In Fort Stork, up on the battered top level that once lay buried under rubble and half-shattered walls, the night wind drifted through the open space where a roof used to be. The ruin had been cleaned, cleared of splintered beams and stone — now it was just an open floor under the stars, scarred but strangely peaceful.
Miles sat alone on the edge of the cracked floor, small boots dangling over the drop, his thin frame motionless against the backdrop of the quiet village below. His dull eyes stared down at the circle of flickering firelight in the heart of Stork. Around the fire, women and children gathered close together, bundled in blankets, voices soft and warm as they told stories, laughed at old jokes, and passed bowls of simple food between them.
They were waiting. Waiting for fathers, brothers, husbands — men who had taken up the long road to Obidos to drive carriages, deliver supplies, or build wagons in Stork Village beyond the mountains. They earned good coin for this extra work — but the truth was they would have done it for free, for their families, and for their new lord who'd given them so much.
LAND
Ali touched down behind Miles without a sound but with a faint rush of wind that stirred the boy's hair. He raised an eyebrow — surprised the kid was out here under the open sky. His eyes shifted to the side where Miles's personal robot stood guard, unmoving and watchful.
This time, the bot wore no cloak to hide its metal. Its plating looked darker now, smoother and more battle-hardened, and in its chest the small core reactor spun just a fraction slower than Ali remembered. He didn't need a scanner — he counted the rotations by ear alone the last time they met.
Ali stepped forward, boots scraping against the cracked floor as he came to stand at Miles's side, looking down at the village below.
"It's good you're breathing outside air," Ali said, his voice carrying the weight of praise — rare from him, but earned tonight.
Miles didn't look up. His eyes stayed on the children dancing in the firelight far below. "I have one point in Body now from all the construction missions. Walking and breathing is much easier now…" His words came out in that flat, mechanical tone that always clung to him like frost. He looked down at his thin hand resting on his knee, slowly curled it into a trembling fist. "It feels good," he added, the closest thing to warmth his voice had carried in a long time.
Ali gave a small nod, arms folding across his chest. "There are few better feelings a human can experience than physical freedom," he said, eyes distant as if looking back through time. "I still remember the first time I sprinted for kilometres without stopping — it was exhilarating…" His words were half for Miles and half for himself, an old memory stitched back together for a boy who'd never known that simple rush.
Miles was quiet for a moment, gears turning in that cold, bright mind. Then his eyes flicked to Ali, searching for an answer he couldn't pull from any data catalogue. "Ali, how do you see them?"
His chin tilted back toward the fire below, toward the children with sticky fingers and scraped knees, toward mothers telling bedtime tales. Miles watched them with that blank stare that never softened — a child who had never learned to be one.
"What do you mean, kid?" Ali asked, lowering himself onto the cracked stone beside him. The massive frame of the man dwarfed the boy like a shadow covering a single candle flame.
Miles spoke without blinking. "Are they humans? Do their lives matter as much as ours? Or are they just characters of fantasy and imagination?" The words fell like stones in a dry well. Miles was born to numbers and screens, shaped by glowing pixels and cold algorithms that called him assistant instead of son.
Ali listened. Really listened. Then he drew a slow breath and spoke truth without softening it.
"To me, those children and you are one and the same. There are no differences… It's just that you were born on Earth, and they were born in this world. The interface and Paradise might make them look lesser — turning lives into missions, rewards in exchange for breath — but remember this, you have a choice and Paradise does not control your choice and how you should view them."
Miles didn't smile. He didn't nod. But something shifted behind those dull eyes, a tiny flicker as he stared down at the laughing kids by the fire. Ali watched him in the glow of the embers far below, studying the small reflection of flame dancing in eyes that had never truly known warmth.
'This kid doesn't understand emotion. Not really. Neglect and cold walls took that from him. Maybe it would take something terrible — or something beautiful — to shock him awake.' Ali thought, silent, the cold night wind brushing his face as a flicker of light caught the corner of his vision.
A faint, dying red bloomed in the sky above the village, a ghost of light splitting the calm night before vanishing as quickly as it came. Below, the villagers pointed upward, confusion and whispers drifting through the cold air as they tried to catch one more glimpse of the vanished omen.
Ali watched the empty sky for another heartbeat, then spoke quietly, voice carrying only to the boy beside him.
"That must be it…"
Beside him, Miles shifted, expression unchanged as his mind sifted through his growing archive. "The best assumption is that a number of demons have entered this world — maybe powerful demons or weak ones, or perhaps simply residual demonic energy…" He said it like he was reading weather data, his tone the same cold whisper it had always been. But behind that dead calm, lines were connecting — tiny threads pulling together in the dark.
"I have worse news than the demons…" Ali said, his voice low but clear against the whisper of wind drifting through the open top floor.
Miles slowly lifted his dull eyes from the village below, turning that blank, calculating stare toward Ali. He didn't speak — he simply waited, like a machine waiting for new code to process.
"Tonight there was a meeting between high-ranking players," Ali continued, watching the flicker of firelight dance in the boy's eyes. "Their plan is simple — kill me. I'll get an alert shortly before they drop on me."
Miles's head twitched slightly, a faint flicker in his mechanical stillness. "Do you have names for who the players are?" he asked, his voice flat as ever, though his left eye glowed faintly blue — connecting, cross-checking, storing every word.
Ali nodded once and opened his interface. He scanned the list sent to him.
"Pummel Fist, Rock Guild."
Miles's gaze sharpened by a fraction. "Top thousand. Heavy move set, wide-area strikes. Destructive but not precise — won't be a problem for you."
"Silk, Death Guild."
"Another top thousand. Trickier — he uses a single weapon to kill, sharp strings. Details are thin, Death Guild members keep their secrets tight. Rumours only." Miles's eye pulsed brighter for a heartbeat.
Ali read the next name without glancing at Miles. "The one I fought from your guild."
"X17." Miles didn't blink. "She won't be a problem. I'll handle her myself." His tone stayed flat but final — Ali knew better than to question that part. When it came to machines and code, Miles's reach was unmatched.
"Claw, Beast Guild."
Miles flicked through invisible files in his mind. "Just outside the top thousand — but his beast is dangerous. He'll be emotional too, tied to his mentor. The same one you crushed in the arena. I'll send you what I have on his summon."
"And last one — Mateo. Lightning Guild."
This time, Miles showed something that almost resembled a reaction — the corner of his mouth twitched, and the air near his robot seemed to buzz as its core rotated half a pulse faster.
"That's not good," Miles said quietly.
Ali turned his head, eyes shadowed by the broken edge of the ruined roof. "Who is he?"
Miles's voice dropped lower, as if the night wind might carry his words somewhere they shouldn't go. "Former Apostle. Lightning Guild. He was the one before they switched to Thunderbloom — but stronger than her. Much stronger. He's not ranked highly because he doesn't duel much and all his duels are private. All records are based on rumours"
Ali's eyes gleamed darker under the fractured starlight. "If you had to guess — where would he stand?"
Miles's robotic tone didn't waver. "Top hundred, easily. Maybe top fifty, given his specialisation in Lightning. Mateo is your biggest problem out of all of them."
A low hum slipped from Ali's throat — not quite a laugh, more like the echo of something primal cracking through his chest. His smirk curved sharper as the shadows around him seemed to coil closer, his eyes gleaming like a wolf's before dawn. The air grew colder. The robot behind Miles reacted first — its core spinning faster, the quiet whir growing louder, pulled like iron shavings to a magnet.
"It should be fun," Ali said, voice calm as he let the killing intent bleed away again, the invisible storm snapping back behind the iron doors in his mind.
He turned his gaze back to the forest stretching far beyond Fort Stork, black treetops rolling under the half-moon like restless waves. "I'll fight them there — deep in the trees. Just me and your drones. I have a place in mind." He flicked the coordinates to Miles's interface — the location blinking softly on the boy's inner map.
Miles nodded, already running calculations in silence. "I already have it surveyed. The beasts in that region are aggressive and territorial — we can turn them into tools. I need to set up an amplifier there too — it'll deal with X17. My viruses will take care of her."
Miles pressed his palms into the stone floor, then pushed himself up — unassisted. He stood without the robot's cold hands guiding him, a testament to what a single point in Body meant when you'd spent your life with none.
Ali watched him rise, then asked, almost conversationally, "Is there not a rule about killing guild mates?"
Miles brushed a bit of dust off his pant leg, unbothered. "We Apostles follow a separate set of rules. You'd benefit from becoming one."
Ali gave a quiet grunt at that — not agreement, not denial. Then his eyes sharpened again, voice shifting from mentor to commander in the space of a breath.
"Kid. Deactivate all your surveillance on the Heart."
Miles froze. His blinking eye flickered, the soft blue flicker caught between questions and resistance. "Why?"
Ali didn't soften his tone. "It's demonic. It will draw trouble — the kind we can't afford. I'll handle it myself."
There was no argument left. Miles's gaze lingered on Ali for a heartbeat — then the dull blue glow faded from his eye. "Done."
Ali opened a portal with a single flick of his fingers — a ripple in the air like torn silk, shadows bending in its wake. Without another word to Miles, he stepped through, the ragged edge of the rooftop vanishing behind him as the swirling dark swallowed him whole.
He emerged a heartbeat later far below, deep inside the fortress's lowest level — a cold, cavernous underbelly of stone and steel buried beneath Fort Stork's foundations. Here, the air was damp, echoing with the faint drip of water far off in the pitch black. Before him loomed the Heart — a grotesque, living organ bigger than any man, veins and arteries pumping slowly like an ancient engine shackled by thick iron chains that rattled whenever it pulsed.
Ali's eyes tracked the walls — small, almost hidden cameras buried in the stone, tiny blinking eyes that belonged to Miles and the network above.
Ali snapped his fingers. The sound cracked like dry bone in the silence. Instantly, his shadow poured out from beneath his boots — a dark flood that rolled outward across the floor, up the walls, over the cameras. In seconds, the entire chamber was swallowed by living blackness. It clung to stone like oil, thick and alive, absorbing every lens, every watchful eye.
This was no ordinary trick. This was a new gift — an ability Ali had uncovered only recently as Shadow, the dragon that lurked inside him, feasted day after day on the beasts foolish enough to cross his path. Every kill made the creature stronger.
Far above, on the exposed rooftop, Miles stood frozen. In his mind's cyberspace, he stared at the black static that now smothered every feed linked to the Heart's chamber. To his right, lines of glowing code flickered like neon rain as his AI ran diagnostics on the anomaly, tagging this new phenomenon to Ali's already monstrous data file. Miles switched to heat signatures. Nothing. Thermal, lidar, echo-mapping — all useless in the face of that crawling shadow.
'The guilds should have sent everyone…' Miles thought as the robot's mechanical arms lifted him, carrying him down into his base, deeper into the hum of servers and blinking screens where he'd prepare for what came next.
Below, under Miles's cold domain of code and cables, Ali stepped closer to the chained Heart. He could hear it — a wet, slow thump that rattled the iron links like an old god's heartbeat trying to claw free. He raised one massive hand and pressed his palm to the organ's slick surface. The skin shivered under his touch, sensing him, almost like it knew what was about to come.
Ali closed his eyes. The stale, wet air of the underground dissolved from his mind as he stepped inward, deeper, crossing the threshold into the realm that only belonged to him. His Spirit Realm unfolded like a starless ocean — vast, silent, endless. He stood there alone at its centre, the echo of his power humming through the darkness.
His lips parted. He called out — a name—.
"Bahamut."
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