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The evacuation continued its meticulous course. Helicopters crossed the sky at fixed intervals, transporting wounded civilians, children, and non-combatant technicians to safe zones miles away. Several Sif portals remained open, coordinating the transfer of entire groups to distant bases, far beyond the influence of the energy fissure spreading like a dark ring.
At the center of the isolated zone, only the key figures remained: Mei, Fenra, Tekio, Dan, Stella, Aisha, and Akira. All with direct authorization. The field where they stood, once a devastated battlefield, now held improvised tables set up among tents, life-support greenhouses, and power towers.
A light dinner had been prepared by one of the medical aides. Rice, sautéed mushrooms, some vegetables grown in capsules, and hot tea. It seemed simple… but to them, it was a feast.
They were all seated in circles around the folding tables. Dan was recounting something funny about mistaking a Reaper for a survivor during a reconnaissance mission. Stella laughed softly, shaking her head. Tekio bit into an apple while observing the distant tree. Mei sat slightly apart, a smile in the corners of her eyes.
She watched the three of them interacting. Dan, Stella, Tekio. For a moment, something tightened in her chest. An absence.
— Tenklyn... — she whispered to herself.
Fenra, beside her, caught the murmur and glanced over.
— Thinking of him?
Mei did not answer immediately. She merely kept her eyes fixed on the young ones. Then she nodded with a sigh.
— He was always the heart of all this. The strength that held us together before everything crumbled. Before me, before Akira, before the titles. — She paused. — He was the one who taught me that being strong wasn't enough. That we had to change the world with that strength.
— And you have. You are.
— But he was the type who made everyone believe… even when he himself didn't know in what. — Mei smiled fondly. — I was just the weapon. He gave me direction. Purpose.
— This war has taken so much from us. Levi, Tenklyn… some people are gone for good, and others had to remake themselves just to survive. I don't know what Dante wanted, but he succeeded in tearing a piece from all of us...
The two women shared the same pain. Everyone there did.
The silence between them was filled by Tekio's laughter at a sarcastic comment from Stella. There was a simple joy there. One that seemed increasingly rare.
Mei took a deep breath.
— I wish he were here to see this.
Fenra nodded.
— Perhaps he is.
Aisha and Akira approached the table with plates in hand. They sat beside Tekio, who was still eating slowly. The conversation remained light for a few minutes, until Aisha cleared her throat, breaking the mood.
— Akira and I completed a full reconnaissance of the east wing and the old Devotees' concentration camp.
Mei turned her face, interested.
— Did you find more survivors?
— A few. But… what bothers me is what we didn't find — said Aisha, setting her plate aside. — No sign of Azaroth's body.
The name made everyone pause for a moment.
— Nor of Karmore — Akira completed. — We searched for over two hours with the drones. The sensors detect nothing. No energy. No traces of life. Nothing.
— They vanished? — murmured Fenra.
— That isn't normal — said Aisha. — Azaroth was powerful, but even dead, his body should have left spiritual traces. The same with Karmore. No one simply disappears like that.
Tekio clenched his fist.
— She is alive — he said firmly. — Karmore… Amara. I know she is. I feel her energy. It's as if something inside me is constantly trying to remind me of her. Like an echo… a bond.
Everyone looked at him in silence.
— But as for Azaroth… I don't know. It's as if he's been… ripped from existence.
— So we're dealing with another presence? — Stella questioned. — Someone capable of doing such a thing?
— If so, it's someone with abilities beyond our current scale — Fenra replied. — Perhaps even someone who has been observing us all this time.
— Someone in the shadows. — Mei said quietly.
— Perhaps it's not just someone — said Aisha. — It could be a group. Someone is tying up loose ends... and it isn't us.
A tense silence fell. The surrounding voices grew quieter. Even the breeze seemed to cease.
Then a new figure approached the group.
It was a woman of short stature, pale skin, with blonde hair tied back with a black scarf. She wore the white uniform of the international specialists. The emblem of France marked her chest.
— Excuse me… I am Dr. Elise Monnard — she said with a light French accent. — I was sent to show you something.
— What is it? — asked Mei, standing up.
Elise activated the hologram from her tablet.
— The bubbles of negative energy above the concentration camp… have begun to spew black mist. As if they are… breathing. Expelling something.
— And what is strange about that? — asked Dan, standing up with a piece of bread still in his hand.
— The soil around the areas hit by the mist is beginning to develop vegetation.
— Vegetation? — Tekio stood up fully. — What kind?
— We don't recognize it. They are not natural plants. They grow fast. The leaves glow in a purple hue, and the soil around them is beginning to calcify, as if it's transforming… into something else. The bubbles are spreading, slowly. And some of them are getting closer to the Tree of Life.
— This could be corrupting the tree — said Fenra, crossing her arms.
— It already is — Elise corrected. — The tree is changing. Its roots have begun to emit a sound… as if they are alive. The pattern of the bark has changed. A new core is forming. And we don't know what it is.
— This vegetation — murmured Akira — might be creating a new ecosystem. A… world.
— A new world… on top of the old one — Aisha completed.
Mei looked at everyone, then at the sky, where the black bubbles hovered like watchful eyes.
She took a deep breath.
— The evacuation needs to accelerate. Tomorrow… no one without authorization can be here.
— We've already sent almost all the civilians, now we're sending the weaker Sifs, the ones from the temple.
The evacuation lights twinkled like artificial fireflies on the horizon. Armored trucks slid through the cleaned-out streets, helicopters traced routes across the grey sky, and groups of civilians, wounded soldiers, and scholars boarded under strict protocols.
Mei watched it all from the improvised balcony of one of the still-standing buildings. A fragment of what was once the Sif command tower. Fenra stood beside her, arms crossed. The smell of ozone in the air came from the black bubbles suspended in the sky. Thicker. Slower. More conscious.
Dan, Stella, and Tekio were sitting nearby, re-reading holographic reports and discussing in low tones.
— The evacuation will be complete by evening — said Fenra. — Only the specialized teams and authorized combatants will remain.
Mei nodded silently, her gaze fixed on the three young people below.
— I think… — she began, hesitating for a moment. — It would be better if Tekio, Dan, and Stella left with the others. They've done enough. They've proven themselves. Perhaps they don't need to be here for what comes next.
Fenra turned her head slowly.
— You know they won't accept that.
Mei took a deep breath, crossing her arms. She didn't want to seem weak. But her instinct screamed.
— They're just children.
— Not anymore. — Fenra spoke firmly. — You've seen what they've done. You've seen whom they've fought, what they've lost… and they are still here. You can't put them in a protective box. Not anymore. They know what's at stake.
Mei looked at the three again. Tekio had started doodling on the edge of a report. Dan was smiling discreetly. Stella seemed to be arguing some energy calculation with him, as if the world weren't about to crumble around them.
She sighed.
— They're going to stay, aren't they?
Fenra nodded lightly.
— Until the end.
The breeze grew heavier. The mist from the sky-borne bubbles now began to spread in circular patterns, as if dancing around the fissure. A high-pitched sound—almost a whisper—could be heard if one concentrated. A distant voice that no one could understand.
The group moved to the region near the Tree of Life, where specialists were setting up sensors around the new vegetation. The soil there was different. It was excessively damp despite the lack of rain. Black roots sprouted from the earth like thin, twisted fingers. Some leaves glowed with a purple light. Others vibrated slightly at the presence of the Sifs.
— It's… alive — said Stella, crouched before a plant that changed color as she approached.
— It looks like a reflection of the Abyss — Dan commented, observing a trunk that pulsed with slow beats. — But… it doesn't behave like malignant energy. It's something new.
— As if the world is trying to adapt to the wound. — murmured Tekio. — To recreate life, but with the scars.
Mei knelt beside them. She touched the ground. Felt the warmth. But also something deeper. An echo beneath the earth. A growing vibration.
— This isn't just a symptom. It's an omen.
Fenra scanned the plants with her tablet in silence, but the readings only made her frown more deeply.
— The energy composition of these roots… it's not just the Abyss. There are spiritual traces too. As if something is using the foundation of the Tree of Life to… be reborn.
— So the tree is being used as a conduit — concluded Aisha, appearing beside Akira.
— Exactly. — Fenra replied. — But we don't know by whom. Or by what.
A thunderclap echoed in the distance, despite the cloudless sky. Everyone stopped for a second.
Akira looked up.
— It's increasing. The spiritual pressure. Do you feel it?
Dan nodded, placing a hand on his chest.
— It's as if something is trying to form down below. And the bubbles… they seem like part of a respiratory system. They're inhaling and exhaling mist.
— As if the city were a body — murmured Tekio.
— A body that is waking up — said Fenra, finally.
Silence.
Then Mei spoke:
— And we are inside it.
By the following dawn, the sound from the dark bubbles had intensified. Some had descended several meters in the sky, drawing closer to the earth. The vegetation at the edges of the fissure now glowed in the night. The roots began to vibrate in unison. And from the depths of the tree, the sensors picked up a sound.
Two beats.
Like a heart.
To be continued...
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