On a bright, clear afternoon, the villagers went about their business as usual. Faces radiant with a happiness that had been absent for years could be seen in every corner—a sight that had finally returned after so long. Meanwhile, Arata sat with the village elders. They were awaiting Takihiro's return, discussing their future plans and hoping the son would bring news that matched their dreams.
During the meeting, Arata voiced his deep unease. He felt that this sudden, miraculous prosperity felt... unnatural. However, his friends and the elders tried to soothe him; they urged him not to worry and to simply enjoy the restored fertility of their land. For a time, the earth did indeed seem recovered, as if no disaster had ever touched it.
Shortly after, a thunderous roar shattered the sky. Instantly, every villager froze and looked up. This was no thunder of an approaching storm; it was a deafening, metallic screech that sent vibrations deep into the mountain slopes, shaking the very foundations of their homes.
Arata and his companions scrambled out of the hut. They stood paralyzed, witnessing a phenomenon never before seen: a dimensional rift torn open in the heavens. The hole expanded until it was nearly as wide as ten rice paddies. From that abyss, a pitch-black object emerged—a colossal ship far larger than a herd of oxen.
The metallic beast descended slowly, landing with a heavy thud directly upon the fields. Villagers nearby fled in terror, while others remained rooted to the spot, hypnotized by the impossible sight. None could move. But Arata's instincts screamed a warning. With a thunderous voice, he ordered the villagers to run and get as far away from the foreign object as possible.
The giant craft remained motionless. Only thin wisps of steam escaped from the crevices of its metallic hull. Suddenly, a door opened at the front, accompanied by a powerful hiss of air and a cloud of thick smoke.
From the darkness of that door emerged a strange, four-legged creature clad in hard, shimmering iron armor. It had a massive, long tail that occasionally lashed the ground with a heavy sound. Behind it, creatures resembling humans in metal armor marched in perfect, tactical formation, fanning out to encircle the giant ship to form a perfect defensive perimeter.
The entire village was paralyzed in a haunting silence, barely daring to breathe as they witnessed the alien spectacle. The towering figure leading the host was Dixor. He stepped forward with cold arrogance, approaching a group of villagers who were trembling in terror.
"Where is the object?" Dixor demanded, his voice deep and frigid.
The villagers, unable to understand a single word, could only remain silent, exchanging glances filled with confusion and dread. One villager found the courage to speak, attempting to ask a question, but Dixor had no patience for dialogue. Instantly, a flash of red light erupted from his eyes, incinerating the man into ash until nothing remained.
At the sight of such horror, the villagers scattered in a desperate frenzy. On the other side, Arata and his companions, witnessing this barbarity, felt a boiling rage in their chests. No longer caring for their own lives, they charged toward Dixor to stop the slaughter.
"Hey, outsider! What are you doing?!!" Arata roared, his voice trembling with fury.
Fearless, Arata led his friends to block Dixor's path. But Dixor merely stared at them with icy, digital eyes. To him, Arata and his companions were nothing more than insects obstructing his way.
The horror ended in a deathly, oppressive silence; not a single villager was left breathing—all had been reduced to mounds of ash. Dixor stood tall amidst the destruction of the village. Suddenly, a mechanical hum resonated from his body. Three metal components detached from his back and began to morph.
The first transformed into a predatory avian named Cov. The second took the shape of a steel predator, Zed, and the third became a terrifying mechanical serpent-dragon named Nox. These three drone-creatures took flight, streaking in all directions, scanning every inch of the village soil for the missing energy signal. After a few moments, they returned and landed before Dixor.
"Lord, I cannot find the frequency!" Cov called from the air. "I have scoured the length of the river and found not a trace," Nox reported. "I have located the impact site, but the scan does not show its presence," Zed added.
Zed then led them to the site of the Holy Stone. Upon arrival, Dixor projected a beam from his eyes to scan the entire area in depth. Yet, he still failed to locate the Vault. His eyes flickered rapidly, projecting a hologram that showed the exact coordinates of the object's fall.
"This point is the impact site. The object should be right here!" he growled.
Suddenly, a horn-like apparatus on his head glowed brightly, emitting a frequency wave that pierced through the atmosphere. He was engaging in inter-dimensional communication.
"Lord Zili, we have arrived at the site, but there is no sign of the Vault. Our scanners cannot detect its presence!" Dixor reported with a tone of unease.
"WHAT?!" Zili's furious roar thundered from across the dimension.
"It seems our scanners are unable to recognize the elemental compositions of this planet, My Lord. The wave-beam cannot penetrate the planet's layers," Dixor explained.
"Do whatever you must! Stay there until you find it!" Zili commanded with a threatening edge.
"As you command, My Lord!" Dixor replied obediently.
Dixor immediately ordered his entire legion to return to Aranos. Meanwhile, he and his three mechanical Gohora remained on Earth to conduct a deep investigation into the planet's elements, desperate to solve the mystery of the missing Vault
The Silent Valley of Ash
Months of travel had forged Takihiro's body into something stronger, yet his heart remained that of a young man longing for home. As he climbed the final hill overlooking his village, he could already imagine the scent of firewood and the warm welcome of his father, Arata. He carried news of fertile new lands—a promise of life.
But as his eyes looked down, his world collapsed.
The valley was no longer green. The village was gone, replaced by a vast expanse of ash stretching out like a grey desert. There were no houses, no livestock, no human voices. Only a haunting silence remained, as if time itself were reluctant to pass through that place.
Takihiro ran down, his heart hammering against his ribs. He passed what was once the marketplace, but his feet stepped only on the remnants of ruins that had crumbled into dust. There were no signs of battle, no bodies; only a void, as if all life there had been erased from history.
He reached the center of the village and fell to his knees. His eyes drifted toward the site of the old temple. Amidst the wasteland of destruction, the Holy Stone hill that had formed on the night the celestial object fell still stood firm. And shockingly, the wooden pillar—the last stake of their temple—still stood upright despite being blackened, as if refusing to fall until Takihiro returned.
"Father... what happened?" he whispered, his voice breaking into heaving sobs.
His efforts had been in vain. The very thing he had feared most before his departure had now become a horrific reality. Takihiro stood frozen, unable to comprehend what had truly occurred. Was this a punishment from the gods? Or a curse fallen from the heavens?
He tilted his head back toward the sky with a shattered gaze. "Why did you do this?!" he screamed, his voice choked with pain. "What was our sin?"
Takihiro began to blame himself. He felt his journey had taken too long; if only he had returned sooner, could he have changed their fate? "Why did you tell me to leave, Father... If I had known it would end like this, I would never have gone!"
Yet, in the midst of that turmoil of guilt, abundle inside his pocket suddenly pulsed. The vibration felt warm and rhythmic,as if the object within could feel the profound sorrow currently overwhelmingTakihiro
...
In the distance, atop a cliff shrouded in thin mist, Dixor stood tall. He remained hidden, yet his mechanical eyes were locked tight onto the small figure mourning in the center of the sea of ash.
Suddenly, the sensors in Dixor's body pulsed violently. A very specific frequency was captured by his scanning system. A faint blue light could be seen slipping out, glowing from beneath Takihiro's clothes. Dixor had not yet determined what the object truly was—whether it was a weapon, a ship's core, or a dimensional key—but he recognized the energy type perfectly. It was a wave identical to the Vault they had been hunting all this time.
"That frequency..." Dixor murmured in a low, raspy mechanical voice. "The element is with him."
Cov landed on Dixor's shoulder, its metal wings emitting a sharp electric hiss. "Master, shall I eliminate him now?"
"No," Dixor commanded coldly. "Let him go. The boy has no idea what he is carrying. If we kill him now, we may lose the trail of the other elements. Let him lead us to the place where the Vault is hidden."
Takihiro was unaware that he was being watched by a cosmic predator. After hours of grieving for his vanished village, he finally stood up with what little strength he had left. He looked at the ruined temple pillar one last time, vowing in his heart that one day he would return and restore everything to how it once was.
"I will not forget you," he cried out inwardly with sharp pain.
He felt the bundle in his pocket. The blue gem felt warm, channeling a strange courage that pierced through his despair. With a broken heart but a steel resolve, Takihiro turned away. He could not stay; there was nothing left for him in the village that had become a desert of ash.
Takihiro stepped away, leaving the valley of sorrow to continue his journey toward the new land he had discovered before. He walked on, unaware that every step he took left a faint trail of glowing energy—a path followed faithfully by the shadow of Cov from behind the dark clouds.
Labyrinth in the Earth's Belly
Takihiro kept moving. His legs felt as heavy as lead, yet he refused to surrender. The forest he traversed felt far darker than usual, as if the ancient trees were mourning the annihilation of his village. High above, the occasional sound of metallic wings flapping sliced through the silence—Cov flitted from branch to branch, scanning from the heights with red eyes that never blinked, never straying from Takihiro.
Takihiro was unaware that he was being stalked. However, a surge of instinct forced him to quicken his pace, as if nature itself were guiding his feet. At the edge of the forest, he discovered a narrow crevice at the foot of a hill—the mouth of an ancient cave that looked as though it had never been touched by man.
As soon as he stepped inside, total darkness seized him. The roar of water falling from the cave ceiling echoed softly, creating a symphony of overlapping echoes. Takihiro felt the wet, slick walls, moving deeper into the belly of the earth. After hours of navigating tunnels that seemed endless, he finally emerged through a stone cliff face.
Takihiro crawled out of the crevice, gasping for air. His lungs stung as he inhaled the sharp outdoor air. He collapsed onto the hard ground, his clothes stained with earth and cave moss. Before him stretched a footpath with packed soil—a sign that it was frequently traveled.
His mind was still dazed, but instinct forced him to keep moving along the path. Not far off, he saw an old man walking with a steady gait.
"Hello, young man," the elder greeted, halting his steps. He squinted, taking in Takihiro's disheveled appearance. "You look as though you've just crawled out of the belly of the earth. You're not from around here, are you?"
Takihiro tried to stand, though his knees trembled. "That's right, sir. I... I just arrived through the cave in that cliff," he replied, pointing back with a grime-covered finger.
The old man looked toward where Takihiro pointed and let out a short laugh—not one of mockery, but of sheer bewilderment. "A cave? Son, I've walked this path for decades to gather wood. There has never been a cave in that cliff face."
"But sir, I just came out of there," Takihiro protested, his voice rising in confusion. "The cave entrance is right there on the stone wall."
The old man shook his head slowly. "Look closely, lad. Your eyes might be playing tricks on you from exhaustion."
Takihiro spun around, staring back at the rocky hill he had just left. His heart hammered. There, in the spot he was certain was the cave mouth, stood only a solid stone wall overgrown with hanging roots and thick moss that looked hundreds of years old. No hole, no crevice—not even a trace of shifted earth.
"What... how is it possible? Where did it go?" Takihiro muttered. He stepped back, his eyes wide with disbelief. His logic rejected what he saw.
The old man approached, feeling pity for the shaken youth. He unfastened a bamboo tube from his waist and held it out. "Drink. You might be hallucinating from too much sun or sheer exhaustion. Mental strain can make a man see things that aren't there."
Takihiro took the tube with shaking hands. The cold water flowed down his throat, slightly dulling the panic in his chest. "Thank you, sir..."
"What is your name?" the man asked.
Takihiro wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "My name is Takihiro. Takihiro Arata."
The old man was slightly taken aback by the surname, but quickly regained his composure. "Very well, Takihiro. Just follow this path. Not far ahead, you will find our village. Seek out the village head; tell him you are a traveler in need of temporary rest."
Takihiro nodded weakly, still glancing occasionally at the sealed stone wall. "Thank you for your kindness, sir. I will continue on."
"Be careful, lad. This road sometimes holds secrets for those who are unprepared," the old man said before turning to continue his way.
Takihiro stood alone on the path. He felt the Blue Gem inside his pocket; it was still there. He realized something both terrifying and wondrous: the cave was not merely a path, but a gate that had just locked behind him, severing him from a past filled with ash.
The Severed Signal
Cov immediately reported the failure to Dixor via an encrypted communication channel. It reported that the frequency of the Blue Gem had vanished abruptly, as if swallowed by the earth. The advanced scanners in its mechanical body could not penetrate the density of the hill Takihiro had entered.
"Target undetected, Master," Cov reported through the invisible link.
"How is that possible?!" Dixor growled with a mechanically vibrating rage. "Our technology should not lose the trail of a primitive element on this planet!"
"He bypassed a massive cliff wall, Master. It seems the gem granted him the ability to open a gate," Cov replied in its own defense.
Dixor remained silent for a moment, processing the incoming data before finally issuing a new command in a cold voice. "Expand the search area. Do not limit your scanners to that point alone. Return to me only if you truly haven't found it after scouring the entire sector!"
Once the order was given, the communication was cut.
"As you command," Cov replied obediently.
The mechanical drone soared high into the sky, piercing the cloud layers until it reached low orbit. Its eyes began scanning the entire surface of the Earth—a planet whose elements were so foreign to its sensors that the search became infinitely more difficult.
Eventually, Cov returned to Dixor empty-handed. Its metallic wings looked dull after the long, fruitless search across the globe.
"I have lost the trail completely, Master. What must we do?" Cov asked, its mechanical voice fading.
Dixor stood silent, his eyes fixed sharply on the horizon. "I believe that gem will one day return to where it belongs. Energy like that can never truly vanish," he murmured.
With a trembling hand, Dixor opened a cross-dimensional channel to Zili. The moment the connection was established, the atmosphere in the room felt frozen.
"Master... we have lost the child holding the key," Dixor said, his tone laced with fear.
"FOOL!" Zili's voice thundered, cutting Dixor off with deadly finality. "I will accept nothing that tastes of failure!"
Dixor bowed his head, not daring to interrupt his master's fury.
"Hear my command! Gather as much data as possible on that planet. Study the capabilities of its inhabitants, their armies, and their level of technology," Zili shouted again. "I have no time to listen to rot from you! Contact me only when you have found it, or when you are ready to turn that planet into ash!"
The communication link snapped shut, leaving Dixor and Cov in a chilling silence.
"We cannot sit idle," Dixor stated in a low, threatening tone. "If we cannot find it, you know the consequences. I believe that one day, the gem will return to its host. If we cannot find it, then it shall find us."
Dixor glared at his three subordinates. "Scatter across this planet. Ensure your presence remains unknown to the natives. I will stay here, monitoring from the shadows and studying the movement of this planet's tectonic plates."
The three mechanical drones immediately streaked away, scouring the Earth's surface to begin their long-term reconnaissance mission. They settled in the deepest lakebeds, atop snow-capped peaks, and within valleys that had never been touched.
Years turned into decades. The fear that once haunted Takihiro slowly faded, buried by the laughter of children and the bustle of life in his new village. Feeling truly safe at last, Takihiro began to feel that the blue gem was too dangerous to keep close to his body. Its vibrations sometimes felt too strong, as if the object wished to speak.
Using the carpentry skills he learned in his new home, Takihiro forged a small container out of thick black iron. He wrapped the gem in the same cloth he had used since leaving home, then locked it tight inside the box.
Takihiro lived out the rest of his days in peace. He married a local girl, had healthy children, and saw his grandchildren grow. Generations passed. The stories of the destruction of the old Arata village slowly morphed into bedtime fairy tales. The iron box sat in the corner of an old cupboard, regarded as a sacred family heirloom, though its power was no longer understood. The iron box effectively shielded the frequency from being detected by Dixor and his companions.
"This object is our history, but also our burden," Takihiro said as he passed the box to his son. "Never open it, unless this world turns to ash once more."
With the sealing of that iron box, Takihiro had not only secured his family but had also "put to sleep" a cosmic threat for the entire Earth. As long as that box remained locked, Dixor and his legion were nothing more than blind shadows.