The female figure vanished, leaving a trail of blue light behind.
"She teleported... I was going to say her mechanical parts looked cool," Cain remarked casually as he got up from the floor and headed toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Edward asked, confused.
"Well, to find the General. Isn't that our objective?"
Just as the young man was about to respond, barking interrupted him.
He froze at the sound, then bolted out of the cabin.
Cain watched with a raised eyebrow.
Edward saw a German Shepherd and ran to meet it.
"Leira! What happened? Why are you so scared?" The young man spread his arms and hugged the dog.
The dog whined, and Edward seemed to understand. He searched through its fur and pulled out a chip the size of a fingernail.
"What's going on?" Cain asked, his gaze visibly concerned—though still mixed with that indecipherable emotion.
Edward didn't seem to notice and answered urgently.
"This is my dog, Leira. She was trained specifically to monitor my mom's health and alert me if something happened. For her to run all the way here, something serious must've gone wrong."
"I see. I assume that chip in your hand is some kind of memory storage recording what happened."
"I'd ask how you know, but there's no time for details. I need to find out what's wrong with my mom."
Cain understood and stepped aside to let the young man back into the house.
Edward inserted the chip into a slot on a mobile device he carried. After pressing a few buttons, a holographic recording began to play.
The footage showed everything—from the General entering his mother's home to forcing her to swallow the insect.
Edward's expression twisted, darkening with every passing second.
...
In an entirely white void, a figure with a grin stretching ear to ear stood with an army marching behind him.
The figure pulled out a conductor's baton and spoke.
"Oh, revered one! Grant this humble soul the honor of composing this symphony in your image! I beg for your blessing and grace!"
Letters began to materialize before him, and the space itself seemed to thrum with both divine weight and dread.
The words quivered as the vision of a blue-and-green planet manifested in the void. The text appeared to await orders from the one who had summoned this power.
The figure spoke.
"Musicians, begin the song that will be remembered as the greatest ever composed."
A trumpet blared, joined by drums and harps in a harmony both chaotic and perfect.
Something in the soldiers shifted—they took battle stances.
The written words fluttered before surging toward the planet.
Despite anatomical impossibility, the figure's grin widened further as he conducted the music with his baton.
...
Back in the desolate forest cabin, Cain waited silently for Edward to speak. He wasn't one to act recklessly.
The young man's voice was ragged with fury.
"We have to help her. We can't leave her like this. I won't."
Cain chose his words carefully.
"We can't rush in. What if it's the General's trap? He's capable of it."
"I don't give a damn if it's a trap set by the General or God himself. I won't abandon her."
"She's all I have left. I can't lose her like this. Everything I've done was to protect her. She's the only person who truly matters to me." Edward's glare was unyielding—no matter what Cain decided, he would go to his mother.
"I understand. But we need a plan to avoid playing into his hands. For instance, we should verify it isn't an illusion."
"I doubt it. The chip has a sensor that detects behavioral waves to distinguish reality from illusions. Unless this works differently, it's real."
"That's the problem. The General defies conventional logic. You have to consider every possibility."
"I already said it doesn't matter. Whatever happens, I'm going."
"Fine. I won't stop you if that's your choice. But listen to me if I give orders—I can spot irregularities if something's wrong."
"Fine. As long as the order isn't to turn back, I'll obey."
They left the cabin, heading toward Edward's mother's home.
The silence between them was suffocating. To lighten the tension—and to dig deeper into the young man's past—Cain asked a question.
"You said you worked to support your mom. In the recording, she looked... unwell. What happened?"
"Ever since I can remember, she's worked. My father died when thieves stabbed him for the loaf of bread he was bringing home. So someone had to provide for us—and that someone was her."
"She worked six-hour shifts at three different jobs. The first was at a factory making cleaning supplies. The second was cleaning the mansions of the wealthy. The third... was prostitution. I found out when I saw her with a man I didn't know. Until then, I thought she was single."
"She kept at it until her body gave out. Exhaustion and poisoning. The doctors called it 'prolonged exposure contamination.'"
"The factory job exposed her to toxic chemicals. Combined with the strain of her other work, it destroyed her."
"Even then, we barely scraped by. Some days, we went hungry—though she'd give me her food and say she was fine. But I knew she wasn't. After she got sick, I started working. I was ten, hopping between odd jobs, trying to earn enough for her treatments and our survival."
"Eventually, after so much exploitation, I ended up at that shop. I don't know why, but they pay me just enough to keep us alive. Barely."
Edward's voice cracked.
"I... I don't know what I'll do if I lose her. On my darkest days, she's the only thing that keeps me going. I want her to live. I want her to make that soup I loved again. I want to see her warm smile. I can't lose her, Cain. No matter what it takes."
Cain opened his mouth to respond—
Then the sky turned crimson.
A storm of fire, sulfur, and radiation descended as a trumpet blared in the distance. A humanoid figure clad in white robes emerged, surrounded by dozens of wings that enveloped its body, extra limbs stretching from a realm of pure, blinding whiteness.
War gave way to apocalypse.
End of Volume 1 — New Life, New Story.