The sun never rose in Nexus City the way it did in rural lands; here, morning came in layers of artificial light. Tower-spires shimmered as their upper panels unfurled, revealing solar filaments that glowed to life like blossoms of glass. Skybridges thick with traffic pulsed overhead, shuttles cutting lines of luminescence across the hazy sky.
Jade sat quietly on the threshold of his small shop, a steaming cup of bitterleaf tea cradled in both hands. He breathed in the aroma, calm and unhurried, even as the city's metallic heart thrummed around him. His blindfold fluttered faintly in the morning breeze. Behind the cloth, his dual pupils spun slowly, catching the faint threads of energy woven through the district.
It was a normal day.
"Jade!"
The voice cracked the morning calm, full of unrefined energy. Lio bounded down the street, his hair a tousled mess, his tunic still half-buttoned. He carried something bundled under one arm, and though he tried to look dignified, his steps were too quick, his grin too wide.
Behind him came Amara, her pace steadier, her voice scolding. "Lio, slow down before you trip! And for stars' sake, fix your collar."
Niamh emerged from the shop's back door, wiping her hands on a cloth, silver streaks of her hair catching the light. She caught sight of the siblings and sighed softly, though there was warmth in her eyes.
"Another wild morning, hm?" she murmured.
Jade set his tea aside, watching as Lio skidded to a stop in front of him. The boy held up the bundle with both hands.
"Look!" Lio declared. "I found this in the scrap bazaar before anyone else. Amara said it was junk, but I think you'll like it."
Jade tilted his head, reaching out to unfold the cloth. Inside lay a broken mana compass—its outer casing cracked, its inner crystal spiderwebbed but faintly glowing.
"It's damaged," Amara said dryly as she caught up. Her tone was resigned, her hands resting firmly on her younger brother's shoulders to steady him. "And useless."
"Not useless!" Lio protested, wriggling free. "Jade can fix it. He fixes everything."
Jade's lips curved faintly. He ran one finger along the compass, feeling the fractured flow of ether within. "You're not wrong," he said quietly. "It can be restored."
Lio beamed, triumphant, while Amara groaned.
Niamh shook her head but reached out to ruffle Lio's hair. "At this rate, boy, you'll clutter Jade's whole shop with broken gadgets. Still…" she softened, her voice dropping into that maternal note she never shed when children were involved. "You've got a good heart. Bringing him something instead of wasting credits on sweetbreads."
Lio grinned again, sheepish, and Amara sighed. But Jade caught the glance she cast him—watchful, protective, weighing every detail. For all her sharp words, she never strayed far from her brother, as though tethered by invisible string.
Inside the shop, the day unfolded like any other. Customers came and went, some seeking medicine, others small alchemical trinkets. The faint glow of Jade's crafted potions lined the shelves, their colors soft in the filtered light. Niamh kept the front tidy, Amara helped with small tasks when she wasn't shooing her brother away from dangerous tools, and Jade worked quietly at his bench, hands steady and sure.
For a moment, life was simple. Peaceful.
But Nexus City was never still for long.
...
...
By midday, the streets had thickened with people. Floating vendors drifted along skyrails, calling out wares. A cluster of mercenaries passed by, their armor etched with house insignias. And in the crowd, shadows moved—men with forgettable faces, their eyes lingering a fraction too long on Jade's shop before moving on.
Amara noticed first. She stiffened at the counter, her gaze flicking toward the doorway. One of the men had paused across the street, pretending to buy from a fruit seller. But his eyes never left the shop's window.
Niamh noticed next. She came to stand beside Amara, her voice low. "You see it too."
Amara nodded. "They've been circling since morning. Different faces, same eyes."
Jade said nothing. But his eyes turned faintly, weaving threads of perception through the street. He saw the auras flickering beneath those plain cloaks—too sharp, too deliberate to belong to common vagrants.
Still, he kept working. Calm. Waiting.
As the hours passed, the unease deepened. Lio didn't notice—too busy darting between shelves, asking endless questions, proudly helping customers carry their purchases. His laughter filled the small shop, bright and unguarded.
And it was that brightness that drew the net closed.
Toward evening, as the city's lights shifted into deeper hues and the hum of skytraffic roared above, Lio tugged on Amara's sleeve.
"Just a minute," he begged. "There's a new cake vendor by the square. Can I go get some for Jade and I , Please?"
Amara frowned. "Not today. We'll go tomorrow."
But Lio had already darted halfway to the door, too quick, too eager.
"Lio!" she snapped, chasing after him.
Niamh stepped forward, but Jade's hand lifted slightly. His blindfolded gaze was fixed outward, dual pupils spinning fast.
Amara burst out onto the street just in time to see Lio vanish into the crowd, swallowed between bodies. A shout caught in her throat. She pushed forward, heart hammering, eyes darting wildly.
But Lio was gone.
The men with forgettable faces were gone too.
Amara froze, panic rising like ice in her veins. She turned back toward the shop, voice breaking.
"Jade—he's gone!"
Niamh was already moving, her expression sharp, deadly serious. The calm of the day shattered.
Jade rose from his bench, blindfold trembling faintly in the charged air.
"Not gone," he said softly, his voice like frost curling through the air. "Taken."
And as the city's neon glow bled into night, Jade knew exactly where the trail led.
The words settled in the room like frost, sharp and cold.
Amara's breath hitched, her face pale as her hands clutched at the doorframe. "Taken?" she whispered, horror lacing every syllable. Her gaze darted frantically between Niamh and Jade, searching for reassurance, for denial. None came.
Niamh's face hardened into a mask of fury. "Who?" she snapped, already reaching for the dagger she kept hidden under the counter. The glint of steel caught the low shop light. "Which bastard thought they could touch that child?"
Jade stood slowly, his movements deliberate, steady. To anyone else he might have seemed too calm, almost detached. His gaze trailing to the direction he had felt the energy pulse the day before.
An imperceptible smile crawled to his lips.
"They wanted me to follow," Jade said softly, brushing a speck of dust from his sleeve. "So I will."
Niamh slammed her dagger back into its sheath. "Not without me."
But Jade turned his head toward her, his voice like tempered steel wrapped in frost. "No. You stay."
Niamh's brows shot up, indignation flashing hot. "Stay? While some gutter-scum drags Lio gods-know-where? He's a child!"
"He's with me," Jade replied, firm. His small hand curled into a fist at his side, but his tone remained even, resolute. "I'll bring him back."
Amara's voice cracked, panic bursting free. "You can't go alone! You're—" she bit back the words, teeth sinking into her lip. You're just a child. But the words tasted false even as she tried to swallow them. Jade was many things, but never just a child.
"Listen to me," Jade said, his voice carrying a weight that pressed them both into silence. "If I take you with me, you'll slow me down. If I leave you unguarded, they may come again. Protect the shop. Protect yourselves. That's how you help Lio."
Niamh's jaw clenched. Rage warred with trust in her eyes, the maternal instinct to shield him colliding with the cold knowledge of his strength. She wanted to drag him back, to lock the doors and keep him safe. But she had lived long enough to recognize inevitability.
Her shoulders dropped. "Don't you dare die on me," she said, voice low, trembling with suppressed fear.
Jade's faint smile widened, just a fraction. "I won't."
Because this was no suicide march. This was his chance to grow stronger, to seize the path that fate had woven beneath his feet.
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Nexus City at night was alive with neon and shadow. Skytowers glowed like titans wrapped in glass and steel, their mirrored faces scattering light across the streets below. Skybridges thrummed with endless caravans of hovercarts, and banners projected by hard-light flickered advertisements into the mist-choked air.
Jade moved through it all like a phantom. His blindfold hid his eyes, but his dual irises spun ceaselessly beneath, weaving strands of Void Sense into the world around him. Faint traces of energy glowed like footprints across the concrete—ether threads dragged and stretched in one direction.
The kidnappers hadn't bothered to conceal their trail. Why would they? They thought him helpless, desperate, predictable.
Good, Jade thought, the corner of his lips twitching. That will make it easier to follow them into their own jaws.
His small boots clicked softly against the pavement as he cut through alleys littered with scrap and holo-graffiti. The slums breathed with the restless pulse of unrest—gangs huddled around barrel fires, mercenaries slouched against rusted gates, faces watching with wary interest as the blindfolded child slipped past.
None dared block his path. Something in his aura, restrained though it was, whispered of danger.
The trail thickened as he descended toward the industrial quarter. The air grew heavier, saturated with mana static, tingling faintly against his skin. He felt the shift in the city itself—the instability, the raw pressure of something otherworldly bleeding through stone and steel.
The dungeon
The threads converged ahead, into a wide swirling portal. Dozens of people had gathered at a distance, muttering, gesturing nervously at the epicenter.
The ground there had collapsed inward, a yawning wound in the city floor. From its depths poured light—swirling blues and purples, runes flickering like dying stars. The air pulsed with a heartbeat not its own.
And just beyond the edge of the fissure, faint footprints scuffed in dust: Lio's.
Jade's dual pupils spun faster, silver and golden-purple overlapping as he traced the resonance clinging to those steps. Fear. Struggle. But still alive.
Alive and inside.
...
The boy fought.
His wrists were bound, his small frame dragged mercilessly by men with faces blurred by shadow-wards. He kicked, bit, shouted, but their gauntlets absorbed the blows, their ears deaf to his cries.
"You'll regret this!" Lio spat, his voice hoarse with rage and terror. "Jade will come for me! He'll kill you all!"
The mercenary holding him laughed, rough and mocking. "That brat? He's bait, same as you. He steps into that rift, and he'll never walk out again."
But even as fear churned in his stomach, even as he stumbled and bled against rough stone, Lio clung to a single truth.
Jade will come. Right?.
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The crowd murmured as Jade stepped into the square. Some shrank back instinctively, sensing the pulse of his restrained aura. Others whispered, recognizing him.
He ignored them all.
The rift before him pulsed, its light clawing at the air like grasping hands. The edge shimmered with unstable ether, arcs of mana sparking outward, hissing as they scorched stone.
Jade tilted his head, listening not with ears but with the threads of his dual pupils. Beneath the chaos of the rift, he heard it: the faint echo of Lio's presence, tethered deep within.
His quest whispered across his vision:
[Quest: Defeat a C-Rank Monster]
[Duration: 1 year]
Reward: Spectra's Band [SS]
He felt a thrill course through him. Not fear. Not hesitation. But anticipation, sharp and clear.
Two birds with one stone. Rescue Lio. Claim his reward. Grow stronger.
Niamh's words echoed faintly in his memory: Don't you dare die on me.
He smirked. As if.
Jade stepped forward, his small frame silhouetted against the rift's glow. The crowd gasped as he leaned in, as though the abyss might devour him whole.
But he only whispered, soft and certain:
"I'm coming, Lio."
And then he stepped into the rift.
The light swallowed him, and the dungeon closed its jaws.