Velrith's dawn broke blood-red. The sky above the aqueduct district pulsed with Rift light, streaks of violet and black crawling across the clouds like veins. Sirens wailed through the streets, an endless chorus of warning.
Citizens clustered around holo-screens, trembling as the broadcast shifted from commentary to a single flashing alert:
"ANOMALY CLASSIFICATION: S. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."
Shuttles ferried civilians from the district, engines roaring as families clutched one another. Children cried, staring wide-eyed at the glow rising from belowground, as if hell itself were clawing toward the surface.
The Battlefield Awakens
The aqueduct tunnels shuddered as the Rift split further, vomiting creatures into the world. Their forms shifted grotesquely — wolf-like jaws snapping atop serpent bodies, limbs bending the wrong way, wings of bone dragging against the stone ceiling. The air reeked of sulfur and rot, thick with Rift corruption.
Iron Vow's survivors fell back, bloodied and broken. Darius Heth limped, sword dragging along the ground, armor splintered. Half his squad was gone — swallowed into shadows or torn apart before his eyes.
He spat blood, snarling through clenched teeth. "Hold the line. Someone has to."
But the line was already gone.
The Arrival of Fire
The tunnels blazed gold as Vanguard Edge stormed in. Kael led them, cloak snapping behind him, his gauntlets alive with molten light. He moved like wildfire — fast, unrelenting, beautiful in his destruction.
"Clear the path!" he roared, flames erupting in controlled bursts that scorched Riftspawn to ash. His squad fanned out with ruthless precision:
Seren's wind blades sliced monsters mid-lunge.
Ira's chains whirled, dragging creatures into Kael's inferno.
Draven crushed bone with brutal force, each strike echoing like thunder.
Kael's flames lit the tunnel like a second sun. To the battered remnants of Iron Vow, he was salvation incarnate. To the watching world, he was fire given form.
And to Lucien, who was even now descending into the chaos, Kael was a complication he couldn't ignore.
The Dominion Descends
From the opposite end of the aqueduct, Astraeus Dominion advanced with the silence of predators. Shadows moved with them, cloaking their arrival until they stepped into the firelit battlefield.
Lucien led, immaculate as ever, silver eyes gleaming faintly in the Rift's glow. His team moved like extensions of his will:
Eira's frost lanced forward, sealing choke points with jagged ice.
Veyra's illusions split the hunters' silhouettes, confusing the monsters.
Caspian's runes burned into the ground, each step layering protection and destruction alike.
Lyra's spears of light pierced from above, radiant against the Riftspawn's darkness.
Where Kael's flames roared wild, Lucien's shadows coiled with surgical precision, striking clean, silent, final.
And when the two forces collided in the tunnel, the monsters became secondary for a moment. All eyes turned to the confrontation neither could avoid.
The Rivalry Rekindled
Kael's smirk cut through the smoke, sharp as a blade. "Took you long enough, Rael. Thought shadows moved faster."
Lucien's voice was calm, cold, laced with steel. "You've already burned half the infrastructure. Tell me — do you plan to fight the Riftspawn, or the city itself?"
Tension snapped between them like a drawn bowstring. Their squads exchanged wary glances — the unspoken rivalry alive in every stance, every narrowed gaze.
A monster lunged between them — a towering beast with too many arms, shrieking.
Kael moved first, golden flame bursting. Lucien moved a heartbeat later, shadows slicing. Their attacks collided, not in chaos but in strange, terrible synchronicity. The creature was obliterated, dissolved in fire and void — but the stone walls cracked from the force.
Both men turned on one another instantly.
"You're in my way," Kael snarled.
Lucien's gaze was frost. "Then step aside."
The World Watches
Aboveground, the feeds broadcast every second. Citizens gasped not at the monsters, but at the two leaders standing in the same frame, fire and shadow clashing.
"They'll tear each other apart," one commentator whispered.
Another shook his head. "No… look. They're keeping pace. That's not chaos — that's rivalry honed into perfection."
The debate ignited instantly across the networks. Who was stronger? Whose squad was superior? Entire forums flooded with speculation, as if Velrith itself weren't trembling beneath the escalating Rift.
To the city, this wasn't just survival. It was a spectacle.
The Rift Awakens
Deep in the aqueduct, the Rift convulsed. The walls groaned, stone fracturing, water surging as if the city's veins themselves were rupturing.
From the wound in reality, something vast stirred. A claw, black as obsidian, scraped against the edges of the tear. The ground quaked with its hunger.
This was no ordinary S-rank. This was something older, darker, a harbinger of what lay sealed beyond the dungeons humanity thought they understood.
Lucien felt it like a knife in his chest — his father's power, faint but undeniable, bleeding into the world.
Kael saw the flicker in his eyes, the brief crack in his mask.
And for the first time, he wondered what exactly Lucien Rael was hiding.