As they reached the blast zone through the drifting smoke and the suffocating stench of charred flesh, the sight before them was enough to turn the stomach of even the most seasoned warrior. Shinju's Yang Bullets hadn't just killed the chimeras; they had dismantled their bodies into a literal biological puzzle, shredding them into a grotesque mosaic of gore.
Koharu recoiled, covering her nose and mouth with her cloak. "This is... so revolting," she groaned, averting her eyes from the severed crocodile jaws and mangled bear torsos scattered across the ground. "How can such a perversion even exist? It's pure depravity."
Swen, however, had the opposite reaction. Her fear had been entirely replaced by a professional, alchemical obsession. Her eyes gleaming, she knelt beside the remains of a chimera and reached toward the wreckage. "The sight might be disgusting, Koharu, but look at this craftsmanship!" Swen said, using a pair of small tweezers to examine a pale human arm that had been torn from a body.
She lifted the pitch-black Yin threads—resembling dark, pulsing capillaries—where the arm had once met the shoulder. "Look, Kaelith didn't just crudely stitch these limbs together. He wove the neural networks directly with these Yin threads. He created a kind of energetic nervous system." As Swen brought the arm closer to the chimera's shoulder, the threads twitched as if alive, reaching out to pull each other back together.
"Do you know what this means?" Swen asked, looking up at the others. "With this system, as long as these threads act as a bridge, a severed limb can be reattached and made functional again in seconds. Kaelith didn't just design an army; he engineered immortal machines that could pick up their own parts and stand back up on the battlefield. Isn't it magnificent? If you set aside ethics, it's the work of a genius."
Aurelia furrowed her brows in disgust at Swen's "scientific" excitement. Shinju remained silent, staring at the Void aura in his right hand. If Swen was right, the hybrid soldiers they would face on the way to Michael's spear would not only be powerful but nearly impossible to kill.
"If a human loses a limb in the future," Swen continued, "it could be reattached using this very technique..."
At that moment—a weak, fragile child's voice was heard.
"...Mother..."
The voice was so faint it could have been mistaken for a trick of the wind whistling through the trees. Koharu's shoulders stiffened instantly; her gaze locked onto the empty air. No one moved. Swen slowly lowered the limb she was holding, her brow knitting together.
"Did you hear that...?"
No one answered. They had all heard it, but none wanted to accept it as reality. A moment of deathly silence followed. Then the voice came again, closer and clearer this time.
"...Don't leave me..."
The tone was wrong. The words belonged to a child, but the sound rasping from the throat felt like a distorted adult's hilt. It was cracked, broken, sounding like a single chorus emerging from multiple mouths at once. Aurelia's eyes narrowed.
"This... is not natural," Aurelia whispered.
Shinju turned his head slowly. The shadows between the trees were empty; no heat, no sign of life. But the whispers began to multiply, layering over one another. Among the tangled voices, one began to sound familiar to Swen.
"...My sibling..." "...Come..." "...I am here..."
The voices seeped into Swen's mind like venom. Her breathing became irregular, and her pupils trembled as they rolled upward. "That voice..." she said, taking a step forward. Without even realizing it, she was being drawn into the dark depths. "...No... it's impossible..."
The gray mist of the Void dissolved in Swen's eyes. Suddenly, she found herself under the purple skies of planet Lunaris, standing amidst the glowing alchemical towers. Standing before her was her brother, lost years ago. He looked at her with a smile, reaching out as if he had never died.
"Sister... I knew you could do it!" her brother said, his voice brimming with pride. "I knew you would triumph against Michael and save Lunaris from this tyranny. Swen... did I really do it? Did I defeat Michael?"
Tears streamed down Swen's face as she took another step. Her brother continued in admiration: "Of course you did! Swen, the greatest alchemist in the universe... you lived up to your name. Look, everyone is waiting for you. The celebration for the planet's liberation is about to begin. The exile is finally over, sister... Welcome home."
Aurelia suddenly snapped her head to the side. Her golden eyes went dull; the sooty reality of the forest melted away in her mind, replaced by a familiar, searing heat.
The voice reaching her ears was not a child's cry, but an ancient, deep, and reassuring hum rising from the depths of volcanoes.
"...Come out..." "...Don't be afraid..." "...You are not alone..."
Aurelia found herself in the depths of the legendary, gilded caves of the Dragon Kin. The scent of sulfur and molten metal struck her nose, feeling far more real than the world she had just left. Her feet moved not by her own will, but driven by a thousand-year-old longing for that voice.
At the end of the dark corridor, beneath a massive shaft of light, she saw the Sovereign of the Dragons. The Sovereign stood over thousands of dragon eggs, his massive wings spread like a protective shield. Aurelia's knees buckled. There was no trace left of her proud, upright stature; in that moment, she felt like a forsaken child who had lost her people.
"My Sovereign..." Aurelia whispered, her voice trembling. "I knew it... I knew I wasn't the last one, that our bloodline wasn't extinct!"
The Sovereign turned his golden eyes toward her. His voice echoed off the cavern walls: "Under your leadership, a bright future awaits the dragons, Aurelia. The exile is over. The eggs are about to hatch... Welcome home."
Seeing the dull stares and the eerie, peaceful smiles on Swen and Aurelia's faces, Shinju's brow furrowed in sharp confusion. He couldn't understand it. It was as if they could comprehend these strange, garbled whispers.
The voices reached him, too. At first, they were nothing but ominous, meaningless hallows. He moved toward Aurelia, shouting, "Snap out of it!"
But when he turned around, one of the voices stood out from the rest. It was heavier. It came from a deeper place.
"...My son..."
Shinju's pupils constricted. His body froze as if bound by chains of ice. This voice... he was supposed to forget it. He had forgotten it, buried with pain, blood, and the silence of the Void years ago. Yet here it was, right in front of him.
"...Return..."
His heart skipped a beat. The perfect Yin-Yang circle in his mind shivered at the impact.
"...We are here..."
Shinju took a step forward, unintentionally, unknowingly. Reality... began to slip away. The trees blurred. The ground faded. The voices drew closer. Warmer. More real.
He suddenly found himself in the middle of a lush green field on a warm summer day, lying on his mother's lap. His mother's hand was gently stroking his hair.
"Mother..." Shinju murmured. His voice was not that of a warrior, but a vulnerable child. "The weather is so beautiful... What happened to the Void? The darkness... the monsters?"
His mother chuckled softly, her voice like the wind brushing through the grass. "Did you forget, my son?" she asked tenderly. "When your uncle and father destroyed that dome last year, the Void vanished with them. There is no more darkness, no more fear."
Shinju felt himself melting into this peace. He closed his eyes and breathed in his mother's scent. "Where is Father, Mother? I want to see him."
"Oh, I nearly forgot," his mother said, gazing at the horizon. "Your father and uncle will be back from the hunt soon. I should start preparing the vegetables and the meal. Come, get up sweetheart; there's going to be a grand celebration today."
As Shinju rose from his mother's lap, his face held a look of indescribable happiness.
While Shinju was lost in his mother's lap, Swen in her brother's voice, and Aurelia in the glory of her people, Koharu found herself standing before the deepest wound of her own mind.
The famous, cold marble courtyard of the palace was not icy this time, but washed in the most compassionate sunlight. Standing directly across from Koharu was her sister—the one who had looked at her with such loathing on the day of her exile. But this time, there was no sharp-edged hatred in her eyes; only grief and regret.
"...Forgive me..." her sister said. Her voice was in a tone Koharu hadn't dared to hear even in her dreams for years.
Koharu's lips parted. "You..." was all she could say. Her heart felt too large for her chest.
"...I cried every day..." her sister continued, tears streaming down her cheeks. "...I have never forgiven myself since they sent you into exile. I missed you so much, Koharu."
Koharu tried to speak, but her sobs cut off her words. Her sister took another step toward her, placing her hands gently on Koharu's shoulders. "We have been so unjust to you. We were too blind to see the beauty of your unique heart. You are not the shame of this nation, Koharu; you are its greatest pride. Our father, our brothers... they are all waiting for your return. We are waiting for you."
As Koharu felt herself being pulled into her sister's warm embrace, she thought all the pain in the world had finally ended. Finally, she was not the "unloved princess," but a cherished part of her family.