Two months passed since Ethan woke up.
The dust had long settled from the harrowing encounter in the Riftwood, but the weight it left in its wake never truly faded. While the scars on the surface had begun to heal and to be honest,that whole incident only lit the fire of the breachers to get even stronger —not out of high morale but out of fear.No one wanted that to happen to them on their exhibition —which meant the only way to prevent that was to get stronger.
The Concord pulsed with life, its sprawling architecture was a blend of soaring black spires and intricate crystal veins that hummed with ambient mana. Overhead, great manalights rotated in orbit above the city-sized facility, casting soft daylight upon the artificial biome dome that shielded them from external attacks of any kind.
Inside the Breacher compound, things had shifted.
Training grounds were fuller. Heavier. There was a tension in the air—a shared pressure between peers that hadn't existed before the Riftwood incident. The near-death experience had elevated the surviving team to something more than just rookies. They weren't veterans. Not yet. But they weren't weak children anymore either.
Keir walked with a slight limp but was back on his feet. Liora had designed a new set of autonomous shield drones, sleeker and capable of absorbing impacts of up to Level 3 bursts. Zira, as relentless as ever, now sparred with full-grown instructors and walked away with grins instead of bruises.
And Ethan—
He had changed in more ways than most of them.
Though still stoic and watchful, something new lingered behind his hazel eyes. A quiet intensity. A pressure that made even the seasoned Breachers give him second glances.
Strands of white now blended into the roots of his dark hair. His posture was firmer. Movements sharper. He never spoke of what happened when he was unconscious, nor of the being that haunted his dreams every night. But Raiden noticed. Everyone who were close to him noticed.
Kaelith Dorne noticed this change in him too.
She'd been by his side almost constantly. Assigned by the Ashen Accord as a "liaison," she had slipped into their lives with disarming ease. Her split red-and-white hair and piercing crimson eyes stood out, but her demeanor had a gravity that drew others in. Confident but approachable. Sharp but funny. Ethan was warming up to her quickly. Too quickly.
And she made sure never to break character.
"You gonna stare at the sky all day, or do we actually train today? What are you even looking at dude?" Kaelith asked, spinning a short-range glaive in one hand as she approached from the observation deck.
Ethan blinked. He had noticed something in the sky, something awfully familiar—and it did not bring good memories. A dark shimmer in the sky that flickered in and out of view, always at the corner of his vision.The same one he saw before Abhokai fell to it's knees.
"It's nothing," he muttered.
Kaelith tilted her head. "You sure?... you've been spacing out alot lately."
"Nahh it's nothing I promise" He reassured her.
They trained hard that morning. Zira joined them, her usual fire matched by Raiden's crackling lightning as they ran team formations and took down simulation beasts in the mana chamber. Liora observed from the rafters, testing a new drone that could shift polarity mid-flight. Even Keir, he'd woken up two weeks after Ethan—limited to half-speed, watched with a steel gaze that promised he'd return to full strength soon.
Between sessions, Kaelith sat beside Ethan at the edge of the field, handing him a drink. "You seem restless dude."
He didn't deny it. "I just have this sinking feeling that something is going to go wrong."
Kaelith leaned back, red and white bangs falling over her eye. "Good.You gotta keep that mindset, never get too comfortable no matter how peaceful it may seem.Peace doesn't last long here."
A pulse. High above, in the sky, the shimmer flickered again. Just a moment—and disappeared just as fast.
Then came the announcement.
A tone blared across the Concord. Deep, resonant, and cold.
"All Breachers, report to Assembly Hall Delta. Immediate attendance required."
The team shared glances. This wasn't a scheduled drill. And Assembly Hall Delta was reserved only for high-risk threat briefings.
All of this was a furifir Ethan so he just blindly followed his friends to the hall—as they moved through the grand halls of the Concord, they passed squads of other Breachers. Some younger. Some far older. All wearing the same look of restrained concern.
This Assembly Hall was massive—much bigger than the regular one the usually went to,it filled with tiered rows of seats, a glowing holo-projector at its center.Warden Caelis stood at the front, arms crossed, her silver mantle gleaming.
Beside her stood three other figures. One was Sylha. Another was Grall, hands clasped behind his back. The third was an older man,he was from the Ashen Accord facility—his presence alone stilled the room.
Caelis stepped forward and then everyone immediately went quite —waiting for whatever the warden was about to announce.
"Two weeks ago," she began, her voice clear and without ornament, "an anomaly was detected in the northern sector of the Ravel Expanse. It resembled the exact readings of a Riftlord phenomena that haven't occurred in over two hundred years. A Riftlord is a terrifying being from another realm.This monster isn't your regular rift beast—its so strong that it is capable of easily wiping out an entire country even with S-Class warriors protecting it."
Murmurs rippled through the hall.
Caelis let them settle down on their own and continued.
"We don't yet know the nature of this disturbance, but we believe it may be tied to the recent surge of Rift fluctuations. Your training has been accelerated for a reason. This is that Whatever is coming from those breaches next could be so overwhelming, it'll cause an insurmountable amount of death and destruction.I won't lie to you...most of you might die if this fearsome beast returns to this world."
She let her words sink in.
Grall added with a sardonic grin, "So if you were hoping this was just another ordinary exhibition mission... well, sorry to disappoint. The stakes are higher this time—too high for comfort."
Sylha projected a 3D scan of the disturbance and images of a Riftlord that came two hundred years ago. A roiling black sphere in the sky. Crackling with streaks of amethyst energy. Ethan's blood turned cold.
He'd seen this—as a matter of fact, he'd experienced this first hand. In Abhokai. In the sky.The images shown stirred something inside him.His grip on the metal chair he sat on intensified—he grabbed it so tight that his fingers sunk into it. Saying he was pissed at what he saw would be an understatement.
"Deployment will not be immediate for now," Caelis continued. "We are still observing. Learning it's behavior. But when the time comes, you will be called. Every one of you.We must contain this monstrous threat before it gets worse at all costs. Prepare accordingly."
Kaelith, standing beside Ethan, didn't Even she was terrified of this,a threat so big even S-Class warriors would have trouble dealing with.This was serious and she knew it better than anyone.
But her gaze never left the image of the anomaly. And her fingers, hidden by long sleeves, curled slightly—she was trembling.
A war was coming and if they lost—their world as we know it would be over.