Ezhan Empire – Division Base 03

  Mission:

  Tier 1 Recon – Tihanne City Sewer Disturbance

  Assigned: Operative Harold Carvo

  The division base was nothing like Leoric’s Point... smaller, colder, and deeply bureaucratic. Paperwork piled like mountains, and the officers here seemed to run more on coffee than honor.

  Harold stood in the assignment hall, reading the mission dossier in silence. The briefing was vague, even for a Tier 1.

  Location: Lower Sewer Grids, Sector 3-B, Tihanne City

  Issue: Local maintenance teams report missing workers, strange sounds, and unusual mana readings.

  Known Threat Level: Low.

  Recommended Gear: Standard Aura armor, low-output lantern, purification crystal (optional).

  Status: Solo recon.

  A low-level grunt with a clipboard passed by and muttered, "Poor bastard, hate sewer runs."

  Harold said nothing, sliding the dossier into his coat and tightening his gloves. The weight of his saber-blade rested comfortably at his back. The Soul crystal at his hip hummed with faint light, healthy, but not full.

  Tihanne City – Sewer Grate 3-B Entrance

  Evening

  The smell hit first. A thick, damp rot mixed with something faintly metallic. The sewer opened like a yawning throat beneath the city, carved in stone and reinforced with mana-infused supports.

  Harold lit a small arc-lantern and descended into the dark, the echo of water dripping like distant whispers.

  Ten minutes in, the aura readings on his wrist gauntlet began to flicker oddly. Like interference.

  Then he found the first sign...

  A maintenance badge. Snapped. Scorched at the edge. No blood. Just heat.

  Something was down here. Something not listed in the file.

  Harold muttered under his breath, activating a faint layer of Aura shielding.

  "Sarah, you better be listening."

  He tapped the side of his communicator crystal.

  "Tihanne sewer’s not as quiet as they thought."

  Static.

  Then, barely audible:

  "..repeat that? Distortion on your channel…"

  The interference was growing.

  The tense feeling are increasing,He raised his saber and stepped deeper into the dark.

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  The ripple of water came a split second before the roar.

  A massive blur of scales and muscle lunged from the sludge.

  A giant sewer crocodile, mutated beyond nature. Its eyes glowed faint violet, and dark veins pulsed across its body. Not natural. Not normal.

  Harold’s boots slid across the wet stone as the beast charged.

  In a blink. He vanished sideways, Aura reinforcing his reflexes.

  The croc’s jaws slammed shut where he’d just been, cracking the wall with explosive force.

  Harold didn’t waste the moment.

  He stomped his foot, mana surged downward.

  "Geo Lock: Ascension!"

  The floor beneath the creature erupted—a jagged column of stone launched upward, catching the croc dead-center.

  Its body slammed into the sewer ceiling, spine bending grotesquely. The ceiling cracked, filth and dust raining down.

  The beast thrashed once, then dropped limply onto the rising stone.

  Harold raised a hand, reinforcing the pillar. Locking the creature in place.

  Steam hissed from its corpse. Its blood shimmered with dark mana traces.

  Harold’s brow furrowed. "Corrupted. That wasn’t natural evolution."

  He tapped the communicator again.

  "Sarah. One giant corrupted croc neutralized. It had dark-type residue. Tihanne sewer might be part of a test zone."

  This time, Sarah’s voice came through clearer.

  "Copy that. If it’s Corrupted-type, local division can’t handle it. Mark the area and extract, central will reroute a purging unit."

  Harold looked at the twitching carcass, then back toward the tunnels.

  "I’ll scout two more corridors first. If they’re spreading, this isn’t just sewer infestation."

  The night air ripped past Harold as he sprinted through the cracked remnants of an old irrigation canal, the mutated croc rampaging just meters behind.

  Its roars shook the broken earth, each lunge cracking stone and metal alike.

  Harold's lungs burned. His muscles screamed.

  But he kept running.

  The stone trap hadn't held. The beast should have been crushed, yet somehow, it was regenerating. Not fast, but enough to break free.

  "Too deep in corruption," Harold muttered.

  "It’s not just dark residue… it’s infused."

  Now far beyond the city boundary, Harold skidded to a stop on a barren field, the old district long condemned and evacuated after a failed dam project.

  Perfect. No civilians. No risk.

  He turned to face the monster, drawing in a deep breath.

  His hand reached for the Gravitational Scroll, but paused.

  It was burned. Cracked. Overused from his last mission.

  There was only one way left. Harold stood still, feet planted. Closed his eyes. Focused.

  "Gravitas: Levitas—Direct Cast."

  The very air around him twisted, pressure folding into itself. The Soul crystal on his hip flickered wildly, veins of light crawling up his arm.

  From above, the croc lunged, fangs wide. Harold opened his eyes. And the world bent.

  The croc leap into the air by second, floated unnaturally in the air. Stones hovered. The very gravity of the field warped upward.

  Blood burst from Harold’s nose. His muscles trembled. But he held it.

  "Fall."

  With that word, the croc collapsed to the field. As if he increased the weight of the thing. Causing even more impactfull drop. It slammed into the ground like a meteor, bones shattering under impossible pressure.

  Harold dropped to one knee, coughing, his vision blurry from the feedback.

  His voice rasped through the comm crystal.

  "Target… neutralized. Gravitational overload, self-cast. Need extraction."

  Sarah's voice snapped in seconds later.

  "Got you. Emergency flare up now, we’ll have a med team at your beacon in five."

  Harold pulled out a flare gem, flicked it skyward.

  It burst in silver light..

  The beast's body lay crumpled, spine shattered, limbs bent at wrong angles from the gravitational crush.

  Dust and silence hung in the air until a low, wet twitch broke it.

  The tail shifted. Then one leg.

  A single eye, glassy, dark and filled with wrath... rolled toward Harold.

  "Sigh…"

  Harold’s breath was ragged, his limbs heavy. But his focus was razor sharp.

  He reached into his satchel, pulling out five iron pikes, each already faintly etched with purifying rune, soul-liquid laced tips shimmering faintly in the moonlight.

  With a slow inhale, Harold raised his arm. Fortunately, the croc already been damage largely. It is weakened as it trying to heal.

  One.

  The first pike sailed, clean through the outer membrane, straight into the croc’s right eye.

  It screamed, limbs flailing in agony.

  Two.

  The left eye burst, dark fluid hissing like acid on soil.

  Three. Four. Five.

  Each pike struck deeper, angling into the brain, reinforcing the kill with brutal, surgical precision.

  The last pike he drove in by hand, swing his hand down with more weight than usual.

  The beast shuddered violently, then went still.

  A faint wisp of corrupted mana rose and dissolved into the air. The Soul crystal on Harold’s hip pulsed softly… then dimmed.

  Harold stood over the fallen titan, his voice calm now.

  "Now it’s over."

  He turned, blood trickling from his nose again, and walked toward his flare beacon, limping, but victorious.

  Harold took three steps from the crater before the weight hit him.His vision tilted. His chest tightened. Then...

  “ugh—!”

  He dropped to one knee again, the taste of iron rising in his mouth. A harsh, wet cough burst from his lungs, echoing inside his helmet.

  Blood. Dark red. Too much. It splattered across the inner visor.

  Harold yanked the helmet off, tossing it to the ground as he gasped for breath, another cough racking his frame. His hand trembled as he wiped his mouth.

  Direct-casting Gravitational magic wasn’t meant for someone without full augmentation, or clearance. And definitely not in his condition.

  He looked down at the dirt. Shaking. Numbness. Internal strain. Then he heard the humming sound, a skycraft engine.

  The rescue team’s silhouette appeared in the dark, descending fast with a white flare at the front.

  Sarah’s voice crackled into his ear again, this time sharper.

  "Harold, sit tight... we’re coming in. Pulse tracker just spiked. Are you stable?"

  He chuckled weakly, spitting more blood into the grass.

  "Define… stable."

  Then everything tilted again, and darkness took him.