At a lake not too faraway from Nirei village, two young people where walking around, searching left and right for nothing in particular. They were just looking.
"Argh!!" Julius shouted, throwing his arms in the air. "This is getting nowhere!"
"Well, shouting like a buffoon sure won't help us." Candy snapped at him. This was the third time he'd outburst — and they'd only been searching five minutes.
They had been on assignment from Craven for four days, hunting for the missing girl named Tracy. Her aunt, Catherine, had told them Tracy and her friends were last seen at this lake.
And upon further investigation they discovered that not only Tracy but three of her friends also disappeared that day.
But three days of combing the place yielded nothing. No tracks. No clues. No progress.
"I still don't get why Craven picked me," Julius grumbled.
"Maybe to annoy me," Candy muttered under her breath. She glared at him. At this point, drowning Julius in the lake felt more productive than the search.
"That's it!" Candy remarked. She had figured it out
"I mean Lung was there. Oh, but he's too lazy." Julius ignored Candy and rambled on. "Randy was an option, but he's too stupid to handle this."
Candy's eyes twitched with anger, this idiot was going to get a beating if he didn't shut up and listen to her.
Sadly, the idiot rambled on.
"Bob's too insecure, Annie won't be any help, Wyatt and Tai are resting, and Callum needs to watch after them." He kept the list going. "So that just leaves me!" Julius declared, puffing out his chest like a peacock. "And what a fabulous choice I am—"
Knock!
The sound of a fist driving into the head of an unsuspecting victim was heard.
"Ouch!" Julius bellowed in pain. "What the hell was that for?" He could feel the rhythmic thumping of pain in his head.
"The lake, you moron!" Candy yelled at him.
"The lake? You hit me over a lake?!"
"No, idiot. We've been walking around the lake for four days, but we've never looked in it."
Julius blinked. "Ah. So you're diving in. Smart."
"Oh, I'm not going in." She smirked. "You are."
"What? Hell no! I don't know what's swimming in there—could be fish, snakes, ghosts, a Deviant beast, I don't care! I'm not going in!"
"You're going in," Candy said flatly.
"Am not!"
Candy's voice went dangerously calm. "Julius, you better be in that water before I count to three."
He gulped. "Or else what?"
She didn't answer. She just counted.
"One..."
"Count all you like, I'm not going in that dirty water." Julius said with a shaky, but defiant voice.
"Two..."
Julius crossed his arms defiantly, but sweat poured down his face like he was in a sauna. "I-I'm not scared. I'm not—"
…
Candy sat peacefully by the water's edge, basking in the warm morning sun while Julius swam like a man being chased by piranhas.
He'd been at it for almost an hour. He'd found nothing useful—but plenty of disgusting things. An old boot. Something that might have been alive once. A diaper.
"I can't find anything!" he cried in despair.
"Try diving deeper!" Candy called out lazily.
"Deeper?! Hell no!"
"One..."
Splash!
Julius dove deeper into the lake, searching passionately for a clue, anything.
Then something caught his eye.
Near the bottom of the lake, almost invisible unless you were looking for it, was a faint glow. A soft, pulsing shimmer.
He swam closer. It wasn't large—just a black stone, faintly gleaming. No real details were visible through the water, but the moment he got close, he could feel it. This was something.
he didn't understand what the object was so he decided bring it up to the surface so Candy could have a look too.
He grabbed it and shot back to the surface like a torpedo, gasping and sputtering, half-dead and half-dramatic. He stomped out, sloshing wet. and flung a flat, dark object at Candy without so much as a word.
"Did you find anything?" Candy asked as she caught it with ease.
No answer. Julius was already squeezing water from his clothes, swearing under his breath.
Candy ignored him and looked at the rock. It was a smooth disc of obsidian, cool and heavy despite the sun overhead. About the size of a coin, but thicker, denser—almost like it shouldn't be stone. At the center, an engraved halo, cracked clean through the top, sat like a broken crown. Around it, sharp, flame-like carvings spiraled outward, elegant yet aggressive, like they were meant to draw the eye and unsettle the gut.
It didn't hum or glow or whisper secrets—nothing obvious. But there was something about the weight of it in her palm. Not physical. Something else.
"I don't like it," she said quietly.
Julius raised an eyebrow. "Great. Let's throw it back and pretend I didn't just swallow half the damn lake."
She didn't answer. She just turned the stone over again, eyes narrowed.
No inscription. No markings. No way to guess who made it.
"Let's hang on to it for now," Candy said, turning the strange object over in her hand. "Looks old. Maybe Craven'll know what it is."
But Julius was already halfway up the hill, dripping wet and grumbling. "Oh cool, I'll just swim through hell and back so Craven can squint at a rock."
"Julius!" Candy shouted after him, barely hiding her grin. "You're not still mad, are you?"
"Next time you swim for ancient crap!" he yelled, stomping off like a soggy duck with dignity issues.
…
In an unknown location, buried where no natural path could lead, lied a mysterious facility. No official name. No signs. Just cold steel walls and humming silence.
The air inside was sterile, too clean. Lights flickered overhead in long, pale strips, casting harsh shadows on floors that hadn't seen dirt—or sunlight—in years.
Several containment chambers lined the central corridor. All of them empty. Glass cracked. Metal restraints snapped or melted. And yet, there were no alarms. No signs of struggle. Just... absence.
The further in one went, the less sense things made. Doors that led to nowhere. Staircases with no top. Equipment that looked too advanced to be real—and too old to still work.
In the deepest room, a console blinked softly in the dark. Someone stood there, a worried expression etched on his face.
A man stood before it, his face pale with worry. Sweat beaded on his brow as he stabbed at the controls.
"No, no, come on!" he muttered, punching buttons. "Still nothing!"
He slammed his fists down in frustration. The screen flickered. Static.
After a moment's panic, he pushed one last button.
A voice crackled through. Female. Cold. "State your business."
"I… I need to speak to the Ether Head," he stammered, hands visibly shaking.
A pause.
"You know it's not that easy to speak to one of the heads," the voice said.
"I understand. But it's about Project Lupus."
Another pause.
"You may speak," said a new voice—male, calm, but with enough weight behind it to silence a room.
"I greet you, sir." The man bowed instinctively, even though no one could see him. "It's about Project Lupus, sir."
"You better have a damn good reason for contacting me instead of one of the Bishops," the voice snapped.
"Sir… Project Lupus hasn't returned."
"So?" The voice sounded even more pissed. "Call it back."
"I-It's been three months, sir."
A sharp silence.
"What about the Talisman?!"
"It must have lost it during its last outing. We… we can't get a Chi reading anymore."
Another pause. Long. Cold.
"…I'll handle it," the voice said, cutting off the feed immediately.
In another hidden room, far away, the man behind the voice sighed and rubbed his temples.
"Have the Fifth Bishop forge a new talisman—with stricter commands," he ordered.
Two women standing nearby bowed and left without a word.
"Oh… and have the idiot from the facility killed and replaced. Immediately."
"Yes, Ether Head."