightly, thumbs nervously brushing against one another. His eyes were hollow, lost somewhere in the distance—perhaps in the ruins of the past hour, or maybe in the fragile image of a future that hadn't shattered yet.
He didn't hear the soft footsteps at first.
"Mind if I sit?"
The voice was low, calm. Unbothered.
Isaac blinked and turned just as Xander eased himself down beside him, dropping into the seat like gravity had tripled for him alone. The Sword Saint of Mastery looked as if he'd just rolled out of bed—bloodstained shoulder, wrinkled coat, and a half-lidded stare that made it hard to believe he'd nearly died earlier that day.
"You're… Xander, right?" Isaac asked, voice unsure, almost cracking.
Xander gave a lazy nod. "In the flesh. What's left of it."
"You're not… hurt?"
"Not dead either. So, win-win."
Isaac's gaze dropped. "I remember hearing the Sword Saints almost died that day. The battlefield near the gate… it was chaos."
Xander tilted his head slightly, just enough to glance at Isaac. "I didn't see you there."
Isaac hesitated. The words took a moment to crawl out of his throat. "I… I ran."
The silence was instant. Heavy.
"I ran before the guards broke," Isaac continued, quieter now. "I knew it was going bad, and I just… I got scared. I didn't want to die. My legs just moved."
He braced himself for laughter. Mockery. Disdain.
Instead, Xander sighed—a long, tired exhale.
"At least you're alive."
Isaac blinked. "You're… not going to laugh at me?"
Xander leaned back, brushing his messy hair from his eyes with one hand. "Most people have too much to lose to play hero. You probably had someone waiting for you. Someone worth coming back to. Makes sense you didn't want to throw your life away."
Isaac looked down, hands clenched again. The shadows of shame still clung to him, but something about Xander's voice… the calm, quiet honesty in it… made it harder to hold on to them.
"Do you think… people can change?" he asked, barely above a whisper.
Xander scratched his jaw, staring up at the bruised, orange sky.
"It's rare," he admitted. "Most people stay the same. Same fears, same flaws. They circle around themselves until they rot from the inside."
Isaac swallowed, eyes heavy.
"But," Xander added, "if you try hard enough… and I mean really try… maybe you can change. Just a bit."
Isaac turned to look at him, quietly. There was something in his eyes now—tired, yes, but touched by a flicker of hope.
Xander chuckled dryly. "I didn't get that from a book or anything. It's from experience."
He leaned forward slightly, fingers tapping loosely on his knee.
"My sister used to say I was useless. Not out of cruelty—she was right. I didn't care about anything. Still don't, most of the time. But she believed I could… I don't know… be someone who helped others. Not because it was noble. But because no one else would."
His voice quieted. "She's the reason I kept this guild running. The reason I get up when I really, really don't want to."
Isaac slowly nodded, feeling something shift in his chest. Something warm and aching.
"I'll fight next time," he said, with more certainty than he expected. "I won't run. I'll survive and get back to my wife… my kid."
Xander gave him a sideways glance. Then a smirk.
"Better not die then," he murmured. "Would be a waste of all this emotional development."
Isaac laughed—nervous, genuine.
Xander leaned back on the bench, head resting against the wooden frame, eyes falling shut like someone who hadn't slept in days.
"I'm just gonna… nap for a bit. Wake me if someone screams."
Isaac sat beside him quietly, the weight on his chest a little lighter.
------------------------------------------
[First Person – Swarm Tyrant's Perspective]
Darkness. That's all there was.
Heavy, suffocating, endless darkness.
And then breath—no, not breath. Movement. Thought. Awareness. The stillness cracked.
A dull glow bled into the chamber like a wound reopening. Cold metal pressed beneath my limbs. I could feel the tremors in the walls—subtle. Alive. Breathing like flesh beneath stone.
My eyes opened, if these things were eyes.
In front of me stood the figure cloaked in obsidian shadow—motionless, faceless, and silent. Yet from him poured the suffocating aura of command. Of authority older than thought.
The Silent Executioner.
A name whispered through hive-memories. Not mine—ours.
He moved only slightly, yet his presence split through the dark like a blade.
"Have you awakened?" he asked, voice not made of sound, but of cold.
My throat vibrated. "...Who am I?"
A pause.
He stepped closer. I could feel the other monsters crawling beyond the walls, retreating in fear.
"You are the Swarm Tyrant. The plague that will destroy Celestine." It's words slithered into my brain like parasites.
"You are not to question your shape. You are rebirth. A Disaster-Class Warden of Decay. "
Something buzzed deep in me. Memory? Instinct?
"I… remember… another."
My voice was like cracking bone. "My… double."
The Silent Executioner's head tilted slightly. "Yes. Your clone. A failed reflection."
"Where is it?" I asked.
"Gone. Destroyed by humans."
I clenched my limbs. Heat built in my skull. "...It wasn't humans."
He paused. Still. Listening.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
I closed my eyes.
"When it died… I felt it. As if I was pulled beneath the surface… beyond the flesh of the world… past screams and rot—into the void. There was nothing there. No decay. No hunger. No swarm. Just… stillness. Nothing."
He studied me. "Interesting."
"Do you… know what that was?" I asked.
He ignored the question. Instead, he stepped closer. "And how did you feel… about the one who killed it?"
The question stabbed something open.
And suddenly—I saw it.
A storm.
Raging. Howling. Metal twisted by wind. Screams—human and not.
And him.
Jet-black hair. Eyes colder than death, fists crashing like thunder. He punched through me like I was paper. No roar, no words just precise destruction. Again. Again. Again.
My head throbbed. Screamed.
Pain like fire.
I let out a distorted cry, claws scraping the walls.
The Silent Executioner raised a hand, fingers twitching.
And the fragments shattered.
Gone. My mind cleared in an instant. Empty again.
"What did it feel like?" he asked.
I stared ahead.
"...Like dying. Exactly as the clone did did. I was… in a human body."
The Silent Executioner froze.
Then, his tone sharpened to a razor's edge.
"You are not human. Never speak of it again. You are a disaster. That identity is not yours. It never was."
I lowered my gaze. The pain still echoed in the cracks of my skull.
He turned, his silhouette becoming one with the shadows at the chamber's edge.
"Do not disappoint Lord Azrion… as your clone did."
And then he was gone. Like he had never been.
I sat there… alone again.
No chains bound me, yet I could not move.
Who am I…?
If I am not human… why do I remember that body's death?
And why did it feel like mine?
...
Why in both deaths... I was stared down by the void...?
---------------------------------------------
Celia – First Person POV - 7:38 PM
28th Depth, Grotesque Hive
Lucas walked ahead of me, his back tall and unshaken. His light magic shimmered faintly around him, like he was wrapped in an unseen divinity. I had long stopped counting how many grotesques he'd incinerated with just a flick of his wrist.
And me?
I was just trying not to fall behind.
I swung my chain like a blade again, slicing through the air with clean motion. It should have killed the grotesque flying toward me. I was sure of the angle. I was sure of the tension. But before my attack could even connect, a narrow beam of Lucas's light pierced through the grotesque's skull. It fell at my feet—smoking, twitching, useless.
"Keep your eyes forward," Lucas said without looking back. "I'll take care of it."
He said it so casually. Like it meant nothing.
Like I meant nothing.
"…I don't need anything to protect me," I whispered under my breath. The words barely made it out of my mouth. They didn't match what I felt at all.
I wanted to be stronger...
Each grotesque he killed made him stronger. His steps got faster. His spells more refined. The way he fought—it wasn't human. I was adapting too, wasn't I? I was adjusting, optimizing, improving. I tuned my movements for speed, even sharpened my emotions into the chains with my negative thoughts.
But it wasn't the same.
I was getting better… but he was becoming something else.
We climbed higher. Past rotting carapace walls and twitching larvae sacs that pulsed like diseased organs. We were, by my estimate, around the twenty-eighth depth. The grotesque hive was like an inverse hell—no flames, just meat and rot and things that watched.
And still, he walked calmly.
Eventually, he halted and said we should rest. We were close to the top now. Ten more floors and we'd reach the exit, he told me.
I went to sit next to him.
Then, suddenly—a flash.
A thin, precise beam of light zipped past my cheek.
My skin burned where it grazed me.
The trap disarmed. Poisonous water magic hissed on the ground, evaporating before it could touch me.
I hadn't noticed it.
I should have noticed it.
Why didn't I?
"Be careful," Lucas said, not unkindly, but not warmly either. His eyes stayed focused elsewhere. Always one step ahead.
I didn't answer. I just nodded—like a polite little girl who had learned her lesson—and sat down far away from him. I didn't want him to see my expression.
Because I wasn't angry. I wasn't afraid.
I was enraged.
Why was he always better?
Superior perception. Superior magic. Now superior offense? How… how was he leaving me behind? He wasn't this strong just a day earlier... This wasn't some gift from the heavens. This was something else.
My heart twisted into something tight and cruel.
I worked so hard just to get stronger... and he just came up, killed a few and surpassed me...?
No. I won't allow it.
My hands trembled in my lap, fingers curling into the fabric of my skirt. The gesture was subtle. No one would notice unless they looked closely. But inside me, a storm brewed.
I will catch up. I will tear through any grotesque. I will become more than him, if I have to.
He was sitting now, calm as the surface of a poisoned lake. Resting his back against the hive wall like none of this mattered. Like nothing could hurt him.
But something could. And that something was me.
...
Within the Blood Moon Realm
I don't remember when I fell asleep—just that one moment I was sitting far away from Lucas, silently seething… and the next, I was standing in my realm.
That foggy place. My cursed sanctuary.
Where I always wake up inside my own sleep.
Same blood-colored sky. Same suffocating mist.
And the same me—awake, while asleep.
I took a slow breath and stood up. My limbs didn't ache here. This place wasn't real, but it felt more real than the hive. Because here, I could fight. I could train. I could fix everything.
No grotesques. No Lucas.
Just my failures. My mistakes. My disgustingly slow progress.
I started with my footwork—sliding across the mist-slick floor, adjusting the weight in my hips. My swings, though clean, had slight hesitations. Just a quarter-second. But in real battles, that could cost a life.
I tilted my body more when turning, pushed my left foot wider before slashing, and narrowed the movement of my shoulder to prevent overextension. Over and over again.
Then I practiced my casting. Fire. Wind. Water. Earth.
Chains and thorns.
I cycled through them faster and faster, until I hit a wall—water casting slowed after fire. My hands twitched, and the element took longer to form.
That's when I stopped. Sat down. Closed my eyes.
Why?
And then it clicked.
The burning air from my fire magic lingered—dry, hot, greedy. Water hated that. It struggled to breathe in a space already choked by fire. So I adjusted. Next time, when I summoned fire, I kept the heat compact, precise. Not a raging inferno—just controlled combustion.
Then the water flowed like silk again.
I'm not weak.
I thought as I stood again, casting again, switching again.
I reinforced my thorn magic too—no longer just a passive deterrent. No more leaving my back vulnerable. I layered sharp traps of thorns behind me every time I advanced, every time I jumped. No blind spots. No open paths.
A few hours passed like that.
Maybe more.
Time felt blurry here.
By the end, I could feel it—my body responding.
Faster. Sharper.
My mind honed to flaws that had haunted me for too long.
And yet—
I stood in that fog again. Alone.
Blood moon above, like some red eye mocking me from a distance. Fog curling around my ankles like shackles I couldn't break.
I clenched my fists and stared down.
Then punched the ground—hard.
A sharp crack echoed through the silence, mist swirling from the impact.
"WHY…?"
My voice tore out, raw, angry.
Desperate.
"Why couldn't I improve like him?" I whispered, my throat closing around the words.
Lucas…
Lucas, who used to need my support. Who relied on my offense. He used to take several hits. He used to cast multiple elements to kill an evolved grotesque.
And now?
He one-shots them.
He walks through them like they're paper and he's fire.
Faster than I can even blink.
And me?
I improved. I adapted. I worked harder than anyone I know. I trained inside my own sleep. I bled for my techniques. I tore apart my weaknesses.
So why…
Why does it feel like I'm running in place?
"It's not fair…"
The words slipped out, soft and pathetic. I hated them. Hated me for thinking them.
Was he… just better than me?
Born with something I didn't have?
I shook my head violently, like I could chase the thought out of my skull.
No. No. No. No. No.
I won't accept that.
I can't.
Because if he's better—then I lose him.
And if I lose him… I lose everything again.
My fingers brushed the mist again, still clenched into fists. My eyes stared upward, into that bleeding moon.
"Lucas…"
You're not allowed to leave me behind.
You're not allowed to become a star while I remain in the dirt.
So I'll keep training. Keep adapting. Keep killing.
Even if I have to walk through fire barefoot and smile while doing it.
Even if the only way to catch up to you…
…is to become something else.
Within the Blood Moon Realm, Hours into Sleep
I took a deep breath, my chest rising and falling slowly in the dense fog. The blood moon overhead pulsed like a silent drum, its eerie red hue casting shadows that didn't feel entirely my own. I exhaled—long, deliberate—calming my senses.
Then the fog shifted in front of me. It curled, twisted, and finally… it formed.
Her.
Obsession.
She stood exactly like me. Same face, same height, same strands of white hair swaying in the windless air. But her eyes—those were different. The white of her eyes had turned pitch black, and her red pupils were so dark, so consuming, it was like staring into a pit that whispered only one name:
Kaiser.
Her mouth curved into a soft, eerie smile. "Why are you working so hard, Celia?" Her voice was honeyed.
I looked at her, at myself—at the version of me that didn't pretend to be sane.
"You know why," I said flatly, brushing dust off my skirt. "You're me. You know."
Obsession tilted her head. "Say it."
I paused for a moment, eyes drifting toward the fake stars scattered behind the red clouds.
Then I whispered, "Because I want to protect him."
Obsession grinned wider, stepping closer, almost circling me like a predator. "Protect him?" she echoed, her voice like silk wrapping around a knife.
I nodded. "He protected me. When I was weak… useless. Back then, he was ranked the lowest, but he still stood in front of every danger. Took every hit. Risked everything. For me."
The words felt thick in my throat.
"So I'll become the strongest," I continued. "So I can stand beside him and make sure he's never alone again."
Obsession's face darkened—not in sorrow, but in cold, perfect seriousness. "But there are people stronger than you. Like Lucas." She leaned closer. "People who might want to kill him."
I didn't hesitate.
"I won't allow it."
Obsession smiled again—only this time, not sweetly.
She smiled the way monsters do when you corner them. "Neither will I," she said, her tone going icy. "I won't let anyone take him away."
I stared at her. At me. At the part of myself I always tried to bury under smiles and cute voices.
Obsession wasn't my enemy. She was just… the part of me that said the truth out loud.
"You're just my other half," I muttered.
She nodded, a little slower this time. "Even so… we still don't know how to become one."
I bit my lip. The fog around us seemed heavier now. My thoughts clicked like puzzle pieces grinding into place.
"Then maybe," I said slowly, "I need to combine us. Your obsession with my pain. Your hunger… with my purpose."
Obsession raised a brow.
"If I use your feelings—your twisted love for Kaiser—and pour it into my cursed magic, I can fuel it. It'll grow. My negative emotions will make me stronger."
She looked at me—blank, unreadable—then smiled in satisfaction. A rare, sincere one.
"I was waiting for you to figure that out."
I stepped forward, feeling it. A surge in my chest—powerful, ugly, honest. I didn't need to erase my obsession.
I needed to embrace it.
The cursed sky pulsed again, like it approved. I clenched my fists, feeling the cursed magic already shifting.
Then—
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
A slow, deliberate sound echoed behind me.
I froze.
Obsession turned her head toward the noise, but before I could react, her body melted into mine—like mist being inhaled into my lungs. The moment she vanished, I felt… full. Focused. A little wrong, maybe, but stronger.
And then I turned around.
There—standing in the fog like she belonged to it—was a woman with eyes like withered stars, wearing the fractured crown of ancient ruin.
Evelina.
The Queen of Curses from 500 years ago.
She smiled.
And I didn't.
"Finally back…" I muttered, narrowing my eyes. "After weeks of silence."
Evelina stood at the edge of the fog, arms relaxed at her sides, face unreadable. Not a ghost. Not a memory. Her. The Queen of Curses, standing like I'd summoned her—only I hadn't.
"I wonder," I said slowly, "what makes you show your face now?"
She didn't flinch. "I have a question for you."
I crossed my arms. "I'm not interested."
She sighed, softly. "Still wary of me?"
I looked at her through my lashes. "You're manipulative, unpredictable, and untrustworthy."
Her lips twitched into something that might've been amusement. "Fine," she said. "Then let's make a deal."
I blinked. "A deal?"
She stepped forward into the thinning fog. "You'll try to hit me. Once. Just once. If you succeed, I'll do anything you say. If you fail… you answer my question."
My eyes narrowed. "And if I refuse?"
"I'll tell you something that'll help you improve faster. Much faster."
I bit my inner cheek. The fog pulsed. The realm listened.
"…Fine," I said. "You want to play games? Let's play."
I didn't wait. Chains burst from beneath my feet—six of them, spiraling outward, twisting midair to create mirrored angles. I layered them with cursed inscriptions, rerouting their directions mid-flight, disguising my aim with reflective fakes. Another two came from above, silent like falling ash, while I pushed out a feint of a fire glyph to distract her senses.
High-pressure web. 360 degrees. No room to breathe.
A flawless, closing trap.
Evelina didn't move. She only lifted her hand—barely—and her cursed magic crushed mine mid-air. Every chain coiled inward like it had lost its will to live, shattering into cursed ash.
"Pathetic," she said.
I was already moving, leaping high, chaining my steps with cursed sigils across the sky like stairs. I shaped a new pattern mid-flight—combining ice and wind around my chains to mask the sound and vision—then slashed downward with an overhead whip of cursed thorns from above.
She took a step back.
For a moment, a flicker of victory sparked in me.
But then her hand moved again. Effortless.
And the sky obeyed.
A wall of earth split from the ground, fire erupted along its surface, and wind circled her like a barrier. Elemental magic—layered, elegant, destructive. My chains clashed into the wall and broke like glass under a hammer.
I landed on my feet, panting.
The magic didn't just cancel mine. It crushed my thoughts. My planning. My brilliance. Every clever sequence, every calculated move—I watched it get obliterated like it was childish.
"You can't even scratch me," Evelina said flatly. "You're far too weak."
My fingers twitched. My jaw tightened. I refused to cry—but something in my chest was breaking.
Why? Why can't I catch up?
I sank into my own mind, frantic, diving deep, trying to trace every mistake—was it the delay between the third and fourth chain? Was it the angle of my second aerial glyph? My rune placement? My transition speed?
What did I miss?
I could fix it. I just needed to go over every detail again, faster, deeper, sharper—
"Stop," Evelina said suddenly.
I looked up.
She didn't sound cruel. She sounded… bored.
"Stop thinking," she said again. "I'll tell you instead."
And just like that, I froze.
"Your weakness," Evelina said, her voice colder now, less amused—"is that you rely too much on your magic… without understanding why your curses exist. Or why they evolve."
Her words sliced through me sharper than any chain I'd ever conjured. I stood there—frozen, furious, exposed.
What do you mean by understanding my curses?
They're mine. I shaped them, I trained them, I bled for them. Isn't that enough?
But Evelina wasn't finished.
"Once you exit the hive," she said, stepping closer, "there will be a star-filled aroma in the air. It only happens once every thousand years—when two galaxies pass close enough to reveal their stars across the sky."
Her eyes shimmered like they had seen it a thousand times before.
"You'll feel it. Listen to your curses when it happens. They'll whisper to you… tell you what you've been missing."
I blinked, my chest tightening with quiet dread.
What I've been missing?
What does that even mean? How can a curse talk to me? And what could it possibly say that I haven't already tortured myself thinking?
Her gaze sharpened like a blade now—cutting clean through me.
"Now answer my question."
I swallowed.
Evelina's red eyes glinted like burning coals. "For the past three weeks, what's been hiding… underneath your shadow?"
I blinked again.
"…What?"
Her tone didn't change. "That devilish presence… it interfered with my own." Her jaw tensed like she tasted something bitter. "Even I couldn't approach it. Whenever I neared you—my instincts screamed."
She stared into me like she was trying to rip the truth from my bones.
"Who was watching over you?"
I furrowed my brows, shaking my head. "No one. That… doesn't make sense. Nobody cares enough to do that for me."
My words came out sharp. Dismissive.
But they hurt on the way out.
Because they were true.
Evelina went quiet for a second. Her eyes dimmed slightly—not out of pity, but thought.
"Then it wasn't a person… not fully." She turned slightly. "But it wasn't a curse either. No magical presence. Just… there. Like a shadow pretending to exist."
I tried to remember anything. But the past three weeks had been a blur of training, bleeding, failing, surviving. I had sensed something at times. A strange pressure. But I thought it was just my mind breaking down from stress. I didn't ask.
And yet—Something about her words sent a chill down my spine.
I looked down at my feet. At the memory of a shadow that sometimes seemed… wrong. Like it moved when I didn't. Like it lingered a second too long. I had ignored it.
"I… I read once," I muttered, my voice low, "that curses can live in a person's shadow. Even ones controlled by other humans. Or sometimes… by something else. Maybe it was a presence. A human soul bound to a curse. Or maybe… something worse."
Evelina's expression grew grim.
"…Whoever it was," she said slowly, "it doesn't compare to anything I've faced—not demons, not gods, nothing. That thing… it shouldn't exist."
She stepped back, the fog curling tighter. "But it does."
Suddenly, her form began to shimmer—like a reflection on water starting to ripple. The sky flickered, pulsing like a dying heartbeat. I felt my chest tighten—my soul being pulled back.
"No—wait—" I reached out, stepping toward her, but the fog was breaking, the blood moon dimming. I was waking up.
And as the world crumbled into light, her final words cut through the silence like a knife—
"Be prepared… to be heartbroken soon."
Then—
Black.
Silence.
Grotesque Hive – Real World
I gasped quietly, breath catching in my throat as I opened my eyes. My back ached. My fingers twitched. Reality felt heavier now.
I was back.
Lucas sat not far from me, smiling softly to himself, tossing a crystal back and forth in his hand.
"Ahhh, nice," he muttered, eyes narrowed in satisfaction. "Level 19."
My head tilted slightly.
Level?
He must've sensed me stir, because he turned, blinking once. "Oh—sorry, Celia. Did I wake you up?"
I stared at him. Quiet.
------------------------------------------------------
We continued our way to the top.
I'd gotten used to the sound of squishing meat under my boots—used to the stink of rot, the twitch of distant wings, and the low hum of death vibrating through the walls.
But what I hadn't gotten used to… Was how Lucas barely even tried anymore.
A grotesque burst from the ceiling with a shriek—a tangle of eyes, legs, and fangs. Before I even moved, a pinpoint beam of light curved impossibly through the air, ricocheting off three chunks of mirror-like crystal Lucas had conjured mid-air.
The beam struck through the grotesque's forehead and exploded from the back of its skull.
Pop.
Another one-shot.
He blew the smoke off his finger and gave me a lazy grin. "Still keeping up, Celia?"
I scoffed and launched myself forward, cursed chains snapping from the ends of my hair to coil around a nearby column. My body swung up and over like a pendulum. From midair, I spun—once, twice—and let loose a full whip of cursed thorns downward.
They struck a grotesque creeping behind Lucas's blind spot, the barbed vines digging into its back and draining it dry before it could let out a single noise.
I landed on one knee, chains circling me protectively.
"Keep up?" I smiled sweetly. "Just make sure to not get in between."
Lucas snorted. "Uh-huh. Just don't step forward."
I blinked. "Wha—?"
Click.
He raised his hand, and a ring of light expanded in front of me. From beneath my boots, a half-formed grotesque exploded upward, mouth gaping and dripping black acid. I flinched—
But Lucas had already snapped his fingers.
Light bent backward into itself, folding like a paper fan, and then imploded through the grotesque's mouth. Its body collapsed instantly, vaporized.
I stared, my chest rising faster than it should've.
"I told you not to step," he said, tilting his head, voice annoyingly calm. "There was a trap-lure spell. That one was dormant—until you triggered it."
"How do you even see those?" I gritted.
"Experience. Also…" He flashed a grin. "I'm built different."
I hated how casual he was about it.
Another grotesque skittered around the corner. No—three of them. I swung both arms out and my chains uncoiled behind me like wings. My thorns extended, spinning into a storm as I launched into the air. Mid-jump, I twisted upside-down and unleashed hell—a flurry of whips raining down, tearing into them with rapid, cracking bursts.
They didn't even get to scream.
I landed in front of Lucas, my legs covered in cursed thorns, feet cracking the floor. One grotesque tried to sneak up from the rear. I snapped a kick backward, my cursed heel caving in its jaw, and it collapsed with a withered hiss.
"You're better," Lucas said, finally serious.
"I adjusted a little." I didn't smile this time.
Two more floors.
Another ambush.
Lucas summoned reflective glass to bend his own flame spell into a loop around the walls—fire licked through the hallway like a living snake, herding grotesques into my path.
My chains pulled me upward again, and I dived, thorns first. They didn't even see it coming.
I landed, panting, gripping one thorn whip tighter than I should've. I didn't say it aloud, but...
I was finally keeping pace.
One floor left.
"I count 95 grotesques," Lucas muttered, eyes glowing faintly. "Big ones. Fast. We do it fast or we get overwhelmed."
I nodded, no hesitation.
We moved in sync. I launched first, chains whipping around my body as I crashed into the horde from above. My vines struck low, targeting knees, joints—crippling and draining. Lucas followed behind, forming a prism of magical mirrors around the tight corridor. Each angle bounced his beam off the next until it was pure destructive force—the light cannon he called it.
It vaporized the central grotesque, creating a burst of pressure that knocked three more into my whips.
We slaughtered them.
Finally, we reached the top.
A thin crack of natural wind breezed in through the walls—real air. My chains loosened around my legs, the cursed thorns retreating slowly into my palms. Lucas stepped forward, brushing aside the last of the grotesque residue.
The wall crumbled, revealing the exit.
We both stepped out, and for the first time in days—Silence.
It was 2:32 AM. I knew, somehow. The kind of time your body feels.
The air was cold. Fresh. I could see my breath. And above us, the sky stretched wide and star-filled. Not just the usual constellations.
No.
Tonight… the stars doubled.
A faint, ethereal glow bled across the horizon like a river of white dust. I could see it—another galaxy, drifting slowly, quietly, like it had always belonged there.
Evelina's words echoed in my head.
Once you exit the hive, there will be a star-filled aroma… listen to your curses.
I didn't know what I was listening for yet.
But something inside me… Was changing.
Lucas dropped to the grass with a soft grunt. "Nice," he sighed, stretching his limbs.
I stayed standing, eyes fixed upward.
The stars looked close enough to reach.
Like if I stretched high enough… Maybe I could touch them.
I took a slow step forward into the grass, my boots wet with dew. My chains curled gently around my arms now, not in defense—but almost in awe. My thorns retracted completely, as if silence deserved reverence.
The air shimmered faintly.
And then—The whispers came.
Faint at first, like breath against the nape of my neck. I tilted my head, holding my breath. My eyes locked onto the star-slick sky, and my heartbeat slowed.
Then I heard it again—
"T'mari ith valekh. En'cor da'ron. Rith senn marol… Kai'reth."
The words rattled through my cursed chains like wind through hollow bones. They echoed, not just in sound—but in meaning. I didn't know the language, but… I felt it.
I knew what those meant...
My curses.
"You can't win alone."
"Fight with us."
"Let us fight for you."
I froze.
I could feel them—negative emotions, my hatred—alive. Whispering, trembling, reaching. I had always controlled them like weapons.
But now they… asked.
To fight with me.
Not for me.
As part of me.
The stars above shimmered again, shifting ever so slightly as if the galaxies themselves were watching.
I lifted my hand slowly, palm facing the sky.
"…You want to protect him too?" I asked quietly.
No answer.
Just the wind. Just the stars. Just the way my thorns gently coiled around my wrist in response.
I stood there for a long moment, head tilted upward, and Evelina's voice returned like a ghost behind my ribs—
"Be prepared to be heartbroken."
Why would she say that? Why now?
What was coming?
My breath hitched.
I thought back—over the past weeks, over everything that had happened.
The crying nights. The bloody training. The pain.
Kaiser—my everything. The one who stood by me when I was worthless. When I was just a fragile girl clinging to delusions of happiness.
I'm not that girl anymore.
The one who needed saving.
No.
I stood in silence, watching galaxies burn slowly across the heavens, and I let go of that version of myself—the weak one, the crying one, the broken one.
I just want to save him.
Like he saved me.
And if that means I have to call upon every damned curse, twist the essence of the dead, and burn myself down to ash and ascend the dead themselves—
…I'll do it.
Gladly.
---------------------------
Lucas's Perspective:
Level 19.
Finally.
As I stood beneath the sprawling galaxies above, stars bleeding into the sky like scattered diamonds on obsidian glass, the system's monotone voice echoed in my head, laced with its usual charm.
「 Ding~ Level 19 achieved. About time, mage of slowness. You've got unused stat points. Want me to hold your hand too, or can you click your own menu like a big boy? 」
I rolled my eyes. "Bring up my status."
The holographic screen blinked open before me. And I quickly used my remaining attributes.
Status Menu:
Name: Lucas
Class: Superior Mage
Level: 19
Age: 15
Attributes – 0 Left
Strength: 12
Agility: 15
Endurance: 10
Perception: 15
Intelligence: 13
Mana: 11
Divine Creation: 5
Skills:
Light-Elemental Magic
Mana Control (Lv. 4)
Divine Protection of Chaos
Divine Protection: Adaptive Venom Synthesis
Lightstep II: 175% Speed Boost
Visionary Sight: Perfect Dark Vision
Notes:
HP: 900/900
MP: 1250/1250
Most of my points had gone into perception and agility. I needed speed. Precision. Azrael had said it—a moment's delay is a moment dead. And after everything I'd seen in that hive…
Yeah. I believed him now.
「 Wise move. Agility for dodging death, perception for knowing which way to dodge. Proud of you. Almost. 」
The air was sharp and clean—first time in days I could breathe without tasting rot or blood. A chill wind cut across my cheek as I stepped forward, eyes locked on the stars above. It wasn't just beautiful—it felt intentional. The stars didn't shimmer. They shifted.
And then—
「 Not to freak you out or anything, but the stars are speaking. 」
I blinked. "You serious?"
「 Yes, oh earthly flashlight. Translating now. Matching stellar alignment patterns and context… Yep. Bingo. It says: 'You can save them all with your light.' 」
My heart clenched.
Save them all?
With my light?
I wasn't even sure I could save myself a week ago.
The stars shifted again.
「 Uh… update. The message just changed. Not great. Listen up: 'Something worse than a disaster will happen soon.' And a new warning: Supreme Being vs The Realms. Choose our side. 」
I frowned. "Supreme being?"
「 The heavens—based on astral projection resonance—are suggesting they want you to oppose it. Possibly even destroy it. They're betting on you, Lucas. 」
My jaw clenched.
Who the hell was the Supreme Being?
Why now? Why when everything was just starting to calm down?
And then the stars shimmered one last time.
「 Final message… it says: 'He'll come to take her.' 」
I lowered my gaze. My eyes drifted.
Celia.
She was sitting on a rock, arms folded, staring into the stars like they were speaking to her aswell. Her hair flew in the wind, chains loosely wrapped around her shoulders. She looked lost in thought.
And suddenly the weight hit me.
Was the message about her?
Was he… coming for her?
Who even was this Supreme Being?
And if she was connected to that… What the hell does that make her?
I shook my head, pushing the thought away before it consumed me.
Not now.
I exhaled slowly. The stars above had stopped moving. The night was silent again. But I knew better.
"How long to Rinascita?" I asked aloud, not looking away from the horizon.
「 With her pace calculated in… estimated time: one day. Assuming no ambushes. Assuming you don't get us sidetracked chasing pretty girls again. 」
"Noted."
I rolled my shoulders and walked forward, mana tingling at my fingertips. The air was changing. The stars were watching. Something big was coming.
But I was level 19 now.
And this time—I'm not going to watch from the sidelines.
I'm going to change the game.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The stars had whispered. The heavens had warned.
Now… the real battle begins.
Rinascita, the proud town at the heart of Celestine, stands on the brink of annihilation. Once nearly wiped from existence, its scars still run deep. But this time, it won't be caught unprepared.
This time, The defenders have changed.
Rinascita vs. The Ultimate Tyrant
Will the town crumble a second time beneath monstrous wings and a mind of devastation?
Or… will this be the moment it rises...
But beyond the clouds… behind the veil of stars…
A question lingers, haunting and cold:
Where was he…?
—Next Chapter: When the Sky Falls