The Concord's silver horns blared across the upper quadrants, slicing through the morning haze like blades. Ethan stood at the edge of the operations wing, his uniform freshly sealed, still slightly creased, his pulse strangely calm. Despite the sun casting warm light over the training field, there was a chill in the air,an instinctual stillness.
---
Earlier That Morning – Dorm Sector 4C
Ethan had just gotten out of the shower, a towel draped over his shoulders, when someone knocked sharply at his dorm door.
"Open up. You've been summoned."
He slid the door open and standing there was Instructor Lysara Kellen herself.
Clad in a sleek obsidian field coat with her signature twin sidearms strapped to her thighs, Lysara stood like a walking statue of authority. Her piercing gray eyes briefly swept across his room before landing squarely on his face.
"You're late, Breacher 369," she said flatly.
Ethan blinked. "Late for what?"
"You've been assigned to Squad Umbra-07. Mission brief starts in seven. Walk with me."
He threw on a fitted black shirt over his damp skin and caught up with her in the corridor.
"Wait...assigned? I thought this was just more testing."
"You've been cleared for deployment," she replied without looking at him. "Recon mission. Light-risk. Don't overthink it."
They moved in silence for a moment. The halls were quiet, only the soft hum of mana-rails lining the walls accompanied them.
Ethan glanced sideways. "Why are you escorting me personally?"
Lysara gave him a short look. "Because you're unstable."
His brow furrowed. "...Unstable?"
"Your mana signature is off. It's not just high output, it's erratic. Our scans can't pin a baseline, and your control metrics are practically non-existent."
"What does that even mean...I didn't even ask for this y'know."
"No one here did." Her voice was even, not cruel,just cold truth. "We've lost breachers before because people like you underestimated themselves."
Ethan swallowed his pride, looked ahead. "Then why put me in a squad?"
"Because the Rift is getting worse. We need irregulars now more than ever."
The silence between them deepened. But there was a tension in the air but not hostility. A recognition.
Lysara stopped at the sliding doors of Ops Hall A. Her hand hovered above the sensor.
"One more thing, Ethan."
He met her eyes.
"If you hesitate out there, people die. Don't do anything stupid."
Then she opened the door.
---
Ops Hall A – Briefing Room
The four breachers arrived together, eyes locking as they entered.
Warden Caelis stood at the head of the glass-paneled room, beside Sylha and two intel officers.
"This will be brief," Caelis began. "You've been operating as a three-member team since the Drenaz Incident. Effective today, your squad is reinstated to full capacity."
The glass door slid open.
Ethan stepped in, Lysara silently behind him.
Zira instantly grinned. "No way. You're the new guy?"
Ethan gave a half-shrug. "Seems like it."
Keir tilted his head, expression unreadable, his silver-white hair falling over one eye.
Liora simply muttered, "Figures."
Caelis cut through the tension. "You'll treat him as a member of Umbra-07. This is a recon assignment. Minimal engagement. You leave in fifteen."
Sylha tapped her tablet, displaying a swirling holo-map of the cracked forest terrain. A Rift scar pulsed on the display like a heartbeat.
"Your objective is recon," Caelis continued. "Tag anomalies. Extract intel. Avoid conflict unless necessary."
Her eyes locked with Ethan's.
"Observe. Learn. Survive."
Zira raised a hand with a grin. "Permission to test how he fights in the field?"
Caelis raised an eyebrow. "If the enemy doesn't kill him first."
---
Gear Bay – 15 Minutes Later
The squad assembled by the drop platform. Their gear shimmered with polished mana-tech: Liora's drones hovered in idle orbit, their chassis etched with glowing script. Keir adjusted the clamps on his frost-core gauntlets, checking every seal with surgical precision. Zira bounced on her toes, her kinetic-charged gauntlets clicking faintly with each movement.
Ethan was handed a basic plated vest, a reinforced visor, and modular gloves that synced with Concord data lines. He tested their grip silently.
Zira sized him up. "Vest's too big. But the look? Kinda works."
"You always this loud before missions?" he asked.
Zira just smirked. "Only when I'm about to enjoy myself."
Liora offered him a secondary visor. "Thermal scan module. Don't break it."
Keir spoke up, voice low. "Stay close. You're strong, but still inexperienced compared to us. Coordination matters more than ego."
"I get it," Ethan said. "No hero moves."
Zira winked. "Yet."
With a heavy clank, the drop platform disengaged, and their squad descended into the mist-laced terrain of Thalros Wilds.
---
Thalros Wilds – Midday
The forest here defied logic,crystalline roots jutted from blackened earth, towering trees twisted skyward like petrified lightning bolts. A strange humidity clung to the air, thick and heavy. Rift interference hummed beneath their skin.
Liora checked her scanner. "Residuals are fluctuating. Something moved through here recently."
Keir moved ahead, his boots leaving faint trails of frost over soil. "Left. High energy readings. Still warm."
Zira cracked her neck. "Eyes up. I smell a fight."
Ethan followed behind, tense. He could feel it too .... something was really off.
Then they heard screeches.
"CONTACT!"Liora exclaimed quickly.
From the left, mutated Seraph Lizards burst from the brush. These weren't the ones from before ... they were larger, their exoskeletons darker, spiked, steaming slightly as if their biology had been rewritten.
Zira didn't even hesitate. She charged into the fray, flipping off a crystalline root and coming down on the nearest lizard with a devastating overhead slam. The earth shook.... but unlike before, the beast recoiled, snarled, and kept coming.
"Uh… that's new," she muttered.
Keir unleashed a spread of frost pulses. Two lizards were hit, but the ice shattered faster than expected. One leapt and he dodged and snapped a vertical spike through its leg, but it didn't drop.
Liora kept back, drones firing stun pulses. "These things are resisting elemental pressure .....not your standard mutations."
Ethan barely had time to process before one lizard barreled into him. He tried to pivot but it clipped his ribs and sent him tumbling.
Another lunged. He ducked, twisted, elbowed it hard in the throat and it hissed, staggering.
He planted his feet. Breathed.
Shifted low.
That familiar stance. Kaiser's.
Another came.
He stepped in, hooked its jaw, and brought it down with a crushing slam.
But they just kept coming.
Zira grunted as one clawed across her shoulder. "These ones fight smarter. They're coordinated!"
Keir froze another's legs just in time. "Back-to-back!"
They formed a rough ring, defending each other. Ethan ducked and dodged, delivering brutal counters, jabs to nerve clusters, knees to weak joints. His body moved on its own.
Zira's gauntlets hissed as she channeled a last burst of kinetic charge into a triple uppercut that finally dropped one.
"Damn!" she growled. "These things aren't normal."
Liora shouted, "We have to finish this or fall back!"
Ethan dropped one more with a spinning heel strike, exhaling hard. The stripes itched beneath his skin but didn't surface.
"Clear!" Liora called at last.
The last of the beasts lay twitching.
They all stood, panting, bruised, covered in soil and sweat.
Zira clutched her shoulder and looked at Ethan. "You holding back ...orrr is that just how you fight?"
Ethan didn't answer.
The four continued forward,weary of what they might encounter next this.
---
Crater Ridge – Ten Minutes Later
The squad moved through thick mist toward the source. The trees thinned, revealing a wide scar in the earth,a collapsed crater, its center scorched and unnatural.
Liora's drones hovered silently. "Residual mana density's peaking. Something came through here recently. Big."
Keir knelt, brushing fingers over the soil. "Displacement lines suggest forced Rift. It was opened,violently and then sealed from the other side."
"How do you even know that?"
Ethan stepped closer to the edge.
Then the wind shifted.
And something… screamed from the hole.
Zira turned first. "No. No no no, that doesn't sound good at all"
A hulking figure rose from the mist.
Twelve feet tall. Skin like oil-drenched obsidian. Limbs jointed wrong. Its face was disfigured, mouth gaping with very sharp teeth, eyes that could kill simply by one glance, it's chest spiraling inward like a gravity wound.
Liora's drone shrieked in alarm.
Caelis's voice cut in over comms. "Umbra-07 ... FALL BACK. Level-4 Abyssborn confirmed.You need to get out of there now!"
It moved almost like a dying beast.
Keir threw up a frost wall. "Run!"
But Ethan stood frozen.
It saw him.
And all it's focus was directed toward him.
"Shit!"