Shadows flitted between the trees.
Dressed in sharp, pristine black suits, the group dashed forward, navigating the uneven terrain with calculated precision.
Their movements were like a well-oiled machine.
Then, at once, they halted.
Before them stretched an open field. And beyond that—nothing. Dead grass swayed in the faint breeze, brittle and brown, its once vibrant green now long forgotten.
Old ruins jutted from the earth like broken teeth, remnants of a world that had been forgotten, their structures decaying, fading into nothing.
A vast, invisible wall loomed ahead, its presence subtle, almost imperceptible. It shimmered faintly against the neon-streaked sky, a boundary that didn't seem to belong, as if it had never truly been there—just a mark, a limitation, perhaps a memory.
The end of the world. The edge of their prison. The castle's border.
Footsteps echoed as a single figure strode forward. Unlike the rest, his suit was left undone, a crimson semi-shirt peeking beneath a long jade suit draped over his shoulders. His white jeans stood in stark contrast to the dark-clad men surrounding him. He exuded an air of effortless arrogance, his presence a command in itself.
Behind him, the men in suits murmured amongst themselves. The sound of synthesised music drifted from one of them, a low pulse of bass and eerie, ethereal vocals.
"Chez."
A name flickered above a green cursor.
Chez, a lanky man in the same black uniform, had his menu open, a holographic interface casting an azure glow over his face. He tapped his fingers idly as he bobbed his head to the rhythm, a smirk tugging at his lips. His voice carried over the quiet murmurs:
"Leave the earth behind,
Cast away your human mind,
In the void we shine—
We are nothing, yet divine."
"Turn that off," one of the others snapped, clearly irritated.
Chez merely grinned, increasing the volume.
"This is the latest title track from Mai. You know, Mai. Absolute legend. A Cubetuber with the voice of an angel and the soul of a nihilist. 'UFO' is about humanity's endless hunger, our curse to crave more than we can ever hold. We abandon our planet, discard our bodies, and transcend into—"
"Turn it off."
He sighed dramatically but complied, the music fading into silence.
Their leader had reached the border. The man in red placed a gloved hand against the invisible barrier. Instantly, cascading lines of unreadable text flooded his interface. Strange symbols pulsed on his screen, shifting, rearranging, and flickering between unknown shapes. His fingers flexed against the wall as a sly smirk played across his lips.
"Well, well," he murmured, eyes glinting with something sharp and unreadable. "V.I.R.M. tech. Now that's a name I haven't seen in a while."
One of the men beside him adjusted his glasses, scanning the screen with narrowed eyes. "Sir, these characters… They aren't in any known script."
"They are," the leader corrected smoothly, "just not one you know. Allow me."
He lifted a single finger and traced an arc through the air. The text reacted, lines morphing in real time, shifting under his influence.
Decryption in progress.
The man in glasses frowned. "That doesn't look like any standard decoding method."
"That's because it isn't," the leader replied with an almost lazy amusement. "It's art. You wouldn't understand."
As the symbols unravelled, the ground beneath them groaned. A mechanism unseen clicked into place. The air trembled.
With a final swipe, the interface blared: Access Granted.
Before them, the earth split apart, revealing a hatch embedded into the metallic soil. It slid open with a hiss of steam, unveiling something inside—a sphere, floating slightly above a thin pedestal.
Within its crystalline surface, another smaller sphere rotated, orbiting in an erratic yet mesmerising pattern. It pulsed softly, an eerie, hypnotic glow emanating from its core.
The suited men froze. The distant hum of the clearing seemed to fade away.
One operative—the same one who'd complained about the music—shouldered his rifle and flexed his fingers, a tremor running through his knuckles as he whispered, "Too easy…"
A bead of sweat traced his temple. "Those players we took out earlier… barely put up a fight," he added, voice low. "Were they really part of those Envoyers?"
Behind him, the man with glasses adjusted his frames—lenses catching the moonlight—before his eyes flickered to the treeline. "They even came with auto-translate built in."
Silence fell. The trees themselves seemed to hold their breath.
The boss stepped forward, slow and measured, as if studying a relic dug from the dirt. He let out a quiet chuckle, eyes gleaming.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"What is it?" asked the bespectacled man, his voice taut with unease.
"A key," the boss said, tilting his head. "Or perhaps… a lock."
Then the world shifted.
Shadows bled in from the edges of the clearing—silent, formless things, slinking free from the dark. They watched with invisible eyes, the air thickening with a cold that crawled beneath skin.
The man in glasses stiffened. "We're not alone."
The muttering suit swore sharply. "Tch—knew it. I said it was too easy."
The boss let out a sharp breath, gloved fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. A slow grin unfurled across his face—equal parts tired and thrilled.
"Why," he said, voice like a blade wrapped in silk, "did you have to go and jinx it?"
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A figure emerged from the darkness.
The man was impossibly large.
Not simply in stature, but in presence. His uniform, an old-world military garb reinforced with sleek, futuristic plating, strained against the grotesque proportions of his frame.
Muscles coiled beneath his skin like steel cables; his hands were broad enough to crush skulls like eggshells.
His face, chiselled yet unnatural, bore deep scars that cut like fault lines through the harsh terrain of his features. But the most unsettling aspect of all was the flower pinned to his collar—a pristine angel flower, its white petals flecked with crimson veins.
Above his head, a title flickered in deep violet:
Intangible Tidal Breaker
The suited men flinched.
One of them—a sharp-jawed man with a buzz cut and a nervous twitch in his left eye—instinctively activated his Leere.
The familiar blue glow flickered into a long-barrelled rifle, sleek and humming with energy.
He aimed it without thinking, his finger brushing the trigger.
The clearing tensed.
But the boss—the man in jade—stepped forward without hurry. He raised one gloved hand, palm open towards his subordinate.
"Put it down," he said, not loud, but with enough gravity to stop the man's breath. His smile didn't vanish, but the amusement in it thinned like smoke on the wind. "Unless you'd like to see your body crumble before you ever pull that trigger."
The suited man hesitated, throat bobbing. The glow of his rifle wavered.
The boss turned his gaze towards the towering figure before them. The man in military plating stood still—utterly still—but the forest itself seemed to lean away from him. Moonlight crawled along his silhouette like it feared to touch.
"You don't aim at someone like that unless you're tired of breathing," the boss continued. "That man isn't just a blunt instrument. He's a natural disaster in a tailored coffin."
He chuckled softly, stepping towards the man, his boots crunching over brittle leaves.
"As expected," he said, eyeing the angel orchid pinned to the beast's collar. "From the fifth-ranking officer of the Envoyer of Dusk, also known as Breaker."
Breaker tilted his head, just slightly.
"Seems you've done your homework," he said, his voice low and tempered like steel cooling in a forge. "Though I suspect a mole helped fill in the blanks."
His eyes, sharp as whetted blades, scanned the men before him.
"Someone among you doesn't belong."
The boss exhaled, amused. He drew a card from his pocket without looking: The Moon. He held it between two fingers like an accusation, then let it flutter to the ground.
"Knowing that," he said, adjusting his cuffs, "and finding who it is are two very different games."
Breaker took a step forward, and though he barely moved, the ground beneath him cracked faintly.
"Then let's hope they reveal themselves before I lose patience."
The man with the rifle lowered his weapon. Slowly. Like prey realising it had locked eyes with something far higher up the food chain.
"He's not someone you fight," he added, eyes gleaming. "He's someone you measure earthquakes by."
The Tidal Breaker's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "I assume you know what you're holding."
The man in jade smiled, slow and deliberate.
It was not a pleasant smile.
"Of course." He tilted his head slightly, his gaze flicking over the enormous figure with the same interest one might have for an intriguing puzzle.
"And I assume you're here to stop us."
"Do you know its true purpose?" The man—or perhaps a monster—spoke with a voice as deep as the churning, muddy waves of a river long forgotten.
His tone carried the weight of something ancient, a force driven not by duty but by endless, simmering rage. There was something in his presence, as if he had waded through rivers where the damned fought one another, their fury reflected in the very air that clung to him.
A pause.
Then, smoothly, the boss replied, "Naturally."
He was lying.
The creature exhaled, unimpressed, but his stance shifted—tense, bracing, as if standing before an impending storm.
"You think yourself cunning, don't you? A man who plays with fire, convinced he won't burn."
He drew closer—not a full step, but a lean forward that made the leaves at his feet recoil.
"But fire changes those who touch it. It shapes bone and memory alike."
His eyes found the figure below him, searching the flicker behind the ember glow.
"Tell me, then—what do you see when you look at it?"
The boss didn't answer immediately. Instead, he drew another card from his pocket and held it up: The Tower.
The corner of his mouth curled, but the heat in his gaze held steady.
Breaker's voice was quieter now. "You think you're in control. A man who holds fury like a blade and assumes it won't bite back."
He paused, the storm behind his eyes darkening.
"But fire doesn't obey. It remembers. It consumes."
The boss exhaled, slow and deliberate, a hand brushing invisible dust from his lapel.
"You mistake control for hesitation, lab dog," he said, his tone silk laced with static. "I do not temper the fire—"
His fingers tapped the Tower card once before flicking it to the ground.
"—I direct it."
And beneath that calm, something cracked. Not loud—but waiting.
The air around them was thick with something volatile, as if the very space between them might ignite at the wrong word.
"You carry wrath like an inheritance, don't you?" Breaker said, his voice quieter now, but no less heavy.
"Passed down from every fight, every slight, every moment the world denied you. You hold onto it, telling yourself it makes you strong. But anger is not strength. It is ruin waiting for its moment."
The man in jade's smirk deepened, but his jaw was tight. "You talk as if you know what it is to burn."
"I've seen men like you," Breaker continued, undeterred.
"Watched them become slaves to their own fire. They think they are wielding it, but in the end, it wields them." He stepped forward, gaze unwavering. "And when that moment comes, when it consumes everything—you included—what will you see when you look back?"
For the first time, the man in jade hesitated, the smirk faltering. His fingers curled, knuckles white against the weight of something unspoken. The sphere besides him flickered, catching the heat in his gaze.
"Justice," he finally said, but there was something raw in the word, something uncertain.
Breaker huffed.
"No. Retribution. And retribution never stops at the guilty, does it?"
The silence between them crackled, like the calm before a storm that had long since begun.
Breaker watched him—really watched him.
The man was younger than he looked, but only just. Sharp in the way glass is sharp, beautiful in the way poison can be beautiful. He stood with a predator's ease, too relaxed, the way people are when they know they've already mapped the room a dozen moves ahead.
A jade-green suit, cut with precision, shimmered faintly under the low light. Beneath it, a deep red shirt—open just enough to be deliberate—bled into ivory white pants. A scarf the same shade as fresh snow hung loosely around his neck, as if even his fashion mocked the idea of danger.
It wasn't just vanity—it was ritual.
Breaker noticed the small things: the twitch of fingers against silk when silence lingered too long, the way he never let his shoes scuff the ground. A man who needed to feel untouched. Untouchable. Someone who surrounded himself with symbols, not for belief—but for leverage.
And now, as the tension thickened, he was doing it again.
The man's hand dipped—not abruptly, but fluidly—into the inner pocket of his suit. With two fingers, he slid out a narrow, worn leather case, no larger than a phone. The edges were smooth from use, its corners softened by time.
He flipped it open with a practiced gesture, revealing a tightly stacked deck of rectangular cards with a back design of black-and-gold filigree—like a seal, or an invitation.
He thumbed the edge of the deck once, slowly, letting the weight of the moment thrum against the still air. Then, he drew a single card from the top, turning it in his hand without looking.
He didn't show it yet.
Instead, he looked at the monster before him. Let the silence extend. Let the air simmer with unspoken language.
Only then did he tilt the card just enough that Breaker could catch a glimpse.
A figure in crimson robes stood at a stone table carved with symbols. One hand was raised to the sky, the other pointed downward. Before him lay a cup, a blade, a coin, and a rod. The figure's face was calm—too calm—and the background shimmered with infinity, yet somehow caged within a frame.
It was a familiar image. Something Breaker might have seen on an altar, or a loading screen, or in a dream he forgot. Everything about it seemed right.
Except it wasn't.
The man held the card upside down.
"Then Opportunity," he said softly. "A Miracle."
Breaker inhaled, slow and measured.
"Hatred," his voice flat but filled with iron.
"Your kind has always mistaken hunger for ambition. You see power, a tool to bend the virtual world to your will. But desire—true, unrelenting desire—twists power into something monstrous. This world does not give. It devours."
The boss laughed, the sound rich with amusement. He turned slightly, his silhouette framed by the glow of the sphere, now pulsing faintly like a quiet heartbeat. His voice came smooth, almost playful—too calm for the weight of his words.
"Oh, come now," he murmured, smoothing the crease of his scarf, "don't be so dramatic."
He stepped forward, his coat dragging faint lines through the dust.
"We both know everything—every economy, every trade, every digital transaction—breathes through these worlds. People live here more than they do in reality. Corporations don't just own servers—they own planets. Governments? They've traded soil for bandwidth."
He gestured loosely at the orb hovering beside him.
"This little thing renders all that obsolete. Infinite capacity. Limitless replication. Cities, cultures, currencies—all in the hands of whoever holds this miracle. With the right will, the cosmos bends."
His fingers flexed, as if already shaping it.
Across from him, Breaker remained still—so still it was as though the wind avoided touching him. His voice came low and steady.
"And yet," he said, "with all your knowledge, you still fail to understand."
The shadows around him darkened subtly, as if the forest itself leant in to listen.
"That thing is not a device. Not truly. It is alive. The last fragment of something that never belonged in this age. Power is meant to end, not build."
The beast shifted on his feet, gravel grinding under his boot.
"Did your professor ever tell you the truth?" he asked, sliding the card back into its leather case with a practiced ease—only to flick his wrist, as if brushing dust from his sleeve. But instead of dust, the very same card slipped free again, upside down, pinched neatly between two fingers.
He tilted it just enough for the inverted figure to catch the light—then flicked it, impossibly, through the air behind him. It passed through the flickering edge of reality like it wasn't paper, but a key. "About what hides behind this thing? Behind this world… and its crooked little rules?"
Breaker's tone didn't rise.
"I don't care much. I'm only following orders," he replied bluntly. "And my orders are to take you and your people out."
The leader's smirk did not waver, but something in his gaze sharpened. "I imagine someone with your... allegiances would want to know the truth. After all, if the game was fair, your kind would no longer sit on your precious thrones."
Breaker's breath came slow and measured, but there was a fire smouldering beneath his ribs, an old anger that never truly died. The Angel Orchid on his collar swayed gently in the wind, its pristine white petals laced with veins of crimson.
A symbol. A curse. A reminder.
His fingers twitched, and for a fleeting moment, he wasn't standing in the neon-soaked ruins of this world—he was somewhere else. Somewhere darker.
He remembered the fire. Not the kind that burned buildings, but the kind that gutted souls. The fire of desperation, of grasping hands reaching for salvation and finding only smoke. The fire of a boy who had lost everything. And then, a hand. A voice. A promise.
'You don't have to burn, child,' the professor had said. 'You can become something greater.'
And he had. The fire never left him, but it had become something else—a controlled inferno, a weapon wielded in precision.
Breaker exhaled and looked up. The man in jade was watching him, smug and expectant, waiting for him to break, to be provoked. But he was not so easily shaken.
The soldier's jaw tightened.
Breaker's gaze drifted past the man before him for a moment to the trees beyond—digital shadows flickering like broken code across their trunks. The wind no longer rustled, only hovered, still and expectant.
His voice came low, not angry, but hollow—like something dug from deep beneath the earth.
"You think this is about control?" he said. "You're blind."
He looked back at the boss, eyes unblinking. "This world will stand. Every second, more souls trade their skin for signal. They think they're escaping—ascending—but they're only sinking."
The sphere beside the boss gave a soft hum, almost as if in response.
"The Seed doesn't just build. It remembers. Every impulse. Every dream. Every whisper of who someone was."
Breaker's hands didn't move, but his stance shifted—just enough for tension to crackle beneath the silence.
"It binds more than data. It binds pieces of people. Thought. Habit. Longing."
"When a man steps into that abyss—one whose desire never ends—what do you think is left when the hunger finishes hollowing him out?"
The boss exhaled, shaking his head in feigned pity.
"Ah, how noble. The righteous soldier, standing on his crumbling foundation, preaching about the decay of man. You claim to protect this world, yet you cling to its greatest lie—that order can be maintained without progress."
"Progress?"
"Whatever you're planning is not progression. It is a hunger that will never be sated. The same hunger that ruined the real world. The same hunger that—"
The man in jade tilted his head, his smirk widening as if he had just unravelled a secret. "Hunger? No, no. Ambition. And some of us are not so afraid to take what should be ours. Unlike you."
The soldier's muscles coiled, the Angel Orchid on his collar shifting with the breeze. The boss' gaze flicked towards it, a glint of recognition flashing in his eyes.
"That title of yours..." he murmured. "Intangible Tidal Breaker. It's almost poetic. The sin of wrath, isn't it? A soul shackled in rage, struggling against the current but never truly free. And yet, here you are, leashed like a dog to a man who isn't even here."
The words sank in deep.
Breaker did not flinch, but something in him twisted.
The flashbacks came unbidden—
A boy, no older than ten, covered in soot and blood, standing in the wreckage of a world he never asked to be born into.
A man, draped in the cold glow of a monitor, looking down at him. "You don't have to burn, child. You can become something greater."
A collar around his neck. Not a real one. But something worse—purpose.
The leader clicked his tongue, watching him with mild amusement. "That professor of yours," he continued, voice laced with mock sympathy, "tied you down so tightly you don't even see the chains anymore. Did he ever tell you what you are? A knight? A saviour? Or just another pawn in his game?"
The air grew thick.
Breaker's fingers twitched. He inhaled sharply, the scent of burning metal, the ghost of a battlefield long past filling his lungs.
"You know nothing," he said, voice dangerously low.
The man in jade only chuckled. "Oh, but I know enough. And that's why you're going to fail. That pathetic man can only play god in here. Because the moment your master isn't watching—"
A gust of air sliced past his cheek.
Something—someone—whistled by inches from his face, a blur of black cloth and limp limbs. One of his own men, hurled like dead weight. The impact bloomed wet and violent—bones shattered, flesh folded inward, blood sprayed and sizzled against the unseen barrier.
Then, in a flicker of cold blue light, the corpse disintegrated into shimmering holographic shards. The fragments hovered for a breath, then dissolved into the ground like ash in water.
Everyone took half a step back, panic swelling in their eyes.
Their boss didn't turn back. Didn't even blink.
The voice came low from the monster before them
"You should've held your tongue."