Kai Darklight dreamed of light again. It started as a spark, floating in a sea of black. Then it split, stretching out into thin threads that wove through the darkness like shining veins. They pulsed — slow, calm, steady. A rhythm he recognized. A heartbeat. Not his. Not entirely. Avoice followed, quiet enough that he could barely hear it. "Awaken." Kai reached out— —and snapped awake. The bunk above his head rattled slightly as he sat up too quickly. Haven Core's dim metal ceiling greeted him, humming faintly with the low power output used during early morning hours. His breath fogged in the cold air of Section 3. Another night of strange visions. Another morning starting with the same tightness in his chest. He rubbed his face and stood.
His Fragment, embedded just beneath the skin of his forearm, flickered with a faint pulse. It hadn't done that in months. Something was coming. Before he could process it, a soft knock sounded on his door. "Kai," Rei Nocturne's voice came, quiet but sharp. "You're awake. Good. Gear up."
Kai blinked the sleep from his eyes and grabbed his jacket. Rei wasn't the type to knock unless something was urgent. When he opened the door, the hallway lights had already shifted from sleepy blue to alert amber.
Rei stood there in her light combat coat, the dark shadows around her feet subtly alive — responding to her yokai blood. Her violet-tinted eyes examined him for only half a second. "You felt the disturbance too, I assume," she said.
Kai nodded. "Yeah. Like a pressure. Heavy." Rei started walking, and Kai followed. "Haven sensors picked up an anomaly near Surface Gate Four," she explained.
"A spatial tear identical to the rifts demons used a decade ago—except this one didn't match any known signature." "That… sounds bad." Rei's expression didn't change. "That's why Arden is already there." Kai sighed. "Oh great. He's going to be unbearable." "He's only unbearable when he's right," Rei said. Kai groaned. "So always."
They exited the residential section and stepped into the wider tunnels. Haven Core had once been a military bunker, but after the great invasions it became humanity's last functional underground city. The walls were reinforced with eclipse-steel, a fusion metal reverse-engineered from the old heroes' technology. Pipes ran along the ceilings, carrying recycled air through vents that clicked and hissed.
People were awake now — soldiers, medics, technicians — moving briskly through the corridors. Some paused to nod respectfully at Rei. Others whispered about the anomaly. Even after ten years of peace, fear still lived in Haven's corners like dust.
By the time Kai and Rei reached the upper level, the distant sound of machinery rumbling signaled that the surface gate was already in partial open mode. Arden Vale stood at the control deck, tapping his chronos-disc with mild irritation. "Kai," Arden said without looking up, "you're late." Kai frowned. "I literally got here in record time." "According to your record, your 'record time' is still slow." Arden turned slightly, the gray mist swirling inside his eyes flickering with temporal residue. "The rift appeared nineteen minutes ago. It's weakening, but its structure is… wrong."
Kai glanced at the monitor. "Wrong how?" Arden zoomed in on the rift data. The image showed a tear in the sky, jagged and trembling, like someone had clawed the world open. "It's not stable. It wasn't opened by demonic energy, yokai magic, or celestial resonance," Arden said. "This is something else. Something older." Rei stepped forward. "Has anything come out of it?" Arden hesitated. And Arden Vale never hesitated. "…Yes," he said finally.
"One entity."
Before they could ask, alarm lights flashed red, and an operator shouted from the booth above: "Movement outside the gate! Visual feed coming in!"
A screen flickered— A figure stood in the center of the ruined city above, unmoving. Humanoid, tall, wrapped in drifting black shreds of mist like torn fabric caught in a wind only it could feel. Its shape was nothing more than an outline, featureless except for faint white lines like cracks across its surface. No eyes. No face. No sound. Just… presence. Rei's fingers twitched, shadows coiling around her. "What is that?" Arden exhaled slowly. "It didn't have a clear form until now. It reacted when the sensors locked onto it — like it awoke." Kai stared, throat tightening. "It looks like it's… watching us."
The figure suddenly tilted its head, as if acknowledging them.
The operator flinched. "It—it's moving!" The figure raised a hand. The sky above it distorted. And the entire camera feed erupted into static. "Open the gate," Rei said immediately. "Wait—Rei, we don't know what it is," Arden warned. "Exactly," she replied. "And it's too close to Haven to ignore." Kai swallowed, feeling his Fragment pulse harder than before. It was responding. Calling. Almost… warning him. "We go together," he said. Arden sighed.
"This will end terribly."
The gate rumbled open, revealing the surface — a gray wasteland of ruined skyscrapers, cracked streets, and long-cooled scorch marks from battles no one wanted to remember. The air was cold.
The silence was worse.
The figure waited for them at the center of a fractured plaza, as if expecting their arrival. When Kai stepped forward, the figure lifted its head slightly — a gesture that sent a chill down his spine.
Rei positioned herself defensively. Arden's disc spun, ready to bend a fraction of time itself if needed. Kai tried speaking. "Who are you?" he called.
The being did not answer.
Instead, its body shimmered, and shadows spiraled outward like tendrils of smoke reaching for them.
Each tendril moved with unnatural precision, as if aware… intelligent.
Rei moved first. One swift motion of her fingers and her shadows leapt out, slicing through the tendrils. "Stay behind me, Kai." Kai ignored her. "I can help—" "No. Measure first. Strike later,"
Rei said sharply. Arden flicked his wrist, and the air shimmered.
One of the tendrils slowed, trapped in a tiny pocket of distorted time. But the creature simply shifted—its entire form flickering like a glitch—breaking free effortlessly. "What—Arden?" Kai asked, startled. Arden's voice was low. "It broke a chronos-stall. That shouldn't be possible."
The being finally moved. It stepped forward. And a single word — not spoken aloud, but pressed directly into their minds — filled them.
"Chosen."
Kai felt his heart stop for half a second. Rei stumbled back, eyes widening. "Telepathy…? No. That wasn't telepathy." "It was… recognition," Arden whispered.
The being's body dissolved, scattering into thousands of black particles that drifted upward like ashes caught in a windless sky. The rift above sealed with a faint shudder, as though the world exhaled in relief.
But the feeling it left behind was anything but relief. Rei slowly lowered her blades. "What just happened?" Arden didn't answer immediately. He stared into the sky, expression unreadable. "That thing wasn't a demon," he said finally. "Or a yokai. Or celestial. Or anything recorded in the last two thousand years."
He turned to Kai. "…But it knew you." Kai stared at his Fragment, which had begun to glow steadily — brighter than it ever had before. Something ancient had awakened. Something tied to the Eclipse.
And now, it knew exactly where to find them.