The sky over Bastion City was never truly blue. Even on the clearest days of summer, the atmosphere carried a faint, violet scar—a permanent reminder of the day the universe fractured fifty years ago.
That scar was the Veil. The fragile barrier between humanity and the Void.
Below that wounded sky sat the last great hope of mankind: Bastion. It was a colossal spire of reinforced steel and hard-light energy fields, rising from the center of a scorched wasteland like a needle stitching the earth back together.
From high above, the city looked like a paradise of neon and progress. Automated transport drones wove intricate patterns between skyscrapers that pierced the clouds. Holographic billboards, twenty stories tall, projected the smiling faces of the city's greatest champions.
"Sentinel Atlas defends the Western District! Approval Rating hits 94%!" screamed a golden headline, displaying a man in shining armor decapitating a beast the size of a tank.
The citizens cheered. They felt safe. They believed the lie.
They did not see the cracks in the foundation.
The omniscient gaze of the city's surveillance AI watched everything, yet it saw nothing. It scanned the gleaming penthouses of the S-Class heroes in the Upper Tier. It monitored the bustling trade of the Mid-Tier. It even tracked the heat signatures in the perpetual shadows of the Lower Foundation, where the poor fought over scraps of synthetic food.
But it missed the alleyway in Sector 4.
Deep in the shadows, where the holographic lights didn't reach, the air began to distort. The violet scar in the sky seemed to pulse in sympathy, a heartbeat of cosmic horror.
A hairline fracture appeared in the brick wall of a derelict warehouse. It didn't explode. It didn't scream. It hissed, spitting purple sparks that smelled of ozone and sulfur.
It was a micro-rift. A tiny tear in the Veil.
Normally, the Bastion's sensors would detect this instantly. An E-Rank patrol team would be dispatched to seal it within minutes. It was routine. It was safe.
But today, the sensors remained silent. The screens in the Central Command remained green.
Something—or someone—was masking the signal.
The rift widened, just enough for a clawed, obsidian hand to reach through. It gripped the edges of reality and began to pull. The concrete groaned. The shadows in the alleyway seemed to come alive, dancing in anticipation.
High above, Bastion City continued to celebrate its heroes, completely unaware that the rot had already started from within.
The apocalypse hadn't been stopped fifty years ago. It had just been waiting for the right moment to finish the job.
And the timer had just hit zero.