The first few days of Ragnar's command were a study in controlled chaos. The Seventh Knight Company was, as promised, a collection of the kingdom's most privileged and problematic young nobility. He learned their names, their houses, and their particular brands of arrogance. There was Leonhard of House Lucandel, whose sense of entitlement was as vast as his family's lands; Eleanor of House Baskerville, whose sharp tongue could flay a man as efficiently as any sword; and a dozen others, each believing their lineage was a substitute for discipline and skill.
Their induction was not by merit, but by royal decree—a tradition requiring all heirs of major houses to serve a mandatory three-year term in the knights upon turning eighteen. They saw it as a tedious formality, a delay before they could assume their true positions of power. Ragnar saw it as raw material, however unrefined.
Their first official mission arrived swiftly: the subjugation of a Behemoth rampaging through the western farmlands on the capital's outskirts. The creature, a massive, horned beast with a hide like stone, was trampling crops and terrorizing villages. The mission briefing also noted they would be operating in conjunction with a contingent of mages from the Magic Tower for long-range support and containment.
The assembly point was a field just outside the city walls. The morning was crisp, the air tinged with the scent of dew and distant smoke. The knights of the Seventh stood in a loose, disorganized cluster, their polished armor gleaming. The wait began.
It did not take long for the complaints to start.
"This is ridiculous," Leonhard Lucandel grumbled, shifting his weight and casting a disdainful look towards the empty road from the city. "How long does it take for a few bookworms to gather their robes and wands? We're knights, not nursemaids. We should be moving out now."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the group. Eleanor Baskerville nodded, her arms crossed. "Precisely. Our time is valuable. This beast won't slay itself, and I have a soirée to attend this evening."
Ragnar stood slightly apart, his arms crossed over his chestplate, Excalibolt a silent, dormant presence at his hip. He said nothing. He simply observed. This was a test, as much a part of their first mission as the Behemoth itself. He was watching their discipline, their patience, their attitude towards allies they deemed beneath them. Their behavior now, in this moment of minor inconvenience, was more telling than any sparring match.
The grumbling continued, growing louder and more entitled. A few of the younger knights began making bets on how "useless" the mages would be in a real fight. Ragnar's expression remained an unreadable mask, but his mind was cataloging every word, every sneer. This arrogance was a weakness he would need to burn out of them, sooner rather than later.
Then, a voice cut through the morning air, clear and familiar.
"Ragnar!"
He turned. A group of mages in the distinctive robes of the Magic Tower was approaching, their staves tapping softly on the dirt path. And at their head was Lyra. She looked different outside the tavern—her robes were practical yet elegant, her storm-cloud hair tied back, and her eyes held a focused, professional light. In her hand, she held a staff tipped with a crystal that crackled faintly with latent crimson energy.
Her appearance had an immediate and palpable effect on the knights. The grumbling ceased, replaced by a wave of stunned silence, then low, appreciative whistles. Lyra's beauty, combined with the confident aura of a powerful mage, was a potent combination. Leonhard Lucandel's petulant scowl vanished, replaced by a predatory, interested smile. He straightened his posture, running a hand through his hair.
"Well, now," he murmured, his eyes fixed on Lyra. "The Tower sends its most… captivating assets."
He took a step forward, several of his cronies following suit, their previous impatience forgotten in the face of a new distraction. "My lady," Leohard began, his voice oozing charm. "I am Leohard of House Lucandel. It seems fortune smiles upon us today, to have such… delightful company on this dreary mission."
Lyra's polite smile was tight, her eyes flicking past him to Ragnar, a silent question in them.
Before Leonohard could take another step, Ragnar moved.
He didn't shout. He didn't draw his sword. He simply took one smooth, deliberate step that placed him directly between Leonhard and Lyra. It wasn't a aggressive move, but it was one of absolute, unassailable finality.
The air changed.
Ragnar did not look at Leonhard. His gaze was forward, towards the distant western fields where their mission lay. But an aura erupted from him—a subtle, controlled, yet terrifyingly dense pressure. It was the scent of ozone before a storm, the feeling of static raising the hair on their arms. It was a whisper of the crimson thunder that slept within him, a silent promise of annihilation.
The knights behind Leonhard froze mid-step. Their smirks died. The casual arrogance was wiped from their faces, replaced by a primal, instinctual wariness. They felt, in that moment, like small animals who had just stumbled into the territory of an apex predator.
Into the ringing silence, Ragnar spoke. His voice was low, barely above a whisper, but it carried to every member of the Seventh with the clarity of a blade being drawn.
"She," he said, the single word layered with a possessiveness that was not about romance, but about a bond forged in shared secrets and parallel pasts, a declaration of absolute, unyielding protection, "is mine."
The threat was not spelled out. It didn't need to be. It hung in the air, as tangible and dangerous as a naked blade. Leohard Lucandel, heir to a Grand Duchy, took an involuntary step back, his face pale. He looked from Ragnar's impassive profile to Lyra, and then back again, all his charm and bravado utterly crushed under the weight of that simple, devastating statement.
Behind Ragnar, shielded by his broad back and the intimidating aura he projected, Lyra felt a fierce blush heat her cheeks. It wasn't from embarrassment, but from a sudden, overwhelming surge of emotion—a mix of relief, fierce pride, and a strange, warm feeling she couldn't quite name. He hadn't claimed her as a prize, but as a partner. As his. In a world of political games and arrogant nobles, his direct, powerful protection was a shield more solid than any magical barrier.
The field was utterly silent save for the rustle of the wind. The mission, the Behemoth, the waiting—all of it was secondary. In that moment, Ragnar had not only established the primacy of his command; he had drawn a line in the earth that none of his knights would ever dare cross again. The Seventh Company now understood the true nature of the force that led them.
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The world beyond the military base's fences was a canvas of decay painted in shades of grey and brown. The silence was a heavy blanket, broken only by the scuff of their boots on cracked asphalt and the occasional, distant moan carried on the wind. Noctus and Artemis moved with a predator's grace, their senses extended, not just with sight and sound, but with the very air itself. Noctus had suggested heading west; the currents had carried faint, ragged whispers of breath and the metallic scent of fear from that direction. Hope, however faint, was a resource as vital as food or water.
They hadn't traveled far when the ambush came. It wasn't sophisticated. A rusted truck was pulled across the road, and from behind it and the shells of surrounding buildings, a group of a dozen men emerged. They were a sorry lot, their clothes ragged, their faces gaunt, but their eyes held a desperate, feral cunning. They carried an assortment of weapons—crowbars, pipes, a few hunting knives. Their leader, a hulking man with a scar across his lip, stepped forward, a crude axe resting on his shoulder.
"Well, well," the man rasped, his gaze sweeping over them. It lingered on their clean, relatively intact clothing, then on the confident way they held themselves. But his attention, lecherous and possessive, quickly settled on Artemis. He looked her up and down, a slow, vulgar smile spreading across his face. "Look what the wind blew in. A real pretty one. Ain't seen one so clean in a long time."
His companions chuckled, their own gazes stripping Artemis with a brazen hunger that had nothing to do with food. They were looking at her like a piece of meat, a prize to be claimed. Artemis's posture, usually so cool and composed, tightened. A flicker of disgust and unease crossed her features, her hands curling into fists at her sides. She wasn't afraid of a fight, but the violation in their stares was a different kind of threat.
Noctus didn't move. He didn't tense or reach for a weapon. He simply took a single, fluid step to the side, placing his body directly between the thugs' line of sight and Artemis. He didn't block her physically, but he blocked them. Their lewd gazes now fell upon his back, their intended target shielded by his presence.
Then, he did something that made Artemis's breath catch. He turned his head slightly, just enough to look at her over his shoulder. And he smiled.
It wasn't the cheerful, rebellious grin of Cyclone. It was something colder, sharper. A predator's smile. It was a smile that promised a storm, not of chaos, but of focused, absolute retribution. In that smile, she saw the unchained Tempest, the one who had declared he would rule order with his own chaos. And it was all for her.
"Let me handle it," he said, his voice deceptively light, almost conversational.
Artemis stared at him, her confusion at his sudden shift in demeanor warring with the intense blush that heated her cheeks. The cold fear the thugs had inspired was instantly replaced by a different, warmer, more flustering feeling. She found she couldn't hold his gaze. Her eyes dropped to the ground, and she gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
"Yeah," she whispered, the word barely audible.
That was all the permission Noctus needed.
He turned back to face the group, his smile gone, replaced by an expression of utter, dispassionate calm. The lead thug, emboldened by what he perceived as weakness, sneered. "What's the matter, pretty boy? Gonna be a hero?"
Noctus didn't answer. He simply raised his right hand, palm open, towards the sky.
The air began to hum.
It was a low, sub-audible thrum that vibrated in their teeth and bones. The dust on the road started to tremble, then lift, swirling in invisible currents. The thugs' jeers died in their throats, their expressions shifting from arrogance to confusion, then to dawning horror.
Noctus's open hand slowly curled into a fist.
And the world around the thugs screamed.
The air itself became a prison. It wasn't a tornado that lifted and threw; it was a vortex that compressed. The thugs were suddenly trapped in a cylinder of howling, suffocating wind, the pressure dropping so rapidly their eardrums popped. They gasped, but the air was being stolen from their lungs, whipped away into the maelstrom. They were caught in the eye of a storm that Noctus had created just for them, a display of power so precise and terrifying it was beyond their comprehension.
He didn't kill them. He didn't need to. He simply showed them a fraction of the abyss that resided within him. He showed them what it meant to threaten what was under his protection. After a long moment that felt like an eternity to the trapped men, he opened his fist.
The wind died instantly. The compressed air exploded outwards with a soft whump, throwing the thugs off their feet. They landed in a groaning, terrified heap, gasping and clutching their throats, their weapons forgotten.
Noctus didn't even look at them as they scrambled away, tripping over each other in their panic to flee. He simply turned back to Artemis, his expression once again neutral, as if he had just swatted a fly.
"Shall we continue?" he asked, his voice once again its usual calm, pragmatic tone.
Artemis could only nod, her heart still pounding, not from fear of the thugs, but from the terrifying, exhilarating display of power she had just witnessed, and the single, simple reason behind it. He had handled it.
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The opulent corridors of the Arkworld AW-03's upper decks were a study in silent, polished privilege, a stark contrast to the grim purpose driving Gaiard and Tiama. Locating Edward's private quarters was a simple matter of following the trail of his wealth and influence—a sprawling suite located in the most secure and luxurious section of the ship. They didn't bother with stealth. Their approach was a declaration of intent.
Inside the suite, the air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne and rage. Edward paced amidst the wreckage of what had once been fine furniture, his face still a swollen, bruised mess from Gaiard's fist. Spittle flew from his lips as he roared curses, his voice a shrill counterpoint to the low hum of the ship's engines.
"Those lower-deck scum! I'll have them skinned and tossed to the deep-sea mutants! I'll own her! I'll break him!"
Slouched on a pristine white sofa, seemingly untouched by the surrounding chaos, was his younger brother, Almond. He was lean where Edward was bulky, with sharp, calculating eyes and a perpetual, condescending smirk. He watched his brother's tantrum with open amusement.
"Brother, dear," Almond drawled, his voice smooth as oil. "All this shouting is so... uncouth. And ineffective." He took a slow sip from a crystal glass. "You're thinking like a brute. You need to think like a strategist."
Edward stopped his pacing, glaring at his brother. "What are you talking about?"
Almond's smirk widened into something truly unpleasant. "The girl. This Tiama. She's proud. She thinks her strength makes her untouchable. So, you don't challenge her strength. You circumvent it." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Wait. Wait until the middle of the night, when she's deep in sleep, her guard down. A little chemical assistance in the ventilation system to ensure she doesn't wake... then, you pay her a visit. Once she's been... compromised, once her 'virtue' is a memory, what choice does she have? She'll be ruined. She'll have no one to turn to but you. She'll be in the palm of your hand, utterly dependent."
A slow, ugly light of understanding dawned in Edward's eyes. The rage was replaced by a greedy, predatory anticipation. He nodded, a foul smile spreading across his battered face. "Yes... yes, you're right. I'll have her—"
He was cut off by a voice from the doorway, cold and clear as shattering crystal.
"See? I told you he wouldn't give up easily."
Another voice, a low, tectonic rumble, answered. "Okay, okay! You're right."
Edward and Almond spun around. Standing in the open doorway, their forms silhouetted against the brighter hallway light, were Gaiard and Tiama. Tiama's arms were crossed, her expression one of icy, vindicated contempt. Gaiard stood beside her, his massive frame seeming to fill the entire doorframe, his face a mask of grim finality.
Almond shot to his feet, his smug composure shattered. "How did you get in here?!" he sputtered, his voice cracking. "I arranged a full contingent of guards! They're the best on the ship!"
Tiama didn't even glance behind her. "You mean those weaklings?" she said, her tone dripping with disdain. "Got it."
Edward's eyes darted past them to the corridor. Littering the floor, in a neatly stacked pile of groaning, unconscious bodies, were all of his elite guards. "Gone," he whispered, the color draining from his face.
Gaiard took a step into the room, the deck plating groaning under his weight. He rolled his shoulders and cracked the knuckles of his Terracrasher-clad hands. The sound was like stones grinding together.
"Okay," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion except a quiet, terrifying purpose. "Let's do this quickly."
He and Tiama advanced. There was no rush, no frenzy. Their movements were deliberate, inevitable, like the tide coming in. The two brothers, their scheming bravado utterly evaporated, stumbled backward. Edward tripped over a broken chair leg and fell hard on his backside. Almond backed into a wall, his hands raised in a futile gesture of surrender.
"Please!" Edward begged, scrambling backward like a crab, his fine clothes tearing on the splintered wood. "Don't! I was wrong! I'll give you anything! Credits! A higher deck! Just don't hurt me!"
Almond simply slid down the wall, his face a mask of pure terror, unable to form any words.
Their pleas fell on deaf ears. The time for warnings was past. The line had been crossed not by a threat of violence, but by a threat of something far more vile. Gaiard and Tiama loomed over them, the avenging spirits of the earth, their cold smiles promising not just punishment, but eradication.
And then, a single, high-pitched, utterly terrified scream ripped through the soundproofed walls of the suite, a stark, human sound of agony and fear that echoed through the sterile, opulent halls of the AW-03. It was cut off with brutal suddenness, but its echo lingered.
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The training field of the Space Exploring Officer Academy was a marvel of human engineering. Beneath a vast, transparent dome that offered a panoramic view of the star-dusted void, the field itself was a landscape of polished alloy and humming technology. Artificial gravity maintained a perfect 1G, while floating sensor drones hovered like silent, mechanical insects, their lenses capturing every twitch, every failed parry, every moment of panic. Rows of deactivated combat drones stood in silent ranks, and holographic projectors lay dormant, waiting to paint the air with threats.
Class 7-B stood in a ragged semblance of a line. The division was palpable. The Upper Group stood with an air of bored entitlement, their custom-fitted uniforms a silent protest against standardization. The Rebel Group slouched, their postures radiating defiance, while the Common Group tried to make themselves as small and unobtrusive as possible, caught in the crossfire of social strata.
Ignis stood before them, devoid of any teaching aids save for a simple, flat command slate in his hand. His presence was a live wire in the sterile environment.
"Lesson one," his voice cut through the low murmur, needing no amplification. It was a statement, not an introduction. "Combat readiness." He paused, his gaze sweeping over them, seeing not future officers, but a collection of flaws. "You think the title 'Space Exploring Officer' means a comfortable chair in a climate-controlled bridge? That it's about inputting coordinates and delegating tasks to subordinates?"
He didn't wait for an answer. His thumb pressed an icon on the slate.
A low hum filled the air as a shimmering, blue-tinged holographic barrier snapped into existence around the perimeter of the entire field, sealing them in. A few students yelped in surprise, stumbling back from the energy wall.
"Today," Ignis continued, his tone utterly flat, "we test a fundamental skill. One your previous instructors have clearly neglected. We test how quickly your minds can adapt when the comfortable illusions of safety and status are stripped away."
He turned his back on them, his instructor's coat swaying with the motion. He didn't need to see them to command their attention. His voice, calm and final, echoed in the enclosed space.
"Simulation start."
The change was instantaneous. The rows of training dummies didn't just activate; they unfolded. Limbs of reinforced metal twisted and locked into combat stances. Energy cores housed within their chests glowed with a menacing orange light. With a synchronized, whirring click, dozens of Level 3 combat drones—models typically reserved for advanced cadets, not first-day instructor evaluations—detached from their racks and began to advance. Their movements were not the slow, predictable patterns of basic trainers. They were aggressive, adaptive, and fast.
The line of students shattered.
Screams, curses, and panicked shouts erupted, a chaotic symphony of fear.
"What the hell!?"
"Those are Level 3s! He's trying to kill us!"
"Somebody turn them off! This isn't in the curriculum!"
Ignis had turned back to face the chaos, his arms folded across his chest. He was an island of absolute calm in the storm of his own making. His expression was unreadable, his eyes analyzing the disintegration of their composure with clinical detachment.
"Your task is simple," he announced, his voice cutting through the din without effort. "Survive. For ten minutes. Demonstrate a shred of the competence your files claim you possess." His eyes, for a fleeting second, seemed to glow with an inner, ember-like heat. "Fail, and I will personally provide you with a practical, and undoubtedly painful, reminder of why arrogance is a luxury you cannot afford when the vacuum outside is one hull breach away."
Then, he simply watched.
It was a brutal spectacle. The Upper Group, who had relied on their names and wealth to command respect, completely fell apart. Robin shouted incoherent orders that no one followed, his face pale with a terror he had never known. They were isolated, picked off one by one as the drones efficiently broke their clumsy, individualistic defenses.
The Rebel Group fared slightly better, but their defiance was their downfall. They charged in recklessly, trying to prove their strength, only to be overwhelmed by the drones' coordinated tactics. Their unorthodox moves were useless without a foundation of discipline.
The most surprising performance came from the Common Group. With no illusions of superiority and no rebellious pride to uphold, they fell back on the most basic of instincts: solidarity. They formed a rough, defensive circle, watching each other's backs, using their limited skills in a desperate, unified effort to simply endure. They were pushed back, battered, and bruised, but they held. Their formation bent but did not break.
Ignis's gaze lingered on them, a flicker of something akin to approval in his eyes. Potential. Flamme had seen it in the institution, and he was seeing its raw, unrefined spark in these overlooked students. But potential was fragile. It needed to be tempered, and to be tempered, the slag of arrogance and complacency first had to be burned away.
He let the simulation run for eleven minutes. The extra sixty seconds were a deliberate, calculated cruelty. It was the time it took for the last vestiges of pride to be utterly stripped from the Upper Group, for the Rebel Group's energy to be spent into exhausted despair, and for the Common Group's cohesion to be pushed to its absolute limit.
When the drones finally powered down, retracting into their dormant forms, the field was a scene of devastation. Not of broken equipment, but of broken spirits. Students lay gasping on the floor, uniforms torn and smudged, their bodies aching. The air was thick with the scent of sweat, ozone, and shattered ego.
Ignis stepped forward. The sound of his boots on the alloy floor was the only noise.
"Lesson two," he said, his voice now softer, but carrying even more weight. "You are all equally worthless. Your names, your families, your attitudes… they are irrelevant data points. The moment you step onto a bridge or set foot on an alien world, they mean nothing. You stop thinking as a team, you start dying as individuals."
His eyes found Robin, who was struggling to his feet, his body trembling with exhaustion and humiliation.
"Especially you," Ignis said, the words not a shout, but a pinpoint strike. "A commander who cannot inspire unity is a liability. A liability gets people killed."
Robin opened his mouth, a retort born of a lifetime of privilege on his lips, but the words died. He looked into Ignis's eyes and saw no anger, no malice, only a cold, hard truth that his wealth could not refute. He lowered his gaze, utterly defeated.
Ignis let the silence hang for a moment longer, allowing the lesson to sear itself into their minds. Then, he sighed softly, a faint sound of exasperation. He turned and began walking towards the exit.
"Tomorrow," he said without looking back. "We start again. Same time. Don't be late."
The holographic barrier dissolved. As he exited the field, a few of the students—mostly from the Common Group, but a few from the Rebels as well—watched his retreating back. Their expressions were no longer filled with fear or resentment, but with a dawning, fierce awe. They were bruised, exhausted, and humiliated, but for the first time, someone had looked past their social labels and seen only their performance. Someone had held them to a standard, however brutal, and in doing so, had implied they were capable of meeting it.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the hopeless case that was Class 7-B had finally encountered the one force in the universe capable of forging them into something greater: an instructor who was not afraid to break them completely, in order to rebuild them properly.
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The transition into the Rank A Gate was a disorienting shift from the modern city to a nightmarish, bioluminescent jungle. The air was thick with the chittering of unseen insects and the cloying scent of rotting vegetation. The moment they crossed the threshold, Friz didn't break stride. He simply walked away from the group of chattering, expensive-looking Rankers, his indifference to their presence as absolute as the cold he commanded.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" one of them shouted, his voice tinged with panic. "You're supposed to be protecting us!"
Friz didn't acknowledge them. He was already several yards ahead, a lone figure in simple clothes against the grotesque, oversized flora. The jungle came alive. Insects the size of dogs, with carapaces like polished obsidian and mandibles that snipped through solid wood, erupted from the foliage. A giant, multi-legged centipede creature oozed from a burrow, its segments glowing with a sickly green light.
They never stood a chance.
Friz moved with an economy of motion that was almost lazy. He didn't summon grand spears of ice or blizzards. A flick of his wrist sent a wave of absolute zero that flash-froze a charging beetle mid-leap, its momentum carrying it forward to shatter against a tree. A glance towards the centipede coated it in a rime of frost so profound its internal fluids solidified, locking it into a permanent, grotesque sculpture. He didn't fight; he simply imposed a state of cessation upon anything that drew near. It was efficient, silent, and utterly terrifying.
He pressed deeper, following the oppressive aura of the Gate's core, until he found the Boss. It was a colossal, moth-like creature, its wingspan blocking out the false sky, dusted with a neurotoxic powder. It let out a psychic shriek that would have liquefied the brains of the rich kids back at the entrance.
Friz sighed, a small puff of mist in the humid air. This was tedious.
He didn't allow it to attack. He simply raised a hand and focused. The air around the moth-Boss dropped to a temperature that defied physics. The moisture in the air, on its wings, in its very cells, crystallized instantly. There was no struggle, no epic battle. One moment it was a terrifying apex predator of this pocket dimension, the next it was a perfectly preserved, frozen monument, its psychic scream silenced forever. The core of the Gate pulsed once, then began to destabilize. The mission was over.
It was then, in the sudden silence following the Boss's demise, that the ambush was sprung.
"Not bad, rookie."
A group of five Rankers emerged from the dense jungle, their gear scarred and practical, a stark contrast to the shiny new equipment of the group Friz had abandoned. They moved with the confident swagger of veterans who preyed on the weak. They had been waiting, letting him clear the Gate, intending to claim the rewards and the credit.
Their leader, a woman with a nasty scar across her cheek, gestured with her thumb over her shoulder. "We've got your little fan club all trussed up back there. Nice and cozy." She grinned, revealing a missing tooth. "Makes this simple. You hand over the Gate core and any rare materials you found, and we let your rich brats go without adding any new holes to their pretty faces. Refuse, and... well, let's just say their parents will be getting a very expensive bill for reconstructive surgery."
Friz stood still, his back to them, looking at the frozen moth. He didn't turn. He didn't respond. He simply processed the threat.
The woman's grin widened, thinking his silence was hesitation. "Come on, kid. Don't be stu—"
She never finished the sentence.
Friz moved.
There was no warning, no telltale gathering of power. One moment he was ten feet away, the next he was among them. The air itself seemed to freeze in his move.
He didn't throw a punch. He didn't summon a weapon. He simply exhaled.
[Ice Breath].
It wasn't a fiery blast, but its opposite—a cone of silent, expanding nothingness. There was no wind, no sound, only a wave of absolute cold that radiated from his mouth. It didn't travel; it simply was. The five ambushers had no time to react. Their eyes widened in shock, their muscles locking mid-swing. In the span of a single heartbeat, they were transformed from threatening predators into five ice statues, their expressions frozen in masks of sudden, final horror. The condensation of their last breath hung in the air before them as tiny, glittering ice crystals.
Friz didn't even look at his handiwork. He turned, his pale blue eyes completely devoid of emotion, and walked back towards the Gate's entrance.
The group of rich Rankers were exactly where the ambushers had said—bound and gagged, their eyes wide with terror. They had seen the entire, chilling exchange. They had witnessed the man they mocked and dismissed move like a force of nature and dispatch five veteran Rankers without breaking a sweat.
Friz stopped in front of them. He didn't kneel to help. He didn't offer a word of comfort. He simply looked down at them, his expression one of profound boredom.
"Untie yourselves," he said, his voice flat and cold. "And get out."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over their expensive, now dirtied gear and their terrified faces. A cold, disdainful snort escaped him.
"Hmph. After today, don't let me see you again." He delivered the final verdict with utter finality. "You're really in the way."
Then, without a second glance, he turned and walked away, leaving them bound on the jungle floor. He didn't wait to see if they escaped. He didn't care. His job was done. The Gate was cleared. The distractions had been neutralized.
Behind him, as they frantically worked to free each other from their bonds, the group of rich kids didn't feel anger or humiliation. They stared at Friz's retreating back, their earlier fear transforming into something else entirely. Their eyes were wide, not with terror, but with pure, unadulterated awe. They looked at him not as a commoner or a mere S-Rank, but as an idol. A figure of absolute, unassailable power who operated on a level they could barely comprehend. In that moment, Friz wasn't just a Ranker; he was a glacier, silent, immense, and utterly indifferent to the pebbles in his path.
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The entrance to the ruins was a gaping maw of stone and twisted, ancient roots. The air that spilled out was cold, dry, and carried the dust of millennia. As soon as Heim and Flora crossed the threshold, the darkness came alive with malice.
A pressure plate sank under Heim's foot with a soft click. From the walls, a volley of rusted, poison-tipped darts shot forth with a hiss. Heim didn't even break stride. A gesture of his hand, and a wall of interwoven, iron-hard vines sprouted from the stone floor itself, absorbing the darts with a series of dull thuds.
Further in, the floor gave way, revealing a pit lined with sharpened stakes. Flora, with a gasp, began to fall, but Heim's Logbuster mace tapped the ground. Thick, rope-like roots erupted from the pit's walls, weaving themselves into a solid bridge in an instant, allowing her to cross safely.
They encountered swinging stone pendulums, triggered by nearly invisible tripwires. Heim simply willed the stone of the ceiling to grow grasping tendrils of moss that seized the massive blocks, halting them mid-swing. They faced a corridor that filled with choking, toxic gas. Flora, with a focused look, gestured, and the phosphorescent fungi on the walls glowed brighter, their surfaces shifting to absorb the poisonous particles, cleansing the air.
It was a deadly gauntlet, but to the two masters of the Jungle power, it was less a threat and more a minor inconvenience. Their abilities were not merely tools; they were an extension of their will upon the environment itself. The ruins, for all their deadly ingenuity, were just another part of the natural world, and they were its sovereigns.
As they progressed, Heim's sharp eyes continuously scanned their surroundings. The traps were expected. It was the markings that gave him pause. Etched into the walls, carved onto the pillars, and inlaid into the floor in faded pigments were characters and diagrams. They were angular, complex, and hauntingly familiar. A deep, nagging itch started in the back of his mind. He had seen this script before. He knew he had. But the memory, like so many from his time as a fragment within Boboiboy, was just out of reach, a ghost in the vast archives of their shared past.
After navigating the final trap—a chamber that attempted to crush them with converging walls, only to be held apart by unyielding, grown stone pillars—they emerged into the heart of the ruins.
The contrast was stark. The central chamber was vast and circular, devoid of any traps or mechanisms. It was a space of quiet desolation. Thick, soft moss carpeted the floor, and faint light filtered down from openings high above, illuminating motes of ancient dust. The air was still. It was not a tomb, but a refuge. The scattered remains of simple bedding, a fire pit filled with cold ash, and crude, stone tools spoke of a place where someone, or something, had lived out its final days.
It was Flora who found it. On the far wall, partially obscured by a curtain of hanging vines, was a final, deeply carved message. The characters were the same as those they had seen throughout the ruins, but these were not warnings or labels. They were a testament.
"Flora," Heim said, his voice a low rumble in the silence. "Can you...?"
Flora stepped closer, her shyness forgotten in the face of academic curiosity. She traced the ancient grooves with her fingers, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her lips moved silently as she deciphered the text.
After a long moment, she spoke, her voice soft but clear, imbuing the dead language with a sorrow it had not known for ages.
"The world is about to end. Our civilization has angered nature. Its wrath is upon us. The sky burns, the earth splits. There is no escape for us. We are the last. If any soul from beyond finds this... do not seek our fate. Do not follow our path. Run. Run away."
Heim stared at her, genuinely surprised. "You can read this?"
Flora blushed, dropping her gaze from the wall. "I... I've always liked learning ancient languages," she explained softly, her voice gaining a little confidence as she spoke about her passion. "It was a hobby. In my old world, this... this is the language of the Chaldean people."
The name struck a chord deep within Heim's consciousness. A spark of connection.
"Chaldea..." Flora continued, her eyes distant with recalled knowledge. "It was a civilization in our universe. Brilliant. They were pioneers in theoretical physics and dimensional mechanics. According to the archives at SAGOPS, they were on the verge of a breakthrough in interdimensional travel technology. But... they went extinct. Suddenly. Completely. Their entire star system was just... scoured clean. The official records list it as a catastrophic stellar event, but... there were always rumors."
She looked back at the desperate, final words on the wall. "Rumors that they didn't just die. That they... fled. Or that they unleashed something they couldn't control."
Heim fell into a deep, troubled silence. The familiar script, the name Chaldea, the theme of a civilization destroyed by its own hubris against a force of nature... the pieces were swirling in his mind, but the full picture remained elusive. This was not a random ruin on a primitive world. This was a piece of a cosmic puzzle, a relic from a universe he knew, left here like a message in a bottle. And the message was a warning. A warning that felt chillingly, intimately familiar.
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The city library was a monument to quiet order, a stark contrast to the chaotic digital world they had just escaped. Alexandrite arrived precisely at 10:00, her steps light with a mix of anticipation and residual awe from their canyon encounter. She found Alstar exactly where she expected—at a terminal in the deepest archives section, surrounded by a fortress of stacked data-slates and old-fashioned leather-bound books.
When he looked up, she almost let out a startled gasp.
The impeccably logical and composed young man she had met in the game was gone, replaced by a version with disheveled hair, a pallor to his skin, and pronounced dark circles under his eyes that spoke of a sleepless night. The Gamma power within him seemed muted, overshadowed by sheer mental exhaustion.
"Alstar! Your face..." she whispered, her voice full of concern.
He waved a dismissive hand, the motion slightly sluggish. "The data required a comprehensive, uninterrupted analysis cycle. Sleep was an inefficient allocation of time." He gestured towards a small, sound-proofed study room. "The environment in here is more suitable for this discussion."
Once inside, the door hissed shut, sealing them in a bubble of silence. Alstar activated a high-end portable data-slate, and the far wall lit up with a shimmering, three-dimensional projection. It was a complex tapestry of interwoven graphs, cascading timestamps, and lines of coded equations that pulsed with different colors. To anyone else, it would have been incomprehensible noise. To the two of them, it was a story.
"I have been cross-referencing the temporal data from our 'Survival' challenge with all available public and several... acquired... military-grade chronometric records," Alstar began, his voice a low, focused monotone, devoid of its usual crisp energy but sharp with intent. He manipulated the projection, highlighting a series of parallel timelines. "The results are consistent and statistically significant across multiple data points."
He zoomed in on a specific cluster of data. "The time dilation ratio between the game world and baseline reality is not a simple, linear multiplier. It is a fixed, absolute constant. Seven days within the challenge equated to precisely twelve hours, fourteen minutes, and eight seconds in the real world. There is a deviation of less than 0.003 seconds across all recorded instances."
Alexandrite leaned forward, her earlier concern replaced by intense focus. Her eyes, sharp with the intellect that had made her a prodigy even among the Gigingirls, scanned the numbers. "It's not just faster or slower... it's precise. Mathematically perfect. Like a programmed clock cycle in a machine, not a natural phenomenon or a side effect of processing power."
"Precisely," Alstar confirmed, a flicker of approval in his tired eyes. He was not having to explain basic concepts. He had a true partner in this. He shifted the projection, bringing up a new, massive data set—thousands of individual case files, each a tiny point of light in a sprawling constellation. "This led me to the next logical query. I have compiled and analyzed one thousand, seven hundred, and forty-three documented case studies of what are officially termed 'Anomalous Consciousness Events'—cases of psychosis, memory fragmentation, and identity dissociation linked directly to the initial 'Invasion' and subsequent game sessions."
He isolated several dozen cases, drawing red connection lines between them. "The pattern indicates a severe, fundamental flaw in the transference protocol. When a player's consciousness is pulled into the game and then returned, it is not a seamless upload and download. There is a measurable latency, a de-synchronization between the consciousness and its original biological host vessel. It's as if the 'copy' is imperfect, or the 'paste' function is corrupting the original data. The longer and more frequently one plays, the greater the dissonance becomes."
Alexandrite's mind raced, connecting the dots he was laying out. "So it's not just a game that can kill you... it's a system that's slowly erasing and rewriting who you are, piece by piece, every time you log in." She looked from the temporal data to the consciousness maps. "The fixed time ratio... the systematic consciousness degradation... This isn't a bug or an accident. This is a designed process." Her voice dropped to a hushed, grim tone. "The game's mechanism... it's behaving like a programmed system. Like an artificial intelligence in the process of maturing. It's learning, it's iterating, and it's using human consciousness as its fuel and its testing ground."
Alstar gave a single, slow nod. The weight of the conclusion settled in the silent room. "The evidence supports that hypothesis. The probability of these two anomalous datasets—perfect temporal control and systematic consciousness degradation—occurring simultaneously by chance is effectively zero."
Their eyes met across the glowing data, a silent understanding passing between them. They had both reached the same, terrifying conclusion independently, and their combined analysis had cemented it.
"There is an architect," Alstar stated, his voice final. "Or a sentient force, an organization, operating from a position of significant power and with a profound understanding of reality itself. This 'Invasion' is not a random catastrophe. It is a deliberate, orchestrated event."
The mystery of the virtual world was no longer just about survival. It was a puzzle box with a malevolent will behind it. And they were the only two pieces on the board who had begun to see the shape of the box itself.