The mission was supposed to be simple. A border check — no known Varnok sightings, just a pulse anomaly in the forest outskirts northeast of Elandor. Kael and Leiya walked together, hand-in-hand at first, their movements relaxed but vigilant. The trees here whispered unnaturally. Essence hung in the air, too still, like something watching them from all directions.
Kael slowed to a stop.
"Do you feel that?" he asked, scanning the swaying branches. "It's like everything's... off."
Leiya frowned. "The pressure's weird. I thought it was just me. But now... yeah. It's too quiet."
Kael opened his mouth to respond—but then it happened.
A tear split the air, not with sound, but silence. Reality bent. And from that void stepped something impossibly vast, yet somehow standing within reach.
The Origin-class Varnok didn't roar. It simply was. A humanoid silhouette made of collapsed light and void, each movement distorting gravity around it. Before Kael could move—
Shlunk.
A spike of dark matter tore through Leiya's chest.
Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. Then she collapsed.
Kael didn't breathe. He couldn't. Time felt like it shattered. The world slowed around him as his heart screamed louder than his voice ever could. But when he did finally scream — it ripped the heavens.
"No—no no no no NO!!"
His body surged forward, but the Varnok wasn't done. It moved again — too fast. Kael flew back, crashing through trees and stone. He coughed blood. Not from the hit — from despair.
He couldn't protect her.
He couldn't save her.
Then something inside him snapped.
All of it — the Flame, the Storm, the Lightning, the Kinetic — ignited. Not cast, not conjured. They consumed him.
His skin glowed white-hot.
The wind spun into cyclones.
The sky split with lightning webs.
Flames erupted in spirals.
The ground around him folded from raw force.
Kael rose, slowly. Silent. No scream now, just wrath incarnate. A divine wrath, burning not from vengeance — but utter, world-ending grief.
His body shook as he raised both hands.
The Varnok turned its head.
Kael blinked—
—and woke up.
The scream died in his throat.
Sweat poured down his back. His limbs trembled as he bolted upright in the infirmary bed. He grasped his chest, gasping. It was still nighttime, moonlight spilling into the quiet room.
Then he felt a warmth next to him.
He turned.
Leiya lay there, curled up, asleep, her breathing soft.
Kael froze.
He reached for her hand — it was warm. Real.
Tears slipped silently down his face.
"…Leiya…" he whispered, his voice breaking.
She stirred. Groggy, she blinked up at him. "Kael...? You're okay... Did you have a—"
He didn't let her finish. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest, trembling. She didn't resist. She just held him tighter.
"I thought I lost you," he whispered into her hair.
"I'm right here," she murmured. "Always."
They stayed like that, wrapped in silence — no battlefield, no missions, no titles.
Just Kael Fael and Leiya.
Together. Alive.
And not willing to waste a single heartbeat more.