Creeeaaaaaak...
The usual soft groan of a door now echoes through the cavern like a thunderclap, shattering the silence as a boy, no more than five, steps out.
In his hand, he grips a short sword—its blade blacker than pure nothingness. The surface ripples like an endless ocean, waves of darkness rolling across it as it devours the very energies in the air.
Kaiser stumbles forward, his body drenched in blood, every limb shivering from the cold. His eyes fall upon the figure lying in front of him.
She lies sprawled across the stone, one hand extended toward him as if desperately reaching.
Her eyes are barely open, faint emerald light glimmering in them, while her dark hair spreads out around her in a messy, blood-matted halo.
Kaiser recognizes her immediately. The woman who spoke with the Baron… hours ago. Or was it days?
He shakes his head, sending droplets of blood scattering through the air, and begins to walk past the woman, sword clutched tight in his hand.
Grip—
Kaiser flinches back as her hand suddenly clamps around his ankle, refusing to let go.
"It's okay... I'm not gonna hurt you."
Her voice is raspy, lifeless, each word dragged out as she slowly pushes herself upright.
Kaiser sees it immediately.
...
This woman is already half-dead.
The only thing keeping her body upright is the flawless control of lightning particles flowing through her system—keeping her neurons firing even as her heart struggles, beating in weak, faltering echoes.
Elara's gaze shifts to the meteorite sword. For a single instant, her emerald eyes widen. Then her face hardens back to neutrality.
"Can you give that sword to me, please? I'm not going to do anything to it. I promise to keep it safe, okay?" Her voice is barely a whisper—soft, almost… motherly.
Kaiser's hand tightens on the hilt, trembling. Fear, distrust. Elara catches the hesitation in his eyes and nods gently.
"I-I just need to hold it for a second. I promise. It's hurting people… I need to turn it off."
Her words drag slower and slower as the lightning particles sustaining her begin to slip away, bleeding into the black blade.
Kaiser's eyes widen. At last, he sees.
The silence of the cave.
The bodies.
The truth.
They're gone. All of them.
Because of him?
'B-but, why? W-why me? Wha—?
Elara steps between him and the horror, shielding his eyes with her own body. She pulls him into a fragile embrace, then her hand inches toward the sword. This time, Kaiser doesn't resist.
Her fingers close around the hilt—
—and the sheer force behind it nearly buckles her legs. The blade hums with impossible weight, power so vast it threatens to tear her apart from the inside.
Her mind floods with questions. 'How is this here? Who forged it? Why is it with a child? How can he wield it so easily?'
She drowns them out with a single thought.
Stop the drain.
Gathering the last speck of Aether in her core, Elara presses it into the blade. For a heartbeat, her essence touches the void—flips a switch and—
VOOOOOOOOoooooooom...
The black blade flickers—illusory, unstable—before vanishing in a blink, leaving only the hilt behind.
THUD!
Elara collapses, her breath ragged and uneven. Her core is utterly spent, her body numb, her limbs heavy as stone.
But she feels it.
Particles. Mana. The natural energies of the world… trickling back, seeping into the cavern.
'It's over...'
Her eyes flutter shut, exhaustion pulling her into the dark. She lets herself sink, ready to surrender to sleep—
—!
Her instincts snap her awake.
The boy. Still drenched in blood and grime, standing behind her. He's trembling violently, eyes locked on the horror that sprawls beyond her.
Elara surges upright, sweeping him into her arms before he can see more. His small body quivers against her, and her heart wrenches at the weight he carries.
No tears. Not a sound. Just the silence of a child who has already endured too much.
And as Elara looks deeper—into the dangerous secret pulsing within the boy's core—she makes a vow.
A vow to protect him. To give him the life that was stolen from everyone else.And to do whatever it takes to keep that promise.
******
-Elara POV-
For the past hour, I've forced myself through the narrow tunnels, step by step, climbing back toward the surface. My strength trickles back in fragments, just enough to keep moving, just enough to make sure the boy—Kaiser—remains safe in my arms.
I glance down at him. A fragile, blood-soaked five-year-old, his breathing shallow, his small frame trembling against me.
My gaze shifts deeper, past his body, into his core. The sight makes me wince. Every part of me prays I'm mistaken—that exhaustion has blurred my vision, that I'm too weak to see clearly.
But no. I know my eyes.
These cursed, blessed eyes that see truths others cannot. Eyes that pierce through illusion, that lay bare what is hidden. The very reason I was once called a prodigy.
And what I see now...
...Is something that has never been recorded in Aetherran history.
I shake my head, forcing the thought down as I climb the last ladder, pushing up through the hatch into the garden.
The moment my feet touch open ground, I feel it. A shift. A pressure.
"F-fuck..."
The word slips before I can stop it.
They're everywhere.
Thirty.
Ten. Thirty. Sixty-seven crown guards in total, encircling me on all sides. Spears, swords, shields raised. Spells ready. All of it aimed at me—and the boy in my arms.
I narrow my eyes, mana already beginning to circulate through my veins as calculations race through my head. Routes of escape. Angles of attack. Probabilities.
Most of them are Resonance cores, a stage beneath me, but their sheer numbers can't be ignored. And beyond them… three stronger presences. Hidden. Watching. Each one at my level, though early tier.
Still enough to matter.
"What is the meaning of this?" My voice rings out, sharp, waking Kaiser from his daze. He stirs, but doesn't flinch. No fear, no panic. Almost as if this kind of moment is normal for him.
Silence.
"I said—what is the meaning of this?" I repeat, reinforcing my words with mana, amplifying them until they thunder across the garden. At the same time, I weave a soft barrier to shield Kaiser's ears.
The response comes at last. A voice like iron, carrying authority and judgment.
"You are being detained, Miss Elara Veythorne, under suspicion of conspiring against the Crown and massacring an entire village."
From the rooftop of the Baron's manor, a figure steps into view. His uniform is immaculate—black and blue, trimmed with silver. The emblem gleams on his chest, pristine and unmistakable: A captain.
"Captain Rey Jameson. These are my people. Treat them with respect, Miss Veythorne."
My eyes narrow.
A captain? Here already? How the hell does a Baron have an in with a captain?
"Captain Jameson," I say, my voice cutting through the air, sharp as a blade. "Am I correct in assuming you're condemning me for this massacre without a shred of evidence?"
The guards closest to me flinch at my tone. Even Jameson, rigid and composed, clenches his jaw ever so slightly.
The captain jumps down from the roof, landing just fifteen feet away from me.
"No, Miss Veythorne, but I am detaining you on suspicion, as you are the only person here, and the anonymous tip-off we received mentioned you going haywire. Now, if you would please cooperate and follow me back to the station, this would all be over quickly."
His voice drips with a casual arrogance, and the leer on his face makes my skin crawl.
"Straight to the station?" I let out a low chuckle. "Captain Jameson, are you a judge? Are you acting on behalf of the court right now? It seems like you just read out the charges and have already sentenced me from the sound of it." I step closer, and the guards move out of my way as I flare my aura, making them all flinch.
I step directly in front of the captain. "You're not. You're nothing but a lowly captain. Here's what's gonna happen: you're going to tell your men to stand down and leave before I have your entire team dismantled and out of jobs. And you will get the fuck out of my way and inform your superiors that I will only speak to an official member of the court, not some clown in uniform. Do you understand?"
...
...
"Do—you—understand?"
"Yes." He responds through gritted teeth.
"Good."
I turn and walk past the wall of guards now scattered throughout the garden, each one watching their captain, whose face is twisted with rage—humiliated in front of his entire squad.
I pat Kaiser's back and whisper, "It's okay now. We're going home. Just close your eyes—the road might be a bit… windy."
Taking a running start, I leap into the air, letting my body soar into the darkening sky.
******
-Rey Jameson POV-
'That fucking Veythorne bitch!'
Seeing her soar into the sky after that humiliation makes my blood boil.
I turn to see my squad staring at me and scream, "GET BACK TO WORK! SEARCH EVERY INCH OF THIS PLACE! WE'RE NOT LETTING HER GET AWAY JUST LIKE THAT!"
They scramble into action like chicks to slaughter.
Riing— riiing—
"Fuck.."
I grab my radio and answer.
A low, sinister voice comes through. "Did you get her?"
I grind my teeth before quietly replying, "No… she got away."
...
...
"I see."
Feeling my pulse spike, I add, "Sir, it was an honest mistake. I couldn't convince her to follow me. If I had more troops, stronger soldiers, we could've taken her by force."
The voice responds calmly, "We don't want that. We want her to come out of her own volition—it'll make it easier. Stick to plan B. Search the area. Use anything and everything to pin the destruction on her. Make sure people gossip. Make sure the journalists hear about it—they'll eat it up. She'll reach a breaking point, and that's when we'll strike again."
"Understood. Jameson out."
******
-Elara POV-
Setting Kaiser's sleeping form into bed, I tuck him in.
He hasn't smiled once, hasn't said a word—nothing. It's like he's just a robot.
I reach out to brush the hair from his face and smile. Did mother feel like this when she had me?
My smile vanishes instantly when I notice his core in my peripheral vision.
I circulate both Mana and Aether through my eyes and focus closer.
It's like an unstable storm of Aether. His core… there's next to no Mana, only dense, heavy Aether.
I know what this is—but the scale is unprecedented.
Aetheric poisoning.
A condition in which a person's body absorbs too much Aether into their core, slowly fracturing and hardening it.
It usually manifests during childhood or adolescence, but… he's only five. A core fully merges at that age; that's when diseases and conditions begin, never earlier.
And...
...It's terminal.
He doesn't have much time if this continues.