The Veyl house had always sounded alive.
The constant laughing and playing of six young kids echoes throguhout the house.
Floorboards complained at every step. Wind slid through the cracked window frames like it was nosy. Somewhere in the walls, something small and persistent scratched as if it had unfinished business. Morning meant overlapping voices, clattering dishes, and arguments that never truly ended.
That morning felt… wrong.
Azrael noticed it first.
He stood near the window, fingers resting against the glass, watching the fog roll lazily down the hillside toward the village below. The world looked normal—too normal. But the hum beneath his skin had sharpened overnight, a quiet vibration threading through his chest like a held breath.
Astra didn't usually announce itself.
It waited.
"Don't move," Azrael said quietly.
Raleth paused mid-step, one boot half-laced, eyebrow lifting. "You gonna explain, or—"
"Just don't."
Raleth froze anyway. He trusted Azrael's instincts more than his own thoughts, even if he never said it out loud.
At the table, Naori glanced up from her book. Eyes already distant, unfocused in the way they got when she felt something "It's not outside," she murmured. "It's… closer than that."
Kaela snorted from the counter, arms crossed, pretending she wasn't uneasy. "Great. Love that. Very specific."
Rykan leaned back in his chair, chair legs tilted dangerously. His grin was easy, practiced. "So what? Bad weather? Weird Astra drift? You all need sleep."
Emriyn didn't smile.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, knuckles pale, breathing slow and deliberate. Astra curled tightly around her core, restrained by habit rather than comfort. "No," she said softly. "This isn't environmental."
That was when the hum deepened.
Not louder—heavier.
The air itself seemed to thicken, pressing inward, as if the house had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale. The scratch in the walls stopped. The wind stilled. Even the fog outside froze in place, suspended like a held thought.
Raleth swallowed. "Okay," he muttered. "Now I'm voting we panic."
Azrael's reflection stared back at him in the glass, pupils narrowed, Astra stirring just beneath the surface of his skin. He felt it clearly now—not power, not energy, but pressure. A familiar tension that came whenever restraint was tested.
Astra could not be forced.
But it could be eased.
The knock came.
Once.
Measured. Intentional.
Kaela's Astra flared first—hot and sharp, radiating outward in instinctive defiance. Rykan's followed, restless and aggressive, like something pacing inside his bones. Naori's Astra didn't flare at all; it sank inward, coiling, listening.
Emriyn exhaled slowly. "Whatever's on the other side," she said, "knows we're awake."
Raleth's pulse thundered in his ears. His Astra reacted late but violently, surging upward in response to fear he hadn't fully acknowledged yet. His hands clenched without permission.
The knock came again.
Closer this time.
No one had moved. The door hadn't opened.
Azrael stepped forward, Astra sliding into place around his senses, sharpening them. He reached for the handle.
"Don't," Naori said suddenly, voice tight. "Who knows what is behind that door ."
"It has to be another one of mom and dad's test right?" Rykan demanded.
She shook her head. "I don't know. That's the problem."
The hum spiked.
Astra surged through the house like a current finding exposed wire. Faint lines of light traced briefly beneath their skin—different patterns, different intensities, each responding to the same pressure in entirely different ways.
Outside, something shifted.
The door creaked—not from being opened, but from being released.
Whatever rule had kept it closed was no longer holding.
Azrael felt it then, unmistakably:
This was an attack.
It was an answer.
Astra, woven deep into Fauthera itself, responding to six lives shaped strongly enough to disturb it.
"Everyone behind me," Azrael said, voice steady despite the storm building under his skin.
Raleth laughed once, sharp and breathless. "Figures first thing Astra ever does for us is kick the door in."
The hinges screamed.
Light bled through the widening crack—not bright, not dark, but wrong, like something that didn't belong to morning or night.
And as Astra surged to meet the moment, each of them felt the same terrifying certainty settle into their bones—
Something had already crossed the threshold.
The door burst inward.
Shattered—peeled open, as if the rules holding it together had been unmade one by one. The frame dulled, fibers loosening, metal fastenings losing cohesion before they could fall.
A figure stepped through the opening, dragging two shapes behind him.
The bodies struck the floor —
Kaela screamed.
Raleth staggered back, stomach lurching as the pressure around him misfired. Rykan's glasses slid crooked on his nose as his knees locked, sigils flashing uselessly beneath his skin before unraveling. Naori's breath vanished entirely, her mouth opening without sound as echoes screamed through her senses. Emriyn's hands flew to her face, her mind refusing to reconcile what her eyes were seeing.
Their parents lay broken at the stranger's feet.
Not dead.
Not yet.
Bruised beyond recognition. Clothes torn. Bodies limp. The Astra around them wasn't fading—
It was decaying, collapsing into itself like ash without heat.
Azrael didn't move.
The hum inside him went silent.
The man straightened slowly.
He was tall, wrapped in layered black and iron-red armor that looked unfinished, etched with symbols that hurt to focus on for too long. His presence pressed against the room—not like gravity or heat, but like intent, cold and efficient.
He smiled.
"Well," he said pleasantly, wiping his hand on his coat, "This environment held together longer than projected."
Kaela dropped to her knees beside their mother. "Mom—please—please wake up—"
The man tilted his head. "Ah. Emotional degradation first. Predictable."
Rykan snapped, panic shattering his practiced calm. "Who are you?! What do you want?!"
The man's smile thinned.
"I am Wraith," he said.
"Mazoku Rank One of the Seventy-Two."
"Designated the zodiac name Rat."
"Also known as The Conduit of Azazael."
The air recoiled from the name.
He nudged their father's body with his boot.
"And your continuation," Wraith added calmly, "is inefficient."
Emriyn sobbed.
Raleth's Astra surged violently, pressure warping the floor beneath his feet—but his body refused to move. Fear anchored him in place, gravity slipping out of sync with his will.
Azrael finally spoke.
"…Why?"
Wraith's gaze snapped to him.
Interest surfaced—brief, sharp.
"Oh?" he murmured. "You registered me."
Azrael stepped forward, hands trembling despite himself. "What was the point," he asked, voice raw, "of hurting them?"
Wraith's smile sharpened.
He reached down and grabbed their father by the throat.
The man's body lifted, breath hitching as his eyes fluttered open just long enough to see his children.
"Explain," Wraith said softly.
Their father coughed. Blood darkened his lips.
"You… weren't supposed to know," he rasped. "Not like this."
Their mother stirred weakly. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "We wanted you to live."
Wraith tightened his grip a fraction.
Their father forced the words out.
"You're… experiments," he said hoarsely. "Human chimera. Astra-mediated fusion with ancient beasts. Not possession. Not blessing. Integration."
Kaela shook her head violently. "No—no—we're just—"
"We were Prime Scholars," their father continued. "Researchers of Astra who were exiled for crossing a boundary. Astra wasn't meant to be stabilized that way."
Wraith leaned closer, eyes glinting with sterile amusement.
"So you hid," he said.
Their father's gaze softened. "This village… the people… the years…"
Their mother finished it. "A simulation. A closed system. To protect them. To test stability."
The room fractured.
Wraith flicked his fingers.
A sound like shattering glass rippled outward.
The walls peeled away.
Warm wood dissolved into exposed steel. Windows fractured into data-thin light. The laughter of the village—all of it—collapsed into static.
Beyond the house lay ruin.
Collapsed laboratories. Rusted towers. Broken containment rings half-buried in ash.
No village.
No neighbors.
No past.
Overwhelming disbelief and despair filled the room.
Rykan dropped to his knees, hands clawing at the floor. "That's not—this isn't—"
Naori sobbed silently, clutching her head as echoes of false lives tore through her.
Wraith exhaled, satisfied.
"Unripped Astra," he said. "Future threat probability unacceptable."
His gaze swept over them.
"So I arrived early."
He snapped his fingers.
Wraith's Astra crushed the house with an annihilating force that erased structure and meaning alike. Their parents' bodies disintegrated into pale dust before they could scream again.
The world stopped.
Reality failed.
Azrael's shadow tore itself free from the floor.
It expanded—deepened—devoured light.
Two void-gold eyes opened.
A massive panther shape unfolded from absence itself, claws biting into reality.
My name is Sable, the presence said, voice like the space between heartbeats.
And I am bound to this child.
Wraith recoiled a step.
I do not intend to die here, so I will be taking this child and leaving.
The room erupted with manifestations.
A colossal white moth burst into existence, wings blazing like restrained dawn.
A massive rune-etched bison stamped into being, sigils locking collapsing space.
A Leviathan surged upward from distorted gravity, pressure bending the air like liquid.
A three-tailed fox of crescent dreamlight split into drifting afterimages.
A vast blind owl unfurled wings of silence and echo.
Each guardian seized a child, lifting them onto their backs.
"Run," Sable commanded.
The beasts moved.
"Such a futile attempt,"
Wraith slammed his fist into the ground.
The ground collapsed into a massive crater, existence unraveling outward.
A figure appeared between Wraith and the fleeing guardians.
Calm. Tall. Precise.
No aura surged.
No pressure followed him.
Only inevitability.
"Enough," the man said.
Wraith hissed. "Twilight"
The man didn't look at him. He looked at the beasts. "Leave him to me get these kids to somewhere safe," he commanded quietly. "Now."
The guardians obeyed.
As they each manifested rifts of Astra and instinct, the Watcher finally turned to Wraith.
"Your advances on those children stop here"
Wraith smiled faintly. "You really think you can delay their termination."
Twilight rested his hand on his blade.
"It's laughable you think you can make me break a sweat"
The crater collapsed inward.
The world swallowed the battle.
And the Veyl children were gone—
scattered, broken, alive.