Welt, Dan Heng, and March stood opposite Anthony, their stances tight but not overtly hostile. Still, none of them lowered their weapons.
They studied him in silence.
Anthony Cloyne stood alone against the cracked, blistered horizon — as if he belonged to it. His body was lean but powerful, every muscle coiled with practiced efficiency. Dried blood clung to the edges of his forearms, some fresh, most not his. A heavy pelt was draped over one shoulder — the matted fur of some creature long dead, patched and weather-beaten from exposure. It was hard to tell if it was worn for warmth, camouflage… or ritual.
His clothes were a patchwork of scavenged cloth and armor fragments, sun-bleached and dust-caked, held together more by purpose than fashion. He was barefoot. Or what passed for it — his feet were wrapped in tightly bound strips of animal hide and cloth, hardened by time. His blade reappeared at his waist, nestled against the thick pelt draped around him.
March's eyes narrowed slightly. "You sure he's not been... corrupted by Frgamentum?" she whispered to Dan Heng.
"He's breathing," Dan Heng replied softly. "And not twitching, along with not being covered in crystal-like growths."
"That's a low bar," she muttered back.
Welt remained still, gaze calm but scrutinizing. "Who are you?" he asked finally.
Anthony didn't answer at first. His eyes — a cold, stormy gray — drifted across each of them in turn. Calculating. Measuring.
Then, slowly, he stepped forward.
Not a threat — but not quite safe, either.
"…You're not part of this world," he said.
"No," Welt replied. "We're from the Astral Express."
Anthony's brow furrowed. He didn't seem to recognize the name.
"We're here about the Stellaron," Dan Heng added.
That got a reaction. Anthony's posture stiffened — his hand brushing unconsciously against the hilt of his weapon. But he didn't draw.
Instead, he looked at the three of them again — more carefully this time.
"…You're real," he said quietly. The words cracked a little at the edge. "Real… people."
His jaw clenched, and for the briefest moment, something shimmered behind his eyes. Grief. Exhaustion. The weight of two decades carried on blistered feet and dust-covered shoulders.
He almost swayed.
He almost broke.
His throat worked to swallow something that refused to go down — and his lips parted like he might speak again.
He would've.
If not for March.
"Uh — behind you!" she shouted, lifting her crossbow.
Anthony spun.
The growl came a second too late — a twisted Pyre Dog, another corrupted variant, lunging at his blind spot from the right, hidden by the fractured terrain.
But he didn't flinch.
His blade was already in motion by the time the beast left the ground.
A single metallic note rang through the area — not loud, but final. The corrupted Pyre Dog's momentum carried it a few more feet before its lifeless body crumpled against the scorched earth, twitching once, then falling still as it dissipated.
Ash drifted on the hot air like snow that had forgotten how to be cold.
Anthony didn't speak at first. He just stood there, still as a stone, his blade held loosely at his side.
Then, slowly, he turned to face them again.
His eyes — sharp, tired, ringed with the grime of years — flicked across each of their faces, like he was afraid they'd vanish if he blinked.
"I… I apologize," he said, voice rough, almost hoarse from disuse. "It's just that I haven't met anyone in so long, I—"
He stopped himself. Took a breath. The words had come out too fast, too raw, and he grimaced slightly, looking down for a moment before lifting his gaze again.
"Twenty-two years," he said instead, quieter now. "That's how long I've been here."
The silence that followed was different — heavier, stunned. Like the air itself had been knocked flat.
March's eyes widened as her mouth parted, but no words came out. She looked around at the wasteland surrounding them — at the cracked red plains, the constant red sky — then back at Anthony.
"Wait… what?" Her voice was thin with disbelief. "You've… you've been living here? Here? On this planet? For twenty-two years?"
Dan Heng didn't speak, but his expression tightened. He glanced at the devastated terrain around them, at the distant chasms that looked more like battle scars than natural formations. A world hollowed out from the inside — and someone had survived it.
Alone.
The word lingered, echoing louder in the minds of the Trailblazers than it had in the air.
Welt's expression didn't shift much, but his eyes said enough — sharp, narrowed in contemplation. Arms crossed, posture straight but weighted, he stared at Anthony as if trying to gauge the impossible.
"This world is deeply unstable…" Welt said finally, his voice measured. "We recorded seismic fractures spanning the entire crust, not to mention some areas being completely covered in Stellaron corruption..."
He shook his head, slowly.
"For a man to survive here, let alone for decades…" Welt trailed off, but the implication was clear. It wasn't just improbable. It was inhuman.
Dan Heng remained silent, but his grip on his spear eased just slightly — as if recognizing that whatever Anthony Cloyne was, this wasn't an ambush. It was something else. Something worse.
A lone survivor, standing atop a planet's corpse.
March, meanwhile, was still staring — not with fear now, but something that looked almost like sorrow. "Twenty-two years…" she whispered again, like she was trying to make the number make sense. "Without anyone? Without anything?"
Anthony didn't speak right away. The words came slow, like they hadn't been used in years. Because maybe… they hadn't.
"I was taken from my world," he began. "Ripped out of it. By some sort of black mist. Don't know why."
His voice was quiet — not dramatic, not bitter — just tired. Worn flat by time and dust.
"And then I was here. On this prison. Alone. And then something… gave me a…"
He said the word.
He said it.
To him, it was a normal sentence. Nothing wrong. No hesitation.
But to the others—
Time stuttered.
It was like the air pulled taut around them. The wind stopped. The low ambient hum of the planet's Fragmentum field cut out. Every sound — every particle of motion — hit a pause.Not broken. Not slowed. Just… censored.
Like the universe had blinked.
To March, Dan Heng, and Welt — it felt like reality glitched.
They heard nothing. Not silence. Not distortion. Just… a blank space.
A moment missing.
Anthony kept talking, unaware of the break.
"…and that's how I survived the first month. Barely."
March frowned. "Wait. Back up. You said it gave you a… what?"
Anthony blinked at her, confused. "A █ █ █ █ █ █[1] ."
Dan Heng's brow tightened. "We didn't hear anything again. Your mouth moved, but we heard nothing. Just—" he paused. "Nothing."
Welt's voice grew grim. "The word was… removed. Censored."
Anthony's face changed slightly. "What?"
March looked uneasy. "Like, redacted. You said—" she glanced at Dan Heng. "We heard nothing, right?"
Dan Heng nodded. "Like it was covered up by… something. A gap. Like static that wasn't there."
Anthony looked down for a second. "…I said it. I heard it. Felt it in my mouth."
Welt stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "If you don't mind, could you say that again."
Anthony raised a brow. "What? I already—"
"I just want to be sure of something." Welt finished as
Anthony looked at them like they were being oddly persistent… but humored them. "I said it gave me a █ █ █ █ █ █."
The world hiccuped.
Just for a second — not in sound, but in rhythm. As if reality itself caught in its throat. The wind stuttered. Colors dulled. Something shifted.
March blinked hard, her expression twisting. "Did… did anyone else hear that? It— It blanked out."
Dan Heng's gaze flickered between Anthoby and the surroundings. "He said something. But I didn't hear it."
Welt's brow furrowed deeply. "It was like the sound cut out. Not static, not distortion—just… nothing."
Anthony squinted. "What are you talking about? I said it gave me a—" He stopped, confused. "...I said it."
Anthony stiffened, something cold crawling up the back of his neck. "I've said that word before. Plenty of times. To myself. Out loud."
"And has anyone ever been around to hear you say it?" Dan Heng asked.
Anthony went silent.
No… they hadn't.
"…I don't understand," Anthony muttered. "Why would it block… that?"
March crossed her arms, unsettled. "It's not even a scary word. Whatever it is."
Welt shook his head, stepping back. "That's the problem. We don't even know what it is. And if something doesn't want us to know, that means it's listening."
Anthony's gaze drifted toward the sky — fractured, red-lit, silent.
March looked at the others. "So what now?"
Welt exhaled slowly. 'We originally get back to what we are originally here to do. The Stellaron."
"Ah. Right…" Anthony muttered, his brow furrowing. "You said that before, didn't you…"
He hesitated, eyes lowering to the scorched dirt beneath his feet. His fingers curled slightly at his sides, like some memory had risen unbidden. Then he looked back up at the three strangers, the weight behind his gaze momentarily harder to place — not suspicion, not fear. Just something old. Something tired.
"…I know where it is," he said quietly. "I saw it fall. With my own eyes."
March blinked. "Wait. You saw the Stellaron fall?"
"I did," Anthony confirmed, his voice distant, like the moment was playing out again behind his eyes. "The sky split open. A crack of yellow across the whole horizon… and then, everything shook. I thought the world was ending right then and there."
He let the words hang for a moment. Then, without waiting, he turned — his steps slow but certain as he started down the jagged slope.
"Well," he said over his shoulder, the rasp in his voice barely above the wind, "come on."
He paused just long enough to glance back at them, eyes sharp beneath the ash-darkened sky.
"It's a long walk. Stay close."
A beat.
"This place doesn't like strangers."
Then he kept walking — the fractured ground crunching beneath his feet as the red-lit horizon swallowed his silhouette.
[1] For anyone curious, Anthony said it gave him a System