Town of Prada.
Henry stood at the end of the long cobbled road, his coat flapping faintly in the wind, his fedora hat casting a sharp shadow across his face. Behind him, the river flowed in silence. Ahead—Prada. Still standing. Still broken.
The city hadn't changed.
Same scorched rooftops. Same blood-rusted bells hanging crooked from towers. Same smell of gunpowder and damp rot beneath every breath. It greeted him like an old wound that never fully healed.
But the sky above it… had changed.
Just above the ancient Church of Hazaya, the sky had torn.
A black diary floated in the air—twisting slowly, unnaturally, with its pages fluttering as if caught in an invisible storm. From within its spine, tentacles spilled downward, reaching for the earth. They slithered over rooftops, coiling around chimneys, plunging into broken homes.
And from each pulsing tip, creatures were birthed—formless things at first, but taking shape with each shuddering breath. Some crawled. Others floated. Some whispered in languages not meant for air.
Henry didn't react. He simply watched.
Then he walked forward.
As he made his way down the broken path toward the base of the church hill, he noticed movement behind a wall. A pair of boots. Soft breathing. Someone small.
A girl stepped out. Dust on her face. Knife in one hand, cracked boots laced with tape.
She looked at him, eyes squinting.
"You don't look like one of them," she said.
Henry glanced at the knife, then to her face.
"You shouldn't be outside alone," he said calmly. "It's going to rot soon and you with it."
She tilted her head. "You came alone. You must be an idiot."
"Bold assessment," Henry replied, brushing dust off his sleeve. "Go somewhere safe."
The girl didn't move. "You talk like someone who thinks they're already dead."
"I'm just someone who came back." He paused. "What's your name?"
The girl narrowed her eyes. "Emilia."
Henry nodded slightly. "Henry Ford. Not a threat. Just a Vanguard."
Emilia stared at him for a moment longer, then turned on her heel. "Follow me, then. If you're so calm in the middle of hell, might as well be useful."
She led him down twisting alleys, deeper into Prada. They passed bodies. Burnt-out carts. Graffiti scrawled in blood. She didn't speak much, and Henry didn't ask. It wasn't the kind of silence you filled. It was the kind that kept you alive.
At the corner of Rustdown Street, Emilia stopped in front of an old half-burned tavern with a wooden sign barely hanging from a crooked chain.
The bar was dark. The smell of sweat and gunmetal choked the air.
Inside, civilians huddled behind upturned tables, mothers shielding children, old men gripping broken furniture. Panic hung like fog.
And standing over them—a group of bandits, masked and wild-eyed, rifles raised, laughing.
One of them had a boot pressed to a boy's head.
"You hide in here," the man barked, "and think the tentacles won't find you? No gods left, no safe place, no church."
Another fired a shot into the ceiling for effect. Screams erupted.
Emilia ducked behind the wall, gesturing to Henry to stay low.
But he didn't crouch.
He stepped inside, calm as still water, fedora shadowing his eyes, Staff of Revolution resting like a cane in his suitcase.
The bandits hadn't seen him yet.
Emilia looked up at him in disbelief.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Henry's voice was low.
"They'll hear my answer in a second."
The tavern air was thick with fear.
Henry and Emilia sat near the far wall, hair low over their faces, blending into the shadows. Dust floated through broken window light. People barely breathed.
A young boy—scrawny, maybe ten. Crawled from behind an overturned bench. His eyes flicked toward the corner, where his grandmother lay slumped, pale and silent.
On the table nearby, a half-loaf of bread.
He crept forward. Quiet. Careful.
His fingers closed around the crust.
A voice barked from across the room.
"Hey!"
One of the bandits pointed his rifle. His boot stomped forward.
"What d'you think you're doing, rat?"
The boy clutched the bread to his chest.
"She hasn't eaten in two days," he whispered.
The bandit didn't care.
He raised his gun.
No hesitation.
Henry's hand moved slightly under the table. Emilia's eyes widened.
Tension snapped.
Then the footsteps.
From behind a splintered booth, a boy stood.
Golden hair. Round glasses. A battered battle vest.
Maybe fifteen.
He didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
The sunlight caught his hair just right—like a halo of fire over calm eyes.
The bandits stared.
So did the civilians.
Henry leaned forward, breath caught in his throat.
That face. That stance. He remembered it.
"Allen Iverson…" Henry whispered under his breath.
He hadn't seen him since the Prada collapse.
The prodigy. The tactician. The boy who could read a battlefield like a book.
Now standing between death and a starving child.
Gradually, the room froze.
The room tensed like a wire stretched too tight.
Allen Iverson stood between the bandits and the boy holding the bread, golden hair shimmering beneath the fractured sunlight. His glasses reflected the barrels aimed his way, but his expression didn't flicker. Calm. Unshaken.
He adjusted his collar and spoke with a soft grin.
"You know," he said, voice smooth like silk dragged across steel, "it takes a special kind of coward to point ten guns at a hungry kid."
The bandits sneered, one of them spitting on the ground.
"And it takes a dumber kind of hero to stand there without one."
Allen's grin widened.
"Who said I needed one?"
A shot rang out.
The gunman fired first reckless and fast but Allen was faster. He leaned sideways, feet sliding along the dusty floor, his vest fluttering as bullets screamed past. More bandits fired. Bullets came from three angles, too many, too fast.
They hit him.
Two slugs slammed into his chest and shoulder.
Clink. Clank.
Instead of piercing him, the bullets shattered on impact and skittered across the wooden floor.
Henry's eyes narrowed from across the room.
"What...?"
Allen rolled his shoulder, cracking his knuckles. A strange gleam shimmered where the bullets had struck his skin hardened, metallic, like steel forged under pressure.
"That's not Charlatan Route…" Henry whispered to himself. "Or… is it?"
Allen's known Route was Route –5, Charlatan, a path infamous for trickery, charisma and anti-neutral. But this? This was something else. Something new. He wasn't just tricking them. He was bending the fight around himself.
More bullets flew. Allen dashed forward, faster than anyone should move in a vest and boots. His silhouette flickered like a mirage.
Then it appeared.
A wind spiral, almost invisible, began to whirl around his right fist like rippling rings of condensed force. When he punched forward, the spiral surged, shoving a bandit backward with the power of a wrecking ball. The man crashed through two tables and embedded in a support beam, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Henry blinked. What kind of miracle is that?
Allen turned toward the rest, eyes playful behind his lenses.
"Let me show you a trick."
He punched again. This time, not at a person—but at the air itself. The shockwave blasted two rifles from enemy hands, twisting the barrels midair like vines of soft clay. Another bandit fired in panic, but Allen kicked a rolling tin mug, ricocheting it off the wall into the shooter's face.
He wasn't just attacking—he was performing.
In the chaos, a stray bullet veered toward a woman shielding her child behind a wine shelf.
Henry moved then.
Like a cowboy rising at noon, he kicked up his staff with one hand, spun, and shot a focused beam of thaumic pressure from the tip. It intercepted the bullet midair, splitting it to ash.
A few heads turned. Henry tipped his hat.
"Try aiming next time."
Meanwhile, Allen leapt over a broken chair, the wind spiraling heavier around both fists now. He grabbed a flying crate mid-motion, spun it, and hurled it into a group of bandits like a bowling ball. Chairs exploded. Screams resounded.
One bandit tried to flank.
Allen ducked, flicked his fingers, and a hidden card appeared in his hand thin, glowing with runes. He slapped it onto the attacker's chest.
A second later, the man was yanked backward by an unseen force, slamming into the ceiling and falling flat, unconscious.
Emilia watched from under the counter, wide-eyed.
Henry folded his arms, eyes studying Allen's every motion.
"This isn't the same boy I knew…"
Allen stood at the center now, surrounded by groaning bodies and broken furniture. His vest smoked slightly, his fists still spinning with that wild wind.
He adjusted his glasses with a smirk.
"Anyone else hungry?"
The floor was cracked. Blood, glass, and ash coated the wooden planks like some forgotten painting.
Henry Ford stepped in, air still smelled of gunpowder.
Allen Iverson stood at the center of it all—silent, sleeves torn, battle vest dusty. His glasses reflected nothing but ruin. He didn't speak.
He handed out food.
One loaf to an old man with bruised ribs. A can of beans to a mother clutching her baby. A bottle of water to a coughing boy. His motions were precise, fast, impersonal.
Henry watched for a moment, then spoke.
"Was that really just 0.8%?"
Allen didn't look at him. "Didn't want to waste more. If I did used even 5%, the bar and the people were dead already."
Henry raised an eyebrow. "You're Route –4 now?"
"The Wrestler of the Gambler Path," Allen replied quietly. "Father helped. I paid the price."
His voice was flat and dry as dust. No trace of pride or bitterness. Just a fact.
He moved to another huddled family, placing down rations. No thanks were expected. No words returned.
Emilia sat near a cracked pillar, holding a warm biscuit Allen had given her. She hadn't eaten it. Not yet.
Her eyes hadn't left him.
There was something about how still he was, how calm, not emotionless, but restrained. Like someone who'd long ago drowned the storm in his heart and now just carried the weight forward.
He barely talks, she thought. Barely looks at people.
Yet every move he made saved someone.
Every silent step gave life.
He passed her again. Their shoulders almost brushed. She held her breath.
Why does he feel so distant… and yet closer than anyone I've known?
Henry finally stepped beside him, watching Allen hand off the last of the food.
"You really used to be louder," Henry said.
Allen adjusted his cracked glasses. "I used to believe in more things."
"You don't anymore?"
"I believe in finishing what I start."
His tone didn't change. Not once. But something under it, something old rippled in the quiet.
Henry looked at him with a quiet, unreadable smile. "You're colder than before."
"Then stay warm," Allen said.
And he turned again, back to the dust, the hungry, and the broken room that needed rebuilding.
Emilia's fingers tightened around the biscuit.
She didn't know if it was admiration… or something she couldn't name yet.
But she knew this,
She would never forget that he was the first, to give something to her.
The wind had gone still.
The bar, once filled with quiet recovery—murmurs of thanks, shuffling footsteps, distant cries—felt frozen in time. Allen handed out the last of the supplies, his expression as unreadable as ever. Emilia sat beside a cracked wall, quietly nibbling at a piece of bread, her eyes occasionally darting to Allen. Henry stood at the broken doorway, watching the horizon with a strange calm.
Everything, for the first time in days, felt… right.
Then came the sound.
A deep, resonant bell.
It rang not from the church towers. Not from any ground.
It came from the sky.
Everyone stopped.
The civilians froze mid-bite. Children clung to their mothers. Cups trembled on splintered tables. The glass shards on the ground hummed in response.
Emilia stood, startled. "What… what is that sound?"
Henry's eyes narrowed as he stepped outside. "That's not from anything human."
Allen, Emilia, Henry came out while others were peeking outside from windows.
High above, in the heart of the sky, crimson clouds began to twist like blood boiling in a pot. A massive silhouette formed within them—a shape that wasn't of man or beast.
It had horns, long and curved like antlers of a dying god. From its back spread two branch-like wings, gnarled and stretching, veins of darkness pulsing between them.
The figure didn't move.
It simply… hovered.
Watching.
Everyone in the ruins of Prada looked up. Civilians peeked from broken windows, from alleyways, from under the shattered bar roof. Silence took them all.
Even the wind dared not blow.
Henry whispered, "That thing… is it one of the Miracle?"
"No," Allen said, almost under his breath.
Emilia turned to him, shaken. "Then what is it?"
Allen didn't answer immediately. His glasses caught the blood-red glow from above. His hand slowly moved to his vest pocket, brushing against an old piece of parchment—a torn scrap of an ancient church script he had once stolen from the basement archives of the Church of Hazaya.
He spoke softly. "That is the Shadow of The Lord of Illusions."
Henry frowned. "What?"
"A forgotten name," Allen continued. "It appears only every two months… always exactly two months before an annular solar eclipse."
Emilia's lips parted. "Is it a god?"
"No one knows," Allen said. "The Church buried all texts related to it. I only read fragments. Its true identity was erased billion years ago. They called it 'the Thought That Bends the Eye.' A creature that warps what is seen… and what is believed."
Suddenly, the bell sound stopped.
Like a plug was pulled from the sky.
The clouds returned to white, gently dispersing like nothing had happened.
The figure was gone.
The sun peeked through again, warm and careless.
But no one in Prada felt warm.
Henry looked at Allen. "You knew this might happen?"
Allen said nothing. He just stared at the empty sky. Emilia shivered beside him. No words were spoken. Henry didn't know what it was, but one thing was certain for now. It has some connection with Hazaya for appearing here.
Everyone knew… something had seen them.