The boy blinked awake after hearing the noise of a rooster in the distance, his small hands clutching the edge of his blanket finding that his room was darker than usual to the point he couldn’t see anything. He squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but the shadows stayed.

  Was there something wrong? Even though he typically sleeps with the lights off, it had never been this dark before.

  He sat up, heart pounding, and called out in a wavering voice, “…Brother?”

  No answer.

  He tried again, louder. “Mom!?”

  Moments later, a faint shimmer cut through the gloom. A beam of light swayed gently along the hallway wall, followed by the muffled thud of footsteps. His brother appeared at the doorway, flashlight in hand, its soft circle of light landing near the boy’s face.

  “You’re already up?” his brother said, voice rough with sleep but calm. “…Of course you are. Same as always.”

  The boy whimpered slightly.

  “Why’s it dark?”

  “Blackout,” his brother said, stepping closer. “Must’ve happened in the middle of the night. When I woke up, the power was already gone.”

  “Uh…”

  The boy swallowed, his fear ebbing slightly at the sound of his brother’s voice. Turning the beam to the window and tilting his head towards, the older boy called out.

  “Wanna see outside? It’s kinda wild.”

  The boy hesitated, then nodded. His brother helped him out of bed, and together they padded to the window. His brother pulled back the curtains, and the boy gasped.

  “When was the last time it’s so dark like this…?” he heard his brother mumble.

  The world outside was swallowed in darkness, with neither streetlights nor glowing windows from nearby houses visible. However, above them was something else entirely.

  “Whoa…”

  The boy let out a soft gasp, for the sky was alive. A vast, shimmering arc stretched across the heavens, a river of stars so dense and bright it looked like spilled milk across black velvet. And slightly behind it, a massive warped swirl of light, another galaxy, tangled with their own in a slow dance—its spiral arms twisting slowly as if reaching for their own.

  “Yep. You know? That River of Light is going to crash into its twin, the Great Stellar Island. Started a looooong time ago…” his brother grinned down at him. “Kinda cool, right? If the lights hadn’t gone out, we’d never see it like this.”

  “Eh!?” the boy gasped, recoiling a back a little from the window. “Crash? What’s gonna happen when they do? Will everything explode?”

  His brother laughed softly and ruffled his hair. “Nah, don’t worry. That crash is going to be super slow. Like… imagine two snails racing from one side of the country to the other. By the time they finally bump into each other, we’ll all be super old. And way before that happens, we’ll be long gone already…”

  The boy blinked. “Really?”

  “Really. And besides,” his brother pointed up, “space is mostly empty. Like, if stars were grains of sand, they’d be miles apart. So even when those two clouds of stars ‘crash,’ everything inside will just slide right past each other.”

  “Wow… you know so much about space, brother!”

  “Well, I kinda like reading books about this stuff.”

  The boy stared up, his earlier fear forgotten. The sky was bigger than he’d ever imagined.

  The power wasn’t restored until well past ten. They ate breakfast by the window and watched the stars fade as the sky slowly brightened. The blackout—the first to engulf the entire town in nearly ten years—was blamed on a failure in one of the aging local power plants. Authorities acted as quickly as they could by sending generator trucks as a temporary measure, and soon everything was back to normal.

  The young boy was too young to dwell on such serious matters.

  ?????

  Weeks passed. The blackout became just another story, like a dream told once then left behind. But sometimes, when night came especially clear, the boy would remember the sky from that early morning—the “galaxies” dancing quietly above—and wonder if he could reach them and swim in them someday.

  “Loran…? Loran! Are you there?”

  The boy jerked in his seat, blinking rapidly as the classroom came back into focus. After the teacher’s voice cut through the boy’s daydream like a knife, he could hear a few of his classmates giggling around him. His cheeks warmed.

  “S-sorry, Miss Harla,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

  The gentle Miss Harla sighed, though her lips twitched in amusement. “It’s your turn for the assignment. Come up here and present your drawing.”

  Little Loran scrambled out of his chair, nearly tripping over his own feet in haste. He grabbed the paper from his desk and hurried to the front of the class. The other kids quieted down, some leaning forward in curiosity.

  Holding up his drawing, Loran took a deep breath. The artwork wasn’t anything special, just colored pencil scribbles divided into two halves. On the left was a man in a white sailor’s uniform standing next to a lumpy shape that might have been a ship, with the number “069” scrawled on the side. The right side showed a man in a green suit beside a stubby gray, barrel-shaped blob that vaguely resembled an airplane, marked with an upside-down orange triangle on its vertical tail.

  “This is my dad and brother!” Loran announced, puffing out his chest. “My dad works on a submarine!” He pointed to the left half. “And my brother’s in the air force! He flies a jet!”

  A few kids chorused. One boy, Jeren, raised his hand. “Is your brother a pilot?”

  “Yeah!” Loran beamed. “He’s super cool. He tells me about the planes and stuff. The one in my drawing is his… it’s called a Noo-Twenty-Nine?” He butchered the pronunciation slightly, but the pride in his voice was unmistakable.

  Miss Harla smiled. “That’s very interesting, Loran. Can you tell us more about them?”

  Loran nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh! My dad lets me wear his hat sometimes, and my brother showed me his helmet once. It’s so heavy!”

  Another hand shot up from the front row. It was Myri, the smallest girl in the class. “Loran, do you wanna be a soldier like them?”

  Loran blinked, hesitating. Then he gave a firm shake of his head. “Nope.”

  A few kids looked surprised, and Jeren frowned. “Why not? Soldiers are cool!”

  “They are!” Loran said quickly. “But… I wanna be like my other brother.”

  Loran flipped his drawing over to reveal a second, more hastily drawn picture on the back. It showed a young man holding a poorly drawn telescope, standing beneath a swirling mass of yellow lights—Loran’s amateur rendition of the twin galaxies he had seen during the blackout.

  “I wanna be like this brother!” he declared, pointing at the figure. “He teaches me about stars and stuff. And one day, I’m gonna go up there myself!”

  The class erupted into murmurs. Some kids looked impressed, others skeptical. Miss Harla’s eyes softened.

  “That’s a very big dream, Loran,” she said. “You know, long ago, before the Cataclysm, there were people who did just that. They were called ‘cosmonauts,’ brave explorers who sailed the heavens in great metal ships.”

  Loran and the rest of the kids’ eyes widened. “Really!?”

  But before Miss Harla could respond, a high-pitched voice piped up from behind Myri’s seat. Tasha, with an accusing voice, pointed at the boy at the front of the class.

  “You can’t do that! You’re too small.”

  Loran’s face scrunched up in indignation. “Am not!”

  Miss Harla raised her hands gently to quiet the class before the disagreement could escalate. She smiled at Loran, then turned to Tasha with a patient expression.

  “Tasha, everyone starts small,” she said kindly. “Even the greatest explorers and scholars were once children, just like you. What matters isn’t how big you are now, it’s how much you can learn and grow.”

  The addressed girl scrunched up her eyebrows in skepticism but didn’t argue further. Loran, still clutching his drawing, looked up at the teacher with wide, hopeful eyes.

  “Miss Harla… do you really think I could go to space one day?”

  She crouched slightly to meet his gaze. “If you work hard, study well, and never give up? Yes, you can. But you’ll need to be very smart. Even your brother who knows about the stars had to learn a lot first, right?”

  “Yeah! He reads so many books!” Loran nodded vigorously.

  Miss Harla chuckled. “Then maybe you should start reading more too. The library has plenty about space.”

  The young boy beamed, his earlier frustration forgotten.

  “Mm, I will!”

  After Loran returned to his seat, the class continued with other students presenting their drawings. Some of them were their parents’ jobs, others decided to draw their pets or favorite toys. By the time the bell rang, the earlier excitement had settled into the usual chatter. The children scrambled to pack their bags.

  For now, Loran’s dream is tucked safely within his bag.

  Trinil lay nestled along the banks of a slow-moving river. The town was small, unremarkable in the way of places that won’t immediately stir one’s mind, where there were just several clusters of low-roofed houses, their walls faded by years of rain and heat. Trinil itself, with a population of around 20.000, lies quiet and almost forgotten, as though time here has been asked politely to wait. Many of the houses squat low against the wind. They follow no urban plan, just the slow accumulation of generations of buildings where land allowed or where the river hadn’t claimed yet. Narrow footpaths wind between them, some paved in worn brick, others simply beaten earth.

  The national and provincial roads did not pass through here, leaving only the road one grade below them—a long, cracked ribbon of asphalt that weaves through rice paddies and low hills before arriving at Trinil like an afterthought. Trucks rarely bother with it unless there’s no other route, and buses pause only if someone insists. This road, through paved, bears more resemblance to memory than infrastructure, overgrown at the edges with weeds that creep forward with each passing year only to be pruned.

  A small girl with a round face and a too-large yellow sunhat padded beside her mother along a narrow footpath, her sandals slapping softly against the ground.

  “Mama,” the girl piped up, skipping a little ahead, “why hasn’t Father Hose come passing by the house? Papa said he hasn’t seen him for days.”

  The woman frowned, not quite stopping.

  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him either. He usually goes hunting for deer by now.” She glanced toward the distant silhouette of the temple on the small hill, half-hidden by the trees. “Maybe he’s ill?”

  Their conversation drifted softly in the air, just loud enough to be overheard by a passing figure on a bicycle. The new arrival slowed, the bike’s tires crunching slightly on the gravel at the edge of the path. A young man with fair skin and a slender frame, he looked to be of high school age, with short black hair and striking red eyes. Handsome in a quiet, unassuming way, he wore only a simple red t-shirt and black trousers, suggesting he had already returned home for the day. Lastly, over the back of his bicycle was a small cloth-wrapped package tied with care.

  He slowed as he overtook the pair and slowed down, offering a polite nod.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Yuna,” he hailed the mother, his voice calm.

  “Oh, Darcshield!” the mother exclaimed. “You startled me. Already home from school?”

  “Yes, just now. I’m on my way to the temple, actually,” the young man replied, craning his head to the package. “Alms from my mother.”

  The woman’s eyes lit up, remembering their earlier conversation. “Ah—then maybe you could check on the priest? We were just talking. No one’s seen him for days, and it’s unlike him.”

  “I see. I can do that. I’ll let you know if anything seems off.”

  “Ah, that’s kind of you. We’d be grateful.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  And with that, the young man pushed off again, the soft whir of bicycle wheels trailing him as he curved away toward the temple.

  …………

  Year 175 A.T.M (Ascension Throne Messiah)

  Trinil, Illemese Continent in the Eastern Annonrial Empire

  As Darcshield pedaled slowly, the temple slowly loomed closer between the trees.

  His name was one of those things people noticed but rarely questioned aloud. It sat uneasily among the softer, fewer syllables of Trinil’s names.

  Darcshield Brunmar. It sounded like something from a storybook.

  There were always parents who named their children not for belonging, but for meaning. Names like his were also fairly common in his ancestral home, the western continent. But in Trinil on the other side of the Empire, the name set him apart just as the pale complexion of the Brunmar family did. They weren’t the only outsiders in town, but they were the most obvious ones. Even after years of living in Trinil, their pale hue still contrasted with the earthy tones of the locals’ skin kissed by years under the tropical sun.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  His older brother had been born in the Imperial Capital, Magicaregia, but Darcshield had been born here. Raised here. He had learned to walk on these dusty paths, to swim in the sluggish river, to harvest water chestnuts with people who never bothered to treat him like anything other than one of their own. As a form of gratitude to the All-Wielder, his family regularly gives alms to the temple. His mother often said it was the least they could do for a place that had, however quietly, accepted them. “We give to those who watch over us,” she would say, her voice soft as she folded the cloth around the gifts, “and we give thanks to those who do not turn us away.”

  The trees thinned as Darcshield neared the crest of the hill, revealing the temple in full. The structure was grand in the way of old, sacred things—its high arches and pointed spires reaching toward the heavens, its stone fa?ade weathered but unbroken by time. Sloping eaves jutted from its sides, and high, arched windows lined the length of the building. Their panes, colored in faded pigments, caught the sun but gave nothing back.

  Two figures flanked the broad entrance—statues taller than any man, wings spread wide and carved with astonishing detail. Each bore six wings layered upon one another, some shielding their faces, others lifted heavenward. The angels’ faces were serene and unreadable, their hands held open in offering.

  Darcshield dismounted and leaned his bicycle against the stone steps of the temple, the bundle of alms now cradled in his arms. Noticing the old temple doors standing slightly ajar, the young man approached the entrance and peered cautiously inside.

  The interior was dim. Shafts of late-afternoon light filtered through the windows, throwing slanted patterns across the aisle. Darcshield hesitated at the threshold, his eyes adjusting to the gloom as he stepped inside, the heavy door creaking slightly under his touch.

  “Excuse me… Father Hose?” he called softly, but no answer came. With a frown, he moved forward cautiously.

  Just as he reached the midpoint of the nave, a faint creak sounded to his left. His gaze snapped toward a side passage, where a narrow wooden door stood cracked open just a few inches. Catching the faint gleam of an eye watching from behind that door, the young man hesitated, then spoke again, more gently this time.

  “…Father Hose? It’s me, Darcshield, Yelena Brunmar’s second son. I brought the alms from my mother.”

  The door creaked as it swung open wider, and the priest stepped out.

  This was Father Hose, the local temple’s priest. His robes were neatly fastened, his silver-streaked hair combed back as always. His complexion, however, looked slightly paler, although it’s a bit hard to notice at first in this dark room.

  “Ah, Father, Mrs. Yuna was worried,” Darcshield said, shifting the bundle of offerings in his arms. “She said no one’s seen you lately. Are you unwell?”

  Father Hose said nothing. He simply looked at Darcshield. But after a moment, he nodded once and stepped forward as though to accept the offering. Relieved, Darcshield smiled faintly and moved to hand over the bundle.

  As the priest passed by one of the beams of light slanting through a window, he recoiled suddenly. His shoulders hunched, and his head turned sharply away from the light as though it scalded him.

  Darcshield blinked.

  The priest’s reaction was strange, but perhaps because he was sick (probably), the sun had simply struck his eyes too harshly. The young man said nothing, not wanting to embarrass him, and instead finished handing over the bundle with an awkward but polite nod.

  “Mother sends her regards. Please give thanks to the All-Wielder on our behalf,” he murmured.

  While Father Hose took the offering, he still hadn’t spoken a word.

  Unsettled but unwilling to press, Darcshield turned to leave. But when he reached the door, he thought he heard a noise so utterly unrecognizable that he wasn’t sure if it was even a sentence.

  “I t’nod ekil ruoy hcnets, yob.”

  Darcshield turned, startled, only to find the nave to be empty and Father Hose nowhere to be found.

  ‘Maybe I misheard,’ he reasoned. ‘Father Hose must be ill, and if that’s him speaking, his voice could have been hoarse.’

  The young man glanced back one last time, exhaled, and exited the temple. Deciding not to dwell on it, he did what his mother always taught him when confronted with something he didn’t understand—he assumed the best and gave it space. Perhaps the priest just needed rest.

  Darcshield Brunmar just didn’t see something lifeless obscured by the main podium.

  …………

  The more he thought about it, the more the encounter with the priest lingered rather uneasily in Darcshield’s mind as he returned home, but he finally managed to push the thoughts aside as he turned onto the familiar path leading to the Brunmar household.

  Their home was modest but well-kept, a single-story house with a small garden where his mother grew herbs and medicinal plants. The wooden gate creaked as he pushed it open, and the scent of simmering spices greeted him.

  ‘Mother must have started dinner early,’ he thought fondly. As soon as he stepped inside and made his way to the kitchen, Yelena Brunmar looked up from the stove, her eyes softening at the sight of her son.

  “You’re back,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Did you deliver the alms?”

  Darcshield nodded, stepping further inside. “Yes. I gave them to Father Hose… though…”

  “Hm?”

  “He seemed a little unwell. He didn’t say anything, but he looked pale.”

  Yelena frowned at those words.

  “Oh dear… I should have prepared more,” she shook her head in quiet disapproval, then stirred the pot more thoughtfully. “Perhaps I’ll go tomorrow morning. He shouldn’t be alone if he’s that weak.”

  Darcshield glanced toward the hallway.

  “Where’s Loran, by the way?”

  “Still in his room.”

  The boy smiled faintly at the thought of the younger brother. After school, he came home and declared he was going to study as hard as him, saying that he wanted to know everything about the stars just like his big brother. He even borrowed a book from his school’s library and hasn’t put it down since.

  “He really took to it, huh. Well, I suppose I’ll have to keep up, then. Can’t let him show me up too easily.”

  Yelena laughed softly. “You two…”

  For a moment, everything felt perfectly still—just the quiet rhythm of their home, the simple joys of family, of shared dreams and innocence.

  But as if it were a divine comedy, at that moment, the Brunmars didn’t realize that this peace was only the prelude of misfortune after misfortune that would come crashing down upon them like a slow, inevitable tide.

  Early the following morning, Yelena Brunmar prepared a basket of food and medicine before setting off for the temple, concerned for Father Hose’s well-being after Darcshield’s account. However, upon arriving, she found the temple eerily silent, and there was no response to her calls. Uneasy but unwilling to intrude further, she returned home, assuming the priest had perhaps gone to seek medical help and decided that she would come later.

  But only several hours later, panic spread through Trinil when a fisherman discovered Father Hose as a corpse near the riverbank, far from the temple. Though the unfortunate priest was still recognizable, the body was withered as if drained of blood, yet there was no blood spilled around him, as if it had been methodically extracted. The sight was so unnatural that rumors of monsters began circulating before the authorities even arrived.

  The Trinil police, though limited in resources, acted swiftly upon the discovery of Father Hose’s body. The local constabulary—comprising a handful of officers led by a weary but dutiful chief—conducted a preliminary investigation. They cordoned off the riverbank, questioned witnesses (including the fisherman who found the body), and examined the temple for signs of struggle. However, with no obvious wounds, no blood at the scene, and no known enemies of the priest, the case baffled them. Superstitious murmurs spread among the townsfolk, but the authorities dismissed such talk, insisting on a rational explanation.

  By midday, the police summoned those who had last seen Father Hose alive, including Darcshield. Though the Brunmars cooperated fully, the officers lingered on the young man’s account of the priest’s strange behavior, probing for inconsistencies. In the end, no conclusion was reached, and the atmosphere in Trinil only grew tense. The temple was declared off-limits pending further investigation, and terror began to slither through the town like a second shadow.

  ?????

  As Darcshield stepped out of the room where he was being questioned, he exhaled slowly, rolling his neck to ease the tension, and began making his way down the passageway toward the exit.

  Just then, the station’s front door swung open, and a figure strode in with an air of effortless authority.

  A young woman—tall, her golden hair pulled into a loose ponytail—walked past him, her knee-length trench coat flaring slightly with her movement. Dark sunglasses obscured her eyes, but there was something unnerving about her that made the hairs on the back of Darcshield’s neck prickle as if he was being eyed as the lady passed by him.

  The young man paused mid-step and wondered. Who was she? She didn’t look like a local.

  But before he could dwell on it further, a familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

  “Brother!”

  The call pulled him from the moment. He blinked and turned, finding his mother and Loran standing a short distance away by the outer gate. His younger brother, fresh from school, hurried over with his bag dangling unevenly from one shoulder. One of the Brunmars’ neighbors encountered on his way home had told him what happened and brought him here, and his eyes were still wide with shock.

  “Are you okay?” Loran asked in a hushed voice. “They didn’t do anything bad, did they?”

  Darcshield forced a smile, ruffling his brother’s hair. “No, no. They just asked questions. A lot of them.” He glanced at his mother. “It’s fine. I’m not in trouble.”

  Yelena exhaled, relief softening her features, but the tension didn’t leave her entirely.

  Loran continued to cling to Darcshield’s sleeve as they stepped away from the constabulary gate.

  “Brother… is it true? Is there really a monster?”

  At those words, Darcshield looked down at his little brother. Loran’s wide eyes shimmered with fear, too much for a boy who, only yesterday, had been eagerly flipping through pages about astronomy.

  “Loran,” Darcshield said gently, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder to slow the tide of fear. “We don’t know what happened yet. The police are still figuring it out.”

  “But… they say—”

  “I know it’s scary. But that’s why we let the adults handle it. The Chief and the constables are good people. They’ll find out the truth. Right, Mother?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Yelena reached out, drawing both boys closer. “If anything strange happens, we’ll know what to do,” she said calmly. “We’re not alone in this. The whole town is being careful.”

  Just then, the neighbor who had brought Loran earlier approached with a wary eye.

  “Best if we head back together,” he said.

  Yelena nodded. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Therun.”

  As they started their walk home, Darcshield never let his brother go. He didn’t want to scare Loran more than he already was. But in truth, he wasn’t sure if he believed what he’d told him. He wanted to. But something about this unnatural occurrence chilled him deeper than reason could thaw.

  …………

  Back at the police station, the chief looked up from his paperwork as the door shut behind the visitor: a sunglasses-wearing blonde woman in a trench coat.

  Removing her eyewear and showing her badge, the woman stepped up and spoke. “Special Lieutenant Arial Hepburn. Provincial Police Department, Anti-Unidentified Lifeform Task Force.”

  The chief, a grizzled man with heavy brows and a lined face, stood slowly. He gave a nod that was more respectful than deferential, and offered his hand.

  “Chief Rennan. I filed the report this morning. Didn’t think the higher-ups would move this fast.”

  Even as she shook the chief’s hand, Arial didn’t smile. She rarely did.

  “You found a corpse drained of blood, no wounds, no known killer, and no sign of struggle. This case fits our parameters. The report triggered an automatic priority review.”

  Chief Rennan grimaced as he glanced at the copy of the case’s document on his desk. “So you’re saying it’s confirmed? Unidentified Lifeform activity?”

  “I’m saying the evidence is consistent with U.L.F. Type-G behavior. Specifically, drain-type entities. But the witness’s account regarding the victim’s last known behavior is suspicious. I’ll need to conduct a field assessment myself.”

  The chief rubbed his jaw and exhaled in frustration.

  “An Unidentified Lifeform… Dammit. I was hoping I was wrong.”

  Hidden from the rest of the so-called “Known World,” this Empire was built on top of the broken ruins of their once mighty forebears, the Ravernal Empire. Though the Winged People of Annonrial were their direct descendants, they had long since lost the knowledge and might of their great ancestors. For as long as their existence, they painstakingly rebuilt their glory using relics of the past. Yet for every two technological marvels they unearthed, one dormant horror sealed away in forgotten places was accidentally uncovered.

  Sometimes, those horrors woke up. And when they did, death followed. Indiscriminately.

  Thus, the Annonrial Imperial Police’s Anti-Unidentified Lifeform Task Force was created for one purpose: to contain these unwanted abominations before they could slaughter people undeserving of such a horrible fate.

  “If the entity is still active, the longer it remains unchecked, the greater the threat to the population. These Type-Gs often feed intermittently and relocate between meals,” Arial stated matter-of-factly, then glanced toward the boarded-up windows and the part of Trinil visible beyond. “First, I need access to the body.”

  Chief Rennan nodded heavily. “Fine. I’ll have Sergeant Minel escort you.”

  Exiting the chief’s office, Arial followed the appointed sergeant down the short hallway toward the coroner’s room.

  “…But now, we turn to a developing and concerning situation. An Imperial Navy submarine has gone missing during a routine patrol mission. Defense officials have confirmed that the—”

  As they passed by an open door, the murmur of a local news broadcast caught her attention. A group of policemen huddled around a small television set, their faces illuminated by the flickering screen. The newscaster, a composed woman in a crisp blazer, was mid-sentence when the broadcast abruptly glitched—her image distorting for a split second before the feed stabilized.

  Arial barely spared it a glance until one of the officers suddenly shouted, “What the hell is that—!?”

  She stopped.

  Turning her full attention to the breakroom, she finally witnessed what made those policemen recoil.

  On the screen, the newscaster’s head jerked unnaturally to the side. Her gaze turned into a glare, and then, slowly, her body lifted off the ground. The woman’s voice, when it came, was layered with something scraping against the edges of human speech.

  “This world will soon be reborn… The holy flames shall burn away the impure…”

  ‘What is going on…!?’

  “All of you Nephilim shall bow before the Kyriel,” the possessed caster continued. “Now, witness our sign!”

  The anomaly ended as abruptly as it had begun. The newscaster’s body crumpled to the floor, unconscious, and the broadcast cut to static before switching to an emergency standby screen. The policemen in the room erupted into shouts, some scrambling back, others rushing forward as if they could somehow help through the screen.

  Amidst the erupting pandemonium, Arial’s jaw tightened. She didn’t move immediately, but inwardly, her mind raced.

  ‘That’s… this outbreak is worse than anticipated…’

  She still had a job to do. But if the signs were right, Trinil was only the beginning.

  01:00

  Day 22 of Arach Symannon (Month 3), Year 175 A.T.M

  Or…

  June 17, 1617 Central Calendar

  The sea surface was eerily calm beneath the midnight moons, a vast obsidian sheet broken only by faint ripples from the salty breeze and the distant churn of ocean currents. Stars reflected faintly in the waves, twinkling like ghost lights caught in the water.

  …Then the sea thundered.

  A sudden rush of air burst across the tide as three shadows tore across the night sky, flying low and fast. However, they were not aircraft.

  Massive, humanoid machines—each standing at around ten meters tall—streaked toward the distant coastline. Their armor was a metallic olive green, reinforced with angular plating and heavy thrusters mounted on their backs. Glowing crimson mono-eye sensors burned like smoldering coals in the darkness, sweeping the horizon as they locked onto their target.

  AMS-119 Geara Doga.

  Mobile suits of the “Righteous Salvation Army.”

  Heavily armored yet agile, each one was equipped with built-in anti-gravity levitators. With these, they hovered mere meters above the waves, skimming the air with unnatural grace as their thrusters blazed hot in the night, the searing blue afterburn distorted the air in their wake.

  “This is Golf, radar site silenced.”

  A transmission from a separate team reached the lead machine controlled by Hugin. While humans require a cockpit to operate these manned golems, the Magias can mentally link with their units while using their primary form as the processing cores, controlling them as though the machines were their own bodies. If Hugin had been in his human form at that moment, he would have smiled.

  “No obstacles detected ahead. We’ll have a visual of the target in 100 seconds,” Munin chimed in over the comms.

  Hugin let out a low chuckle. “Excellent. With the jammer suite’s blast earlier, I bet we’ll find them all lying face-down in the dirt. Maybe we should bring pillows next time—show a little mercy.”

  “Their reinforcements are still going to come, though,” Synin warned. “Don’t underestimate the Winged People.”

  “No shit.”

  That was the entire point of this diversionary attack, part of a series of highly unconventional operations only their kind can pull off.

  “And we’re going to fight with a hand tied behind our backs. An army without killers can’t even be called an ‘army,’” Munin sarcastically drawled.

  “So, you don’t think you can last ten minutes?”

  When his brother shot back, the second Geara Doga’s controller simply laughed. But make no mistake—Munin’s teasing didn’t mean he cared any less about the Creator and his plight than his brothers and sisters did. Had the Creator’s safety not been at stake by their actions, they would have burned the Annonrial Empire to the ground already.

  “Alright, while the guys at the rear are doing their job, we’re going to get hit a lot and generate noise for ten minutes at minimum, in no particular order. After that, feel free to hit self-destruct. Got it?”

  “Loud and clear, Lead.”

  The Geara Dogas then ascended sharply, climbing higher into the night sky. From their new vantage point, the coastline unfurled below like a dark tapestry, where a small airbase lay exposed. As expected, no anti-air fire greeted them. Yet.

  It was too easy.

  ‘Nephilim, huh?’

  As he swept the area, Hugin briefly reflected on the bizarre transmission their fleet had picked up before this operation. It was already known that in this accursed land, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a human experimentation facility. However, by foolishly declaring itself on live TV, that so-called ‘Kyriel’ entity had just painted a clearer mark for Grozam’s unit.

  But let them handle it. His mission was here and now.

  “Creator, witness us. Tonight, we make history.”