The echoes of the celebration had faded, and the euphoria of victory was replaced by the clammy, heavy silence of recovery. Cinderpulse lay there like a wounded giant; the streets were still littered with the remnants of the banquet and burnt out fireworks, but the atmosphere was grim. Everywhere in the camp of the Nobodies, you could hear the soft groaning of the healing process and the rhythmic tearing of fresh bandages.
Nicola sat isolated on an overturned crate, his gaze fixed tightly on an object he had fished out from among the smoldering debris of the battlefield. It was a crystal, angular and rough, but with an inner glow that seemed to pulsate to the rhythmic tempo of a distant, invisible heartbeat. The light radiating from it was no natural fire, but a cold, synthetic brilliance that made the shadows on the walls unnaturally long and sharp.
Lyn and Blitz stood on either side of him. Blitz stayed in the background, his gaze continuously fixed on the entrance of the space while simultaneously watching Nicola’s every gesture closely. He stood there like a silent sentinel, ready to spring into action the moment Nicola needed him, his presence a constant factor of loyalty.
"It is no ordinary gemstone," Nicola whispered, his voice hoarse and low from the fatigue that still lingered in his bones. He carefully ran his fingers over the cold facets, which vibrated tangibly with a suppressed, extraterrestrial energy. "I have studied the ancient fragments and analyzed the currents. This is a beacon. A lure connected to something much greater than what we have seen so far."
He pointed to a passage in a weathered manuscript where an identical symbol was depicted. The light inside the crystal slowly but steadily grew brighter, a sign that the object was feeding on the remaining ether in the city’s atmosphere.
"The stories about these crystals are rare, but they always speak of the same principle," he continued while looking at Lyn, whose eyes reflected the cold brilliance. "As soon as this crystal is saturated, as soon as the glowing core emits a completely stable light, those who stand near it are fetched. It is an invitation you cannot refuse. It draws the attention of a power that lies far beyond our current horizon. An extraction mechanism for those who survived the test of the Inquisition."
Blitz took a step closer and bowed his head slightly toward the crystal, his eyes focused on the pulsating core. He said nothing, but his entire posture radiated an intense concentration as he absorbed Nicola’s words. He waited patiently for Nicola to complete the calculation, ready to hear what their next order would be.
Nicola stared at the core, his mind feverishly calculating based on the exponential increase of the light. He slammed the register shut with a dull, definitive thud and looked at his friends gravely.
"Six days," he said firmly, while the weight of those words hung in the room like a leaden weight. "Within one hundred and forty hours, this crystal will be a beacon that will tear the sky open. We have six days to lick our wounds, gather our forces, and prepare ourselves for whatever descends from the void."
Blitz nodded short and sharp. There was no doubt in his eyes, only a deep readiness to do what was necessary. He remained faithfully standing by Nicola’s side, his shadow merging with that of his master while the crystal filled the room with an ominous blue light.
The corridors of their new hideout thundered under the violence of heavy footsteps. Silarias thundered forward, his shoulders tensed like the strings of a bow. Behind him, a procession of chaos formed.
"Don’t do it! You are not allowed to walk at all!" shrieked Miki, who was hanging halfway off his arm in a futile attempt to slow him down.
"Silarias, stop!" Nyx called out, trying to block the way together with Apollo. "Your body has not recovered yet!"
Silarias did not listen. His eyes were set straight, his gaze fixed on the corridor ahead of him. "Must train," he muttered under his breath, almost unintelligibly. "Must get stronger… how could this happen…"
Miki dug her heels into the ground and tried to pull him back with her full weight. The result, however, was counterproductive; Silarias was so focused that he simply dragged her along like a small appendage. Miki flew halfway through the air while clinging to his leather vest.
With a loud bang, Silarias kicked open the double doors of the infirmary.
Inside, the atmosphere was oppressive. Jane sat on the edge of a bed, her face pale, while Cilla was busy changing a compress. On the bed lay Aurelius, his chest moving up and down slowly.
Due to the noise of the slamming doors, Aurelius shot upright like an arrow from a bow. His eyes flew open, looking around wildly.
"Ah, look at that," Jane said with a tired smile, while trying to hold Aurelius back. "The other patient has also awakened. You must have been out of it for two days, Aurelius."
Silarias remained standing in the middle of the room, finally letting go of the puffing Miki. He looked at Aurelius, a grin slowly appearing on his face. "Mm, only two days?"
He took a step closer and laughed briefly. "Weak! Do you remember when Nyx cooked for us?"
Aurelius looked at him blankly for a moment, the memory slowly resurfacing. He burst into laughter, a deep, hoarse sound. "Man, we were out of it for a whole week after that meal."
The two burst into laughter at the same time, forgetting the tension of the past days for a moment.
At that moment, Nyx walked into the room, her movements graceful as always. She waved briefly to Jane and then looked with raised eyebrows at the two laughing men on the bed.
"Gentlemen, awake again too?" she asked coolly. "What were you talking about that is so funny?"
Silarias and Aurelius looked at each other simultaneously. The laughter did not disappear, but a look of pure solidarity appeared in their eyes. They knew exactly what to say to save their skins.
"Yes, yes," they started at the same time, their voices in unison. "That we could never have done this without you, of course, Nyx!"
Miki, who was still gasping for air next to the door, heard the lie and wanted to open her mouth to tell the truth. "But they said your cooking—"
Before she could finish her sentence, she was grabbed by her collar by Apollo and noiselessly dragged out of the room. He shook his head briefly; some things were better left alone.
Aurelius let his legs swing over the edge of the bed and looked around the room. His gaze became more serious. "Wait a minute… aren’t we missing someone?"
Jane briefly explained where the rest of the group was, while Nyx stayed with the wounded to maintain order. Silarias and Aurelius exchanged a look of understanding. Without saying a word, they stood up and marched into the corridor, both deep in thought.
"Sir Von Etherhart!" they quoted Nicola simultaneously, their voices echoing through the stone corridors.
They arrived at the heavy oak door of Nicola’s temporary lab. Just as Silarias reached out his hand to the latch, a triumphant shout echoed from within.
"EUREKA! I managed to make it! If I push this crystal in here…"
A bright flash shot out from under the door. Immediately followed by a second, even brighter flash.
BOOM!
A dull explosion thundered through the room. Although the doors did not fly off their hinges, thick, black clouds of smoke seeped through the cracks.
Silarias kicked the door open. In the center of the room stood a small group of figures. Their faces were literally pitch black with soot, their hair sticking out in all directions as if they had survived a lightning strike. Blitz sat next to Nicola, his fur standing on end like a shocked hedgehog.
Nicola, who looked like a chimney sweep after a hard day’s work, didn’t even look up from the desk. He coolly scribbled something on a piece of paper while the smoke still hung around his head.
"Hmmm," he muttered, his pen scratching across the parchment. "So use the old device after all…"
The air in the laboratory was still thick with sulfurous smoke when Nicola’s eyes pierced through the haze. He saw the figures of Silarias and Aurelius, their silhouettes trembling in the heat of his failed experiment. A shock of recognition shot through his nervous system.
"Well, would you look at that…?!"
In a flash that defied the laws of physics, Nicola vanished. The space bent around him. Before the two recovered warriors could even draw a breath, they felt the heavy, familiar pressure of Nicola’s arms slamming around their necks. He hung between them like a possessed scarecrow, his eyes gleaming feverishly behind his smudged lenses.
"Brothers… awake at last. And at the focking right moment." His voice was a hoarse whisper, laden with an urgency that made the hairs on their arms stand up. "I have crucial news. The clock is not just ticking, the gears are eating away our time. We must gather the whole pack, but it’s going to be a hell of a task. Balamore and Izamaro are already breaking again under the iron fist of Master Ometol; those two heal faster than reality can keep up. The rest are dying God knows in which corner of the infirmary. So, can you Apo—"
The name had barely left his lips when the room trembled. A red hot streak of light cut through the room, faster than thought, a flash that dispersed the last wisps of smoke.
"Sigh."
Apollo stood there suddenly, as if he had always been there. His poncho fluttered, a deep red glow pulsating from his pores like the last embers of a dying campfire. His sombrero cast a deep shadow over his face, the guitar on his back a wooden shield against the madness. "I was just about to go and focking eat," he spoke lazily, adjusting the brim of his hat. "But the air vibrated. I felt that someone wanted to utter my name like a plea."
Without losing a second, Apollo reached for his side. He pulled out the Dragon Horn, the relic of the rebellion, the bone of a god that once signaled the start of their freedom. He put the instrument to his lips and blew with the strength of a man who wanted to challenge the heavens.
The sound that followed was not music. It was a colossal primal noise, a vibration that tried to pull the molecules in the walls apart. The last windows of the laboratory could not take it. Instead of shattering, they defragmented; the glass dissolved into millions of glittering crystals that drifted through the space like a waterfall of stardust.
Then came the bangs. One by one they appeared in the room, drawn by the resonating call of the horn.
Nyx glided in like liquid moonlight. Ren and Miki followed, their bodies tensed like springs. Jane and Cilla appeared as a blur, Cilla’s flower petals swirling around her while her power made the air crackle. Balamore and Izamaro stepped into the room, their gazes tight and shaped by the Sacred Geometry of Ometol.
But the last flash was different. An aggressive, electric blue light that pushed away the red glow of Apollo.
Beat appeared in the middle of the wreckage. He didn’t just stand there; he vibrated. Blue lightning bolts danced across his skin, and in the erratic discharges they saw flashes of something dark, something ancient: the contours of his Oni form, a demonic mask flashing over his human face like a glitching film. The raw static humming from his body was suffocating, crackling against the floorboards and melting the dust in the air.
"The power... it won't quiet down," Beat muttered, his voice carrying an eerie, double-layered resonance that sounded half-human, half-beast. He clenched his fists, blue lightning violently snapping between his knuckles. "It keeps evolving. I can feel the Rajin Volt Anting burning through my veins like boiling oil. It's tearing at the seams of my skin."
The silence that followed was more painful than the sound of the horn.
Nicola let go of his brothers’ shoulders, his hands trembling. He looked at the electric apparition standing before him, a boy he knew, but a power he did not recognize. His eyes locked onto the glitching demonic visage flickering over Beat's face, his brilliant mind temporarily failing to compute the sheer pressure radiating from the reawakened warrior.
"What... what kind of madness did you unlock out there?" Nicola whispered, stepping back as his smudged lenses reflected the cold, blinding azure sparks. He felt a drop of sweat run down his soot-stained cheek. "The energy levels... they're completely off the charts. It's like you're pulling a second form straight out of the abyss."
He stared harder, trying to find the boy beneath the crackling thunder.
"Wait..." Nicola managed to squeeze out, while the blue lightning made Beat’s eyes light up like two cold stars. "Who… who are yóu?"
Beat didn't answer, his silhouette fracturing against the blinding light as the electric current flared violently, consuming the room's remaining shadows. The Oni mask flashed one last time, a terrifying visage of horns and bared teeth, before settling deep into his eyes.
The shadows of the Oni danced on the walls, while the world outside the walls of Cinderpulse City prepared itself for the arrival of something that knew no mercy.