Kite Moretti tapped her foot with impatient rhythm, the steady beat muffled by the hum of the city night. Neon lights flickered overhead, painting her in shifting hues of red and blue as she leaned casually against the side of a Neo-phone booth. To any passerby, she looked like just another city dweller scrolling through her apps—but her eyes told a different story.
They were locked on her target.
Through the transparent holo-glass wall of a chicken fry shop across the street, she spotted him: a middle-aged man in a faded gray jacket, nervously checking over his shoulder while waiting for his order. Greasy food bags exchanged hands. He gave a tight smile, but Kite didn't miss the way his fingers twitched.
Guilty conscience. Always a dead giveaway.
Just as she pretended to swipe through her Comline feed, a soft chime echoed from the device wrapped around her wrist. Her Comband. The caller ID flashed across the display: Disciple Arlen.
Kite narrowed her eyes.
Of course he was checking in—he always did. The man never believed in giving her space to breathe, let alone work a lead alone.
With a silent exhale, she dismissed the call. Now wasn't the time for lectures or strategy reviews. Her target was on the move.
The man exited the shop, clutching his dinner like a man holding secrets instead of fast food. He turned left, disappearing into the crowd lining the neon-drenched sidewalks of Sector 12-B.
Kite slipped into motion.
She moved like mist—never too close, never too far—her footsteps quiet, her presence veiled in practiced subtlety. Ducking behind pedestrians and hovering in the blind spots of passing hover-cars, she shadowed him through alleyways and open plazas alike.
Every movement was calculated. Every breath, measured.
He had no idea she was there.
And that was just how she liked it.
The man moved with false confidence, strolling down the street with one hand carrying his foods and the other pressed to his Comphone. His voice was low, hushed—too cautious for someone simply ordering food. Kite watched him from behind a news terminal, the shifting digital ads casting fractured light across her face. She didn't need to hear what he was saying—his body language told her everything. He was stalling. Waiting. Trying not to be followed.
oo bad he already was.
He made his way toward the Sector 12 rail junction, a rusting train station humming with the low vibrations of the incoming Hyperline. Kite followed at a measured pace, her body slipping between crowds like vapor. She didn't push. She didn't rush. To the world, she simply didn't exist.
When the train pulled in with a hydraulic screech, her target boarded without looking back. Kite entered through a different car, drifting toward the end of the compartment where the lights flickered just enough to cast long shadows. She found a corner and settled in, folding herself into the dimness. Her coat shifted as if the darkness itself welcomed her.
Her target sat two cars down, nervously glancing at the window's reflection more than the scenery outside. He didn't spot her—not even once.
Good. Her Ability Factor was still working perfectly.
When the train finally pulled into the outbound station on the western edge of Arkenfall, Kite waited until the last possible second to step out, her boots silent against the metal flooring. She maintained a thirty-meter distance, slipping between late-night commuters and station vendors, always within range but never within sight.
Passersby didn't notice her.
They couldn't.
The shadows bent toward her—not unnaturally, not enough to draw attention, but subtly, like the darkness of the world simply accepted her presence. Tendrils of shade trailed along her path, gently curling around corners, stretching from lampposts, threading between alley cracks to mark her passage. Her Ability Factor didn't just conceal her; it allowed her to exist apart from the environment—like a ghost that hadn't realized it had died.
The man exited the station and turned west, moving toward the outer edge of the city. The buildings began to thin. Neon gave way to cold concrete. Kite's eyes narrowed.
He was leaving the city proper.
Ahead lay one of Arkenfall's subzone sectors—fenced-off remnants of the Old War, officially declared restricted by Central Authority. Civilians were prohibited from entering without high-level clearance. The gates alone should've turned him away.
But he didn't stop.
He walked past the faded warning signs and broken surveillance units like he belonged there. Kite slowed, ducking behind a half-burned-out vending unit as she watched the gates part for him. The retinal scanner blinked once—green.
He had clearance.
Knew it, she thought grimly. He's more than just a messenger.
She waited until the gates closed before slipping into the long, dark stretch of alley just beside the checkpoint. Her fingers brushed against the hilt of her dagger, not to draw it—just to feel the familiar weight. A grounding habit. A warning to herself. This wasn't a routine tail anymore. It was time for her to complete her mission.
Kite slipped through the gap in the perimeter fence, her body enveloped in swirls of shifting shadow that clung to her like a second skin. The moment she crossed into Gravemarch, the temperature seemed to drop, and the hum of the city behind her faded into a suffocating stillness. This place had been abandoned, at least publicly, for nearly a decade. But now she could see the signs—faint footprints in the dust, fresh tire tracks, and faint pulses of artificial light deeper within the ruins.
The subzone, Gravemarch was supposed to be lifeless. Instead, it breathed. It was said that this area once used to be a city, a major one before the Pillar descent, but now it was a graveyard of forgotten tech, collapsed buildings, and buried secrets beneath the industrial sprawl of Arkenfall's western edge. Kite moved through the broken landscape in silence, her eyes scanning the shadows for surveillance nodes or automated drones. Nothing pinged. But she didn't trust the absence.
She found the building nestled between two collapsed loading towers, its entrance half-covered by vines and synthetic moss. To the untrained eye, it looked like an abandoned depot. But the biometric lock on the side panel was freshly cleaned—no dust, no rust.
She waited.
And just as she expected, the door slid open with a hiss—her target stepping inside, unaware of the predator just seconds behind him.
Kite slipped in before the door could close.
The interior corridor was dimly lit, with pale blue lights lining the ceiling and a low, mechanical hum that reverberated through the walls. The deeper she went, the more sterile the air became, and the more advanced the tech looked—newer wiring, reinforced walls, security panels with Level-V clearance slots. This wasn't just a hideout.
It was a facility.
Kite let her Ability Factor expand, cloaking her in a haze of obscured perception. Shadows pooled around her boots as she walked, hugging the edges of the hallway. Cameras blinked red but failed to register her movement. Motion sensors pulsed once, then went still.
Down a flight of reinforced stairs, the corridor opened into a vast underground chamber.
Her breath caught.
Rows of humming machines lined the walls, many of them connected by thick, coiling conduits of energy that pulsed with the same lightning-blue glow that was familiar with Pillar tech. At the far end of the room, partially embedded in the wall, was a massive circular device—an ancient-looking structure surrounded by scaffolding and a ring of stabilizing nodes. Runes etched into its frame twisted and shifted when looked at directly, bending logic with their unnatural curvature. It was unmistakable.
Pillar tech.
But it was the structure at the center of the chamber that truly froze her in place.
Suspended in a containment cylinder above a platform of gleaming obsidian was a person—a young man, or perhaps just past boyhood. Late teens, maybe early twenties. He floated within translucent fluid, suspended as if in stasis. Dark hair fanned out around his face, and his olive-toned skin shimmered faintly under the glow of the containment field. Electrodes and cables were attached to his back and chest, pulsing in rhythm with the central core of the machine.
He looked... peaceful. Like he was dreaming.
But Kite knew better.
Dreams didn't require containment fields. Or biometric locks. Or armed escorts.
Her target stood near the base of the platform, arms folded, speaking to someone in a white lab coat—a tall, thin man with short silver hair and glasses that glowed faintly from an interface link. A scientist, by the look of him. The way he gestured to the circular device behind the containment tube made it clear he wasn't just studying it.
He was activating it.
"This is no ordinary resurrection pod," the scientist said, his voice barely audible but clear enough through the chamber's echo. "This is a seed vessel. The calculations have already been inputted. Now all we have to do is activate it."
"Is it ready?" the man she had followed asked.
The scientist's lips curled into a strange smile. "It will be. Once the final key arrives."
Kite's heartbeat quickened.
Final key?
She edged closer, hiding behind a column of servers that hissed with low-voltage current. The shadows seemed drawn toward her now, whispering against the floor and ceiling as if pulled by the same unnatural force that powered the chamber.
Who was the boy in the pod?
And what exactly were they trying to awaken?
Whatever this was—whatever the boy in the containment pod represented—Kite could no longer afford to wait. There was a risk her Sequence Difficulty might escalate with every passing second. And in missions like these, timing meant survival.
She stepped out of the shadows without a word, her concealment dissolving into tendrils of black mist that retracted into her skin. In that moment, her presence flared—Force energy radiating from her like silent pressure, warping the air around her with dense intent.
Both men froze.
The scientist's head jerked toward her. His eyes widened in disbelief, then twisted into fury. "You fool," he hissed, turning sharply to the man beside him. "You were followed!"
"What? No—I swear I wasn't—"
The man's protest was cut short by a deafening crack.
The scientist had drawn a pistol with mechanical precision and fired straight into his skull. The target collapsed instantly, blood blooming across the platform like spilled ink.
Kite didn't flinch.
The scientist snapped the pistol toward her—but she was already moving.
Her daggers sang free from their holsters, curved edges flashing as she spun, slicing the incoming bullets mid-air in a flurry of motion. Sparks exploded in front of her as steel met metal. She darted forward, blades drawn in a wide arc aimed straight for the scientist's throat.
But he was faster than she expected.
With supernatural fluidity, he twisted his body, narrowly dodging the lethal strike. His foot skidded across the floor as he launched himself backward, creating distance with a swift, practiced movement.
So... he's an Awakened, Kite noted grimly.
He raised his arm, and in a split second, a seething orb of dark red energy burst from his palm—raw, crackling, unstable.
Kite reacted instinctively. Her body dissolved into shadow, sinking into the streaks of darkness around her feet. A ripple in space, then silence—she reappeared behind him, rising from his own shadow like a ghost with blades poised, ready to cleave through his neck in a single motion. But the scientist wasn't finished.
A wave of crimson energy detonated from his core in a wide shockwave, blowing outward like a concussive pulse. Kite was hit mid-attack—her body flung violently across the chamber. She slammed into the floor, skidding through scattered debris and sparking cables. Her body rolled twice before she twisted and slammed a palm down, summoning a patch of living darkness. Her form sank into it, disappearing before momentum could drag her farther.
She re-emerged at the far side of the room, coughing hard. Blood trickled down her chin. She wiped it with the back of her hand and glared at him with a scowl that could slice through steel. The scientist lowered his hand, energy still coiling around his fingers. His eyes glowed faintly red behind his glasses, the air around him warping from residual power.
"I don't know what Guild you're from," he growled. "But this is over. You're not leaving Gravemarch. I'm going to kill you here and now."
Kite rolled her neck once, cracking it. The shadows stirred around her in response.
"Yeah?" she said, her voice low and calm, despite the blood in her mouth. "You can try."
And the chamber darkened once more. The scientist raised both hands, his fingers curling like talons as veins of crimson energy laced the air. The dark red force pulsed outward, coiling through the chamber and seizing control of the machinery scattered around them—monitors, surgical arms, reinforced clamps, even a few heavy stabilization drones. They floated into the air, trembling with unnatural energy.
With a sharp flick of his finger, he launched them all toward Kite like a telekinetic storm. Metal screamed through the air. Kite moved before thought could catch up. She flipped backward, the edge of a spinning drone just grazing the air where her head had been. Twisting in midair, she tucked into a roll and kicked off the wall, sliding under a table as mechanical limbs crashed and sparked behind her. Sparks burst around her like fireworks, the shattered remnants of repurposed tech clattering across the floor.
She landed in a crouch—focused, unshaken. One breath. One motion. Darkness pooled into her dagger as she raised it, the blade pulsing with inky black energy. She slashed the air in a wide arc, and a crescent-shaped wave of darkness shot forth, howling like a banshee as it cleaved through the laboratory space.
The black slash carved a path toward the scientist. But he was ready. He yanked a surgical slab into place, and the blade of darkness struck it full-force. The impact split the reinforced metal with a screech, the slab buckling under the pressure before crumpling to the floor in molten fragments. The scientist staggered back from the concussive force but remained unharmed.
Kite didn't give him time to recover.
She activated her Force skill, Umbral Glide. In response, the shadows around her stirred, rising like ink in water. Her body dissolved into them, becoming a stream of darkness that slithered across the floor, wrapping around equipment and slipping beneath flickering lights. She shot forward—silent, invisible, unstoppable.
From the scientist's point of view, she was gone. Until she wasn't. She emerged behind him in a whisper of shadow, her eyes glowing faintly with residual Force energy. Both daggers gleamed, coated with rippling darkness, aimed for the tendons at his legs and the base of his spine.
This time, she wasn't just attacking. She was hunting now. Kite's blades sliced low with deadly precision—one dagger grazing across the scientist's hamstring, drawing a streak of blood. He stumbled, the tendon nicked, but before she could drive the second blade into the base of his spine to finish the kill, he reacted.
A sudden telekinetic burst exploded from his body in all directions. But this time, Kite was ready. Rather than retreat, she sank into the shadows at her feet, vanishing in a swirl of black mist. Darkness consumed her form, and for a heartbeat, she became one with the void. Then—above. She erupted from the ceiling shadows like a falling blade, both daggers descending in a cross-slash aimed straight for his neck. It was a perfect angle. Lethal. Swift. And yet—he still moved. Even bleeding, the scientist's reflexes were sharp. With a snap of his fingers and a snarl of pain, a storm of floating machinery surged upward, intercepting her mid-fall.
Kite's body twisted in midair, her foot slamming off a spinning drone to redirect herself. Another kick off a medical arm. Then a leap from a reinforced data core—each contact perfectly timed, her form flickering through the air like a dancer navigating a storm of debris.
But the defense did its job. She was forced to disengage, flipping backward into a controlled landing several meters away. Her boots skidded across the cold floor, sparks flying in her wake.
Her eyes narrowed. Something was off. That entire exchange—he wasn't just defending himself. He was stalling. Then she saw it. While she was on the offensive, the scientist had been slowly, deliberately guiding the fight away from the containment pod—and toward the Pillar tech embedded in the chamber wall.
In his hand now floated a crystalline shard—small, jagged, and glowing faintly with prismatic hues. Kite recognized it instantly. A resonance key.
Dammit.
He used his telekinesis to levitate the shard, guiding it with precision toward a recessed port in the base of the ancient Pillar device. As it slid into place, a tremor rumbled through the chamber. The air itself seemed to warp, pressure mounting like a storm preparing to scream.
The circular structure came alive.
The runes etched into its surface ignited with lightning-blue energy, flowing like living circuitry. Arcane symbols twisted in motion, rotating along the outer rim of the device. The sound was no longer a hum—it was a pulse, deep and rhythmic, vibrating through the floor and the bones.
Kite's breath caught as the center of the circular frame flickered. Then tore. A vertical rift split the air inside the device, space itself warping like stretched fabric. Flashes of unreality shimmered within—black stars, bleeding light, and something deeper... something reaching. The Pillar had been activated. And whatever it was meant to bring forth… was already answering.
"What the…" Kite muttered, her voice barely a breath.
Then it happened. Something burst from the heart of the rift—a radiant flare of golden-yellow light, blinding and otherworldly. The light twisted and coalesced midair, forming the outline of a humanoid figure. Not quite solid, not quite spirit—its form shimmered with crackling energy, its edges indistinct like the echo of a dream.
The being hovered for a moment, scanning the chamber. Its gaze moved with eerie deliberation—from the stunned scientist, to Kite, and finally to the containment pod at the center of the room.
It paused. Then, in a flash of speed that defied physics, the entity surged forward, trailing arcs of golden energy. It flowed like wind and lightning in one—silent and unstoppable—until it collided with the pod.
And passed into the body within. The stasis fluid rippled violently. The containment pod glowed, flooded with radiant pulses. The boy inside—the one with dark hair and olive skin—shuddered. And then... he began to stir.