Misha felt the poison burning in her lungs with every aching, pungent breath, and an excruciating pressure built inside her chest like a balloon ready to pop. She heard screaming, and the dull, clattering ring of blades hitting stone. One moment they seemed so far away, and the next right in front of her. Too close.

The cold sensation of leather-bound wood held tightly in her grasp — slick with the burning sweat of her clammy palms — was the only thing keeping her centered and steady. Her anchor in this hellish place. She heard agonized cries, and the muffled crunch of armor caving inwards. She didn't— couldn't let go of her spear, even as her chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself.

She tightened her hands around its shaft, keeping it nailed to the ground.

A wet, bloody gurgle hissed out from between her lips and she vomited crimson, staining the entire bottom half of her face red. She heard deafening roars like boulders crashing into each other just a dozen feet away. Much too close.

The pit of dread deep in her stomach, a painful knot between her burning entrails, clawed away at her reasoning bit by bit as her sight blurred and warped. Her nose was clogged by the stench of her own body rotting away, and an acidic wildfire blazed through her veins as she could barely keep herself standing.

She closed her eyes and let out a choked sound while trying to exhale. She couldn't breath right, and no matter how much she tried reassuring herself in her thoughts, her mind only got foggier and foggier with every passing second of pain.

Misha tried convincing herself if they all stood together, they'd be sure to defeat it. She repeated that in her mind again and again akin to a mantra. It was pure common sense after all; they were strong, they were coordinated, and they were many while it was just it. Even ants could kill an elephant, she reasoned with her mind clouded by poison, if they acted together. Common sense, right?

But some things in the world defy common sense.

The ground beneath her feet shook and her insides churned with the stench — coming as much from her very own entrails as from outside her body — of blood and acrid toxins. Her stomach somersaulted and dust rained down on her from above each time the monster's terrible mace-like tail struck the walls. The cut-off shrieks, the tearing flesh, the snapping bones—

—No, she couldn't focus on those dreadful, disgusting sounds, couldn't lose hope yet. If she did she'd be only digging her grave early. She lifted her head, skull as heavy as lead and neck akin to boneless. She would live, she just knew it.

A body fell at her feet.

Misha couldn't recognize him even though he was one of her comrades. His face had been horribly caved in; the teeth and bone-strewn wreckage of flesh, muscle and gore stared back at her, clumps of fair blonde hair clinging to the back of that bloody mess, his lower jaw sticking out slightly since mainly the upper half had been hit..

Only the rough outlines of a human face remained, but she could still see something clearly by the slight pull of his cheek-flesh, the narrowing of the muscles around the eye sockets. He'd died smiling, and now he was smiling at her.

She tried to scream, but instead, she only choked on her own blood.

Misha's body shot up.

In a second her hands slammed against the floor, searching desperately for her spear. Had she dropped it? 'No, I never drop it in my dream.' She took big gulps of air, dreading the feeling of that ache in her lungs. But it didn't come. Why? Her vision swam and unfocused, a black ring on her peripherals from having sat up too fast.

'Wait, dream?'

She huffed breathlessly, breathing in, then out, then in. Slowly, her hands scratched the floor. It felt different. Not rough, warm and rocky like the Gate's, no — it was cold and flat. Too modern.

She blinked, trying to focus on her surroundings as her throat rolled up and down with each breath. The air tasted old and dusty, replacing the oppressive stench of blood previously tainting her mouth. She didn't feel like she was covered in heavy armor anymore either.

After a long moment of confusion, her vision returned to her in full.

She stammered out a groan of surprise, "Oh."

She combed her rugged, bony fingers through her drenched, shoulder-length black curls, prying loose strands from her sweaty face. Even through her fatigue, her eyes were wide open, bright silver like stars in the night sky but framed by heavy dark pouches eating away at the skin underneath them.

Her entire body — once stronger and taller — was sticky with sweat and unhealthily pale, much thinner. Gaunt. Her long, toned limbs were devoid of their previous vigor, her broad shoulders sagging into her stuffy tank top. God, she really needed a bath. But that was for later, now she was just happy she'd woken up.

"That was... all a dream." She sighed, then laughed. So weak and empty it hurt her ears. "Just a dream, Misha."

A dream of events now long past. Only bad memories, nothing more.

She closed her eyes, tiredly hanging her head as she scratched her scalp. Her heart hammered against her ribcage still, even as the fire coursing through her veins died and cool sweat rolled off her skin. Goosebumps sprouted throughout her entire body, but despite the discomfort — or maybe because of it — she welcomed them. The lingering anxiety, fear, and adrenaline... It all made her feel alive.

She was thankful no one was there to see her pathetic state, and when she felt a bit better, she opened her eyes again.

Her room was dark and cold, the only source of light being the TV she'd forgotten to turn off before falling asleep. The blank, harsh blue screen illuminated the darkness of her bedroom, flashing lines of black text in short succession with only enough time for her to read. Once STOCK UP ON ESSENTIALS, LOCK YOUR DOORS, AND CLOSE YOUR WINDOWS, and then STAY INSIDE YOUR HOMES, TRUST THE NATION second before the signal was abruptly lost in a buzzing sea of rainbow static. Sometimes other, stranger things appeared amidst the eye-burning blue, but rare were the moments she could truly distinguish if it was reality or if she was half-asleep and out of her mind from blood loss.

'At least it feels familiar,' she thought, 'Normal.'

Misha glanced around her little studio apartment, taking in the same old, dingy sights.

The window on the left wall above her cluttered computer desk had the blinds shut tight. The sound of rain against the glass a hundred tapping fingers and chattering teeth to her ears, trying to get in to hide from the cold. A pity, for her thin-walled, infiltration-riddled apartment was just as cold as the outside world.

Behind her was a truly humble wire closet, from which hung a handful of even humbler clothing. In front of her was the previously mentioned TV which had quickly caught signal again, and on the right was her messy kitchen. She was smack in the middle, sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

Only a mattress. The bedframe had been unfortunately lost in the moving frenzy, along with a bunch of other things, to the hands of those more greedy and desperate than her. Nothing really worth crying about had been stolen, but as non-essential as they were they were still her stuff. She still regretted not knocking out some more teeth from the people she'd caught.

Her hands brushed softly against the leftovers on the floor as she attempted to get up; take-out containers, dirty clothing, way too many unpaid bills and eviction orders, among other assorted rubbish. Like the gutted cardboard box on her computer desk, its spilled contents the culprits behind the aforementioned cluttering.

Well, the computer wasn't working anymore, so it was just a very messy desk now. The rain beat obstinately against her window as she stared at the metallic husk, the dead black screen reflecting the blue of the TV. A line of warped black text flashed by, reflected backwards.

She threw away the covers before slowly stumbling to her feet. Scratching her back, she made a conscious effort to keep her posture straight despite the foggy urge to be just a bit indulgent, to soften and hunch over. The smell of rain seeping through the cracks and faults of her ceiling tickled her nose; sweet, sweet petrichor.

Misha took a second to glance at the covered window, hearing the rainstorm. She imagined the soft, muddy dirt beneath her feet and squeezing between her toes. The cold rain hitting her face and glueing her hair to her nape. The whistling wind brushing her ears and her cheeks.

'Maybe I should've... gotten out more when I could.' Touched some grass, smelled the flowers, things of the sort. 'Heh, touched grass.' She smiled lightly to herself, but the self-satisfaction dissipated as quickly as it came.

Well, anything other than interacting with other people, of course. Definitely not that. But anything else other than staying cooped up in here would've done wonders for her mind. Unfortunately the time for that had long passed, since every time she went outside there was a fifty-fifty chance of her either being half-gutted by one of the horrors prowling around or meeting a fellow survivor, most which were very keen on robbing her blind. None succeeded on their endeavors, but caution never hurt.

Thankfully for her small apartment, which was only filled with the things absolutely necessary for her, either basic living amenities or old and ragged stuff she'd managed to drag with her to this dead-end grave of a place, she didn't mind going hungry or thirsty for a while to go on too many supply runs and clog up the place even more. The TV belonged to the former category "basic living amenities" in her mind — she couldn't fathom being completely cut off from the outside world, specially in situations such as these. Even if nothing got transmitted through it yet, there was always the chance of an important signal coming through.

She stepped forward and absentmindedly palmed her TV's dusty wooden stand for the remote as she looked over her desk.

There, amidst miscellaneous packaging, the seventh edition of A Comprehensive Bestiary Of Gate-Dwellers was open. The words on the header — Entry 472, Toxic Rock Drake — stood bold and underlined above the picture of a hulking monstrosity, black flesh holding up its carapace-body of rocks and stones, bleeding darkness through the deep, deep cracks.

The page was covered in multi-colored scribbles and observations, with pens, uncapped markers and pencils strewn around the desk along with sticky notes taped to the black screen of her defunct computer. It was a messy string board with no strings, only her loose, just-as-messy thoughts connecting them together.

A little voice sprouted inside her head. So small, but so loud. It was a part of Misha she abhorred.

'Why are you still doing this?'

Humming quietly, she forwent thinking deeply about the answer. It was already an old and familiar question, and she'd already come to a conclusion that was satisfactory to her, even if unpleasant. She thumbed around the remote, feeling out its smooth, cold rubbery buttons. 

'It's already been so long, you don't have to keep self-flagellating like this,' it spoke. It sounded tired. 'It doesn't matter anymore. Just forget everything, keep living your life. Your life alone and nobody else's. One day you'll die and see you didn't live at all.'

For just a second, she agreed with it. Just for a brief moment.

'The dead can't demand anything of you. Nor would they, and you know that. They wouldn't want you to "honor" them like this.'

But it didn't matter what they would've wanted, this was what she wanted to do. How she wanted to honor their sacrifices. She'd dedicated years of her life just for them, it was the least she could do after all. It felt like being stuck in time, but what else could she do? Forget them? Let the memories she so cherished with them collect dust?

No, she couldn't do that. Not to them.

'They'd want you to honor them by being happy despite their absence. Besides, the world may be about to end. Why not just... be content? Make peace with the past rather than try fighting it for a change?'

'You can, can't you?'

Her heart almost stopped, sinking under the tide of her blood like a ship with a broken hull. She felt like she was drowning inside her own body, and just for a single self-indulgent moment, she wanted to so badly.

How would it feel, to drown inside herself forever and ever and never have to think about all of this again?

But she couldn't.

Like always, her thoughts stopped at that dream again. That same dream she'd been having so frequently and vividly. She closed her eyes and saw the images burnt on her eyelids, the nightmares of death and gore leering at her like vengeful ghosts.

She thought back to the noxious, bitter taste of poison fog clinging to the back of her mouth.

She thought back to that fair-haired corpse with the crushed head.

She thought back to the feeling of trying to breath, but suffocating on her own blood.

She kept those memories close to her heart. For her, it may have been a temporary moment, but for them it had been the last things they'd every see and feel. For every last one of them. She opened her eyes.

'No. I can't.'

She muttered a half-hearted apology to no one in particular under her breath, then lifted the remote and turned off the TV. That blue screen would continue for some time, until the disaster was finally averted. Or until it wasn't. Either way, it would be fine for her — there wasn't much for her to look forward to no matter which way it ended. But until then she had work to do, which she dived right into as she sat down on the wheeled chair of her computer desk. She needed to prepare.

With one hand she turned on the desk light and brought it closer to herself, and with the other she grabbed a blue marker to the left, beneath all the clutter. She began to write from memory, pondering whatever new fact she could gleam from her old dream.

The poisonous fog was expelled from its bulbous, rocky mace of a tail, and diffused through the environment as the monster swung it around. It was a horrible Aura-based cocktail of edolcine hyscallite, rendered potently noxious to the delicate fleshy insides of living beings when in contact with mulcoronic acid, which otherwise offset its more acidic qualities that would otherwise melt right through the skin, muscle and fat, though at a much slower pace, in exchange for a more insidious reaction that permanently scarred the organs and killed from the inside without harming much of the outside.

The main body was likewise seemingly made of stone, but the earthen shell was actually just that; a carapace over its real body. The true skin of the monster was pitch-black in coloration, always oozing a potent, gelatinous dark mixture of rusfelite nadoresine and justafaric nadoresine akin to a human releasing natural oils from their skin, but which acted as glue for the rocks it placed over itself. The sweat-glue acted quickly and rendered the foreign materials deadlocked to the skin, making a shell which only came undone when the monster was killed and the flesh stopped releasing its gelatin.

The enhanced healing factor was also a notable curiosi—

A knock on her door made her snap to attention.

Her hand settled above the long text she'd been writing, head turned to look at the door.

Only silence welcomed her attention. A grave silence that raised her hackles and kept her on edge. Why was someone knocking on her door? Her body was as still as a statue and her face a blank mask in the darkness, gaze locked on the entrance of her apartment.

The knock came again, harder and more persistent.

She didn't know who or what was outside, but she sure as hell was about to find out.

Misha capped and carefully put down the marker before rising and making her way to the kitchen with purpose in her step, eyes locked on the wooden door as she stepped over the trash on the floor. She turned right, walking past the counter and turning again to reach under it. Seeing her spear was there just like she'd left it, a different question came to her mind as her eyes searched the small space.

"Now, where's my armor?" With a sigh, she realized it must've been tucked away only god knows where inside her bedroom.

She reached for the spear, but her fingers stopped a hair's breadth away from the long shaft. A third time the knocking came, now a heavy and impatient pounding that reverberated through her "home" and drummed against her skull. Aggressive, hurried, but not very strong.

Her eyes stayed on the spear as whoever was outside kept hammering against her door, hand corpse-stiff. She breathed deeply and rose to her full height again, turning to look at the door again. The knocking finally stopped. She'd left the spear below the counter.

'I just cleaned the damn thing,' she reasoned, "And I probably won't even have to use it."

Now they were trying the handle, the smooth and circular piece of bronze turning slowly.

Since they'd banged up a storm before actually trying to get in, they must've not only been as human as herself, but also searching for easy targets rather a fight — empty apartments. Any monster smart enough to mimic knocking and trying to twist the handle would've had the strength to easily knock the door down, and would've probably had less patience to stick to this little theater before carving their way inside. Such was the iron law of Gate-monsters; the smarter they were, the stronger they were, though not vice-versa.

The would-be raiders or burglars might've had luck knocking on any other door other than her's, with the amount of empty places here. But they hadn't been lucky this time, no — they'd knocked on her door of all places. Her hands twitched and her tongue rolled over her teeth, lingering on the sharpness of her canines. She'd been itching for something to get her mind clear.

Her skin subtly shone with ivory as silver Force Aura pumped through her veins. They bulged through her skin and light erupted from her body. Not like a shining lamp, but more like a bright pale outline and white-silver streaks of shifting, near-liquid metal wrapping around her skin in a reflective sheen. Pure energy.

Misha walked over to the entrance and grabbed a worn, discolored grey jacket she'd discarded near the door, then the set of keys hanging next to it. She fully zipped it up and briefly fumbled with the keys before popping one of them into the keyhole, then grabbed the handle and waited. When the next attempt to turn it came, she quickly unlocked the door with a crisp click and turned the handle together with whoever was outside.

She pulled the door without worry, the gust of cold wind that blew wildly — almost as if rejoicing it'd finally gotten in — into her apartment carrying an alarmed grunt with it. The sound of rain assaulted her ears as water battered down on her body, which she realized a bit too late was greatly under-covered for the weather.

'Well, I guess it's for the best. Bloodstains are always a hassle to clean.'

She came face to face with two men — eyes wide with surprise — kneeling outside her door, the closest one awkwardly propped up against the door frame after she'd pulled him along. They were clad in bulky jackets and sweaters, hands stuffed in dark gloves, and one's face mostly hidden by a black balaclava while the other wore a black cap and face mask.

She smiled with all her teeth, like an animal baring its fangs. "Cold night out here, isn't it?"

The tension blew up like a barrel of gunpowder as the closest man quickly reached for something inside his jacket, her knee smashing into his face in the same second, and with the viscerally satisfying crack of his nose breaking, he fell backwards. With a scream the one on the left swung a hammer at her, which she grabbed effortlessly with her bare left hand.

She tightened her hold and crushed the heavy hammerhead into chunks and powder under her grasp. Misha derived no pleasure from the glint of dread and surprise in the man's eyes, which almost popped out of their sockets as she slammed her fist into his throat. He crumpled to the floor, clutching his throat as a raw whimper rattled out of his mouth. Cold rain hit her back and she returned her attention to the one she'd first hit, seeing him already up with one hand on his face and the other grasping a pistol.

She dashed forward as he racked the gun, blood seeping through the mask and trickling down his fingers like sand. The barrel was almost pointed at her and his finger was on the trigger, but she didn't panic. Far from it, her mind was a lake of still water.

He was fast, but not fast enough.

He pressed the trigger, but she'd already wrapped her hand tightly around the barrel. Her hand shone like metal. The bang of the gun filled her ears with a slight ring as pain flared from her hand, making her wince and snarl as the hot barrel — now wet with her blood — burned her palm.

"Oh, shi—"

Her free left hand sunk deep into his torso with crushing strength, and she felt his chest caving in with a cracking thump. His body fell and slid against the wall as he shrunk into himself. With a gurgle, blood and froth spilled from his covered mouth.

Then, silence again.

Well, almost silence — the cold rain showering her didn't completely bury the quiet sounds of the man behind her suffocating to death, and as she turned she saw him half-convulsing on the ground. His body jumped and jerked as more blood sprayed out with each rattling hack and cough.

Misha's blank expression didn't change as she looked down at him. She faintly tasted the coppery scent of blood in the air before the rain washed it away, fingers twitching as a wave of adrenaline rolled through her. Her own blood drummed through her veins, the sweat stuck to her skin was refreshingly stripped away, her viscera squirmed inside herself, her clothes clung taut to her body, and her senses were sharpened and on fire.

She felt alive.

Finally she sighed, "Well, leaving you like that would make me feel bad."

She took a single step towards him before sirens blared inside her head, loud like foghorns as goosebumps rose all over her. Danger. Something was coming too quickly to dodge, she knew she wouldn't be fast enough, so she settled on defense. She hastily gathered her Force Aura and put up a clumsy guard, arms shining like they were coated in pale metal—

—Misha's air was blown out of her lungs as an impact like a cannon shell rocked her body all the way to the bones, a shock of pain making her shudder as her feet skidded against the floor. She ended up at least five steps away from her initial position. She grit her teeth.

Putting down her arms to see what'd hit her, she was surprised.

A young man — he didn't look any older than twenty — glared at her with venom in his eyes, half-crouched against the ground one second and rising to a stance that seemed as if it'd been trained endlessly the next. A boxing stance? Wait, had he hit her with a flying kick?

All those questions dissipated when she took in the sight of a cloud of crimson blooming forth from him, swirling and spiraling in small vortexes as they flowed out from beneath his skin. A blood-red mist of scarlet and vermillion like the richest patch of roses she'd ever seen. She even forgot about the burning pain in her palm and the bullet still stuck in it as her eyes locked with his. They were a deep, sizzling red like boiling marrow.

Oh, this one was going to be difficult. 'I guess I should've taken my spear after all.'

"You fuckin' cunt," he spat out, "do ya know how pricey those two were? I wasted a shitload of cash on 'em."

She breathed in and out, haphazardly mimicking his guard with shuddering breaths from the cold. If they hadn't been shielded with Aura her bruised, purpling arms would be broken and limp right about now. How strong even was he? E-Rank, like her?

Her sagging shoulders rose and straightened out, the Force Aura that outlined her sharpening as she licked her lips.

"What, ya not gonna say anythin'? Did I rattle yer brain too much with that kick?"

Misha stayed quiet, watching him closely. He was in the same getup as his buddies she'd just downed, thick and heavy clothes, but the only difference was the lack of a mask covering his youthful face. He wasn't handsome or ugly in any stretch of the words, but there was certainly a... special kind of cold-heartdeness in his countenance she'd seen before. In the faces of killers, opportunists, lawyers, that nasty sort.

"Alrigh' then, I'll do the talkin' for both of us." A second of silence, his jaw tight. "Ah, never min'. Fuck this shi', and fuck ya too." He loosened his shoulders and carefully advanced forward, his Force Aura billowing out from his body like a bloody cloud. Puffs of turbid red smoke escaped from his lips as he breathed.

'Why start when you can't finish? Lazy dumbass.'

She forced herself to advance and meet his slow prowl even as her instincts warned otherwise, rushing forward and twisting her waist along as she swung a low kick at his knees. He hopped right over her sweep, and before she even realized it his fist had connected with her face.

It hit her square in the chin with a dull crack as her head whipped back from the blow, her teeth shaking and a deafening buzz digging into her brain. Her vision went black for a moment before she reflexively took a step back, a violent right hook flying past her face right as he landed again. 'Shit.' She retreated a few more steps as another jab — covered in his cloudy Aura that flowed much more fluidly than her solid outline — swooped right by her nose, the wind of his momentum biting at her face.

He dashed forward, pressuring her with a rushing uppercut that slammed into her aching arms before he threw a third jab, slipping past her loose guard and striking her right in the side beneath her left breast. She hissed and retreated, sliding against the wet floor as her arm muscles screamed. He tried giving chase, but with a slip of his heel on the wet floor and a yell — "Fuck!" — he fell against the metallic railing, feet kicking against the floor before he righted himself again.

She felt something loose in her mouth as the taste of blood sat heavy on her tongue, and when she spat out the mouthful of red onto the ground she saw two pearly whites and some shards dotting it. The pain and the buzzing filled her head as her scowl met his stone-cold glare, his blood-red breathing filling the air as he inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. If he hadn't slipped she would've been in hot water, and he wouldn't have hesitated, Misha knew, to split her head open if he could.

"What? Is that all ya can do? Damn," he laughed without any humor, "You looked a lil' bit intimidatin', with that size and all. But yer slow as hell. And is all that Aura only there for show? It doesn't matter how much ya have if you can't use it properly, ya dumb bitch."

Misha swallowed back a growl as blood dribbled down her chin. She realized she was looking into the eyes of a rabid thing the more he talked, loosening her shoulders.

'I should treat him accordingly.'

Seeming more confident in his abilities now, he strode forward and willingly got inside her arguably much longer range, his face relaxing into a cruel smirk with narrowed eyes. Despite his little show of confidence she still saw the strength gathering in his legs, the apprehension and calculated venom in his eyes, the readiness to kill or escape at a moment's notice.

His body flashed forward in a cloud of crimson that swelled to fill her vision, and something struck her left knee hard. Misha ground her teeth together, the pain in her gums distracting her from the dull ache in her knee as she steeled herself and kept her balance. Another hook flew by her face as she bent back, her stance increasingly unstable, but she held on.

"Yer too predictable!" he laughed inside the thick red mist he'd created. "I'll end up cavin' yer face in if ya keep that up."

The rain should've worked in her favor to clear the billowing vermillion fog clouding her eyes, but natural elements didn't interfere much with Aura unless they were directly opposite elements, so she sent quick flashes of Aura to her right hand, lighting it up like a beacon but not actually strengthening it. She bolted forward with her arm raised and cut through the smokescreen, the young man's body twisting in a blur away from her strike as he guarded, but she held her hand and instead kicked out with her right leg, smashing into the back of his left knee like a jackhammer as their feet got tangled up in his retreating momentum.

She could barely see him through the rain, fog, and her own shaking adrenaline as she heard him crashing against the iron railing to her left for support, her own stance a mess as she regained balance. It was the small window of opportunity she'd been waiting for, and she took advantage of it.

Veins bulged across her legs, bright and pale, as she darted to his position, bringing down her fist against his vague shape like a falling star. His crimson fog pulsed and flexed, retracting like a muscle and focusing on his upper body — the veiny, thrumming Force Aura spread over himself in a disturbing patch of flesh-armor as her own streaked blindingly towards him, crashing into his chest with a roaring bang while sparks flew between the colliding Auras.

A loud groan tore out of his throat, but as Misha grabbed him by the neck after releasing her fist, his own sharp blow connected right with her side yet again, beneath her left breast. She felt like he was carving out a chunk of her skin. She grit her teeth with a pained wince, feet slipping on the wet floor as the storm roared above them, but she took advantage of her impromptu-momentum to smash her forehead into his flesh-armored face at just an angle that his neck bent over the railing with the impact while tightening her hold on his throat.

Her free left hand grabbed his arm in a tight vice to ensure he wouldn't attack again, but as she looked up she saw his vermillion Force Aura pulling taut over the young mans face before bloating outwards. "Fuck off!" he screamed in muffled anger as the tumorous swelling burst, belching forth a burning wave of crimson on her face as she screamed. The resulting smokescreen of thick scarlet fog blinded her even more as she forced her eyes to remain open despite the pain, but she didn't see his kick coming until it crashed into her chin from below.

She fell backwards.

Maybe her back hit the floor, but she couldn't be sure as she sunk into darkness. The acidic burning in her face brought out flashes of the stench of fermenting poison inside her lungs, and she heard the bone-shaking roar of something gigantic nearby like a warhorn to her ears. She trembled, or she would've if she still felt her body. Her chest ached tortuously, heart struggling to make more Force Aura as the energy bruised through her veins.

The darkness rippled and warped with movement all around her, armor being wrenched open alongside tearing flesh as screams deafened her. Rocky ground scratched her back, and the debris raining down from above coated her face. Blood fermented inside her, and her lungs?

Her lungs burned.

She woke up with a gasp, hands clumsily hitting the floor as she tried to sit up.

From her darkening peripherals she saw stone-dust and debris raining down from the sky, and the flailing of the young man inside his bloody cloud who'd attacked her as he tried to hold onto the railing after the momentum of his kick almost threw him over. "Just wait, bitch!" he started, "I'll gut ya like a fish and choke ya with yer guts!"

Her head screamed at her to stay down, throbbing and pulsing like someone was holding her brain in a tight vice. She sent another flash of frigid white Aura to her head to keep her awake, this time not doing it subconsciously like the past two. She knew the probable consequences. She wasn't even considering them at this point.

Slowly propping herself up on trembling legs, she vomited out a rivulet of blood as her chest burned with old wounds, some more teeth along with it. Her eyes widened with something rabid as her viscera squirmed, flesh writhed, and organs screamed, her veins burning under the strain of her own powers, a pack of wild dogs snapping at the heels of her brain. She needed to finish this quickly. Misha felt her heavy armor weighing down on her skin, far off screaming reverberating inside her skull. Where was her spear?

Oh, it was right here with her.

Her right hand shone bright silver like a star that'd been plucked right out of the sky as she centered herself, a coat of iron flashing over her entire arm as it warped and flowed towards her hand. Her chest hurt so much, and the shape it was trying to form was almost rendered stillborn as it frayed with her weakness. She brought her shaking fingers together, the light washing over them as her hand narrowed and sharpened like a blade. Barely half a second later her entire arm became a brilliant spear of pure steel.

"y-You... You," she drawled, bloody and exhausted, "t-Talk too much."

By then the boy had already managed to sit upright on the railing, and when surprise flashed across his face her hand had already shot out and almost plunged into his stomach, but he threw himself to the side more quickly than she'd expected. That was fine. Her blade-sharp fingers slashed through his thick clothes and sliced through his side, letting blood flow like a faucet as he almost slipped off the drenched iron, tightening one of his legs around the metal screw-tight with a yell.

Misha locked onto his figure, her reaction time much faster than before as veins full of metal Aura flowed into her eyes, and saw the exertion and pain marring his face — 'He must be on the edge too.' — as the scarlet cloud around them both focused back on him. Then he put every ounce of remaining strength into a kick to her face.

She let it hit.

The bloody red fog tightened around his leg like armor, swelling in size until it was as big as her thigh. It smashed into her head with a clang like hitting metal, and it might as well have been. Her head, neck and hair were alight with the same star-like radiance, the outline of silver around her flickering and growing into a roaring flare.

'You were a strong opponent, I'll give you that.'

Her hand flew towards his chest again with the speed of a bullet, and though his remaining crimson Force Aura redistributed around his body and swelled to the size of a bloody balloon, spiraling and swirling into him like tightening muscles, she still broke through. She pierced his torso with a wet, meaty squelch as his Aura pulsed and squirmed with his pain. A scream tore out of his chest, his whole body locking up.

The fight was over.

Even though his Aura still shifted and his limbs still spasmed, he wouldn't survive that. Her own Aura burned through his insides like volatile chemicals as he jerked soundlessly, voice muffled by his own weakening clouds of red.

Her hand was speared into and through his body, holding him up like a ragdoll as she huffed and puffed. She couldn't even distinguish between the new sweat and the rain rolling down her skin, pain assaulting her entire body from their quick fight.

Only the sound of the rain, her heavy breathing, and his dying squirms carried over the howling wind.

Then, he finally seized for the last time. Slowly but surely, his Aura finally melted away and dripped off him in thick, sludgy chunks. It dissipated before it hit the ground, revealing his tattered clothes and half-butchered corpse. His face was locked in a final look of tortured surprise, mouth hanging slack-jawed and eyes glassy like foggy windows.

Sickness brewed inside Misha's stomach as she looked at his face, though it was hard to gauge from the brilliant, white-hot Force Aura wrapped around her glowing head. She let her gaze wander down, to his wounds and her hand through his chest rather than staying on his cold, dead eyes.

The Force Aura around her gradually flickered down as well, her figure becoming clearer as she panted loudly. Her head rolled back to look up at the sky, letting the rain flow down her face and wash the blood off her. Her gums, her ribs, her hand, her lungs, her chest... Everything throbbed and stung.

As her hand tilted downwards she felt the man's body slide off her arm, his flesh and meat on her blood-drenched skin before he finally fell. She barely heard the thump of his body hitting the far-away floor, muffled by the rain, as her torso finally bent down, defeated, and hung half-dead along with her arms, her shaky knees struggling to hold her up. Looking at the bloody shape of the arm she'd pierced him through with, she saw it shake, coming alive with new waves of pain as the bullet still stuck in her hand reared its ugly head again.

"I used too much Aura..." She took a few trembling steps back and hit the wall, strength leaving her legs as she slid down against it. The man which had been choking before was dead now, or at least passed out, and the only sound comforting her battered body was that of the heavy rain.

No one had come out of their apartments to check the commotion. Was anyone else even here besides her, or had they all run away to safer pastures? She wasn't sure. Her mind ran in unsteady circles as she felt tiredness wash over her, but she used her pain as a crutch and pushed past the heavy sleep.

Her heart thumped like a drum, sending painful shocks along her arm and up to her jaw as she felt it beating between her ears. The man had been careless, but he hadn't been an easy opponent by any means. He was quick and sharp, the antithesis to her raw but slow strength as a slugger — forcing herself to match his speed was the only way to win the fight. He must've been an E-Rank too, to be able to match her Force Aura with his own like that.

She looked around, at the two corpses on the floor, at the blood-speckled railing and the redish floor. Misha really needed a bath now.

Her legs forced themselves up as she leaned on the wall for support, coughing with even this small amount of movement as blood dripped from her lips. She briefly thought back to the two teeth she'd lost, but didn't dwell on them too much. They'd grow back with time and enough Aura.

She entered her apartment again, bare feet splashing against the small pool of water that'd formed in her doorway. She should've closed the door. Turning around and closing it with her shoulder, she reached for the key still in the keyhole with trembling bloody fingers and turned, locking it with a click.

"Feel like I'm gonna die," she muttered weakly, clumsily unzipping and shedding her bloody jacket.

She turned and walked into the tight bathroom, throwing the jacket on top of the clothes bin as she entered the shower without even taking off her drenched sleepwear. Looking down, she realized there was barely a need for them — they didn't even hide anything anymore.

Misha felt thankful she at least put on something else before going outside.

Then, she caught a glance of herself on the mirror. She turned fully to look at herself, and saw her own face caved in. A wreckage of teeth and bone-strewn flesh staring back at her, gore and blood dripping off. By the slight pull of her cheek-flesh, and the narrowing of the muscles around her eye sockets, she saw she was smiling.

"Heh," she laughed weakly, "Look at that."

She realized how close she'd come with death, before turning away from the mirror. She ran herself a shower, the warm water she so desired instead replaced by a bone-chilling spray that made her shiver. 'Right, they cut my water last week. How fucking miserable.'

The world was ending anyway, why should she bother paying the bills? Who even expected people to pay their bills right now? That was also the reason no one came to evict her despite being so behind on rent — no one would bother to come make trouble all the way out there, in the ends of the city, just for some cheap bucks.

She let the cold water drench her shaking body, cold and tired eyes flickering over to her right arm. She lifted it to see her hand better, to see the fresh rivulets of blood dripping from her as the bullet festered in her palm. It'd gone even deeper in after she used it to fight.

"You dumbass," she muttered to herself, licking her lips in preparation. "This is going to hurt even more now."

Her left hand assumed a pinching position as she brought it closer to the fresh wound, fingers shaking. 'C'mon, you've suffered through worse. You've done much worse. This is going to be a breeze.'

'Yeah, a breeze.'

It was not, and she was thankful she didn't have any neighbors left.

After finishing she found herself back in her bedroom, having made the treacherous way back and now wrapped in a tousled towel and her warm blanket after also discarding her sleepwear. Her dull and cold, near-dead hand was tingling and aching like the devil himself underneath the heavy bandages she'd wrapped it with.

She sat blankly in the darkness, gaze travelling from corner to corner vacantly.

What now?

A few more seconds of thought later, she looked at the TV. She grabbed the remote, rolling it between her fingers as she hummed. 'Might as well.'

Misha changed the channel, ending up in... 'What the hell?'

The screen was barely illuminated by the images of sprawling ruins, collapsing buildings and sinking streets under a cloudy sky with a vibrant, blood-red gash scored into it. A wound, shifting between deep reds and bright purples as it spiraled closer to the center.

It looked to be closing shut, she realized as an afterthought. A Gate.

'Where is this being filmed?' She scooted away to put some distance between her and the TV. 'At an Outbreak site?'

She'd already cycled through the channels many times, for many days, but she'd never seen this before.

The camera was shaky, and it kept panning from the sky to a mess of a man who looked to be a reporter. His chaotic appearance — ruffled and dirty black suit, crumpled gray pants stained with specks of blood, and sweat-drenched brown hair — was also bathed in dust and soot for good measure. The pair of glasses over his dark blue eyes were cracked as well, the right lens missing.

He looked to be screaming excitedly, but it took a few moments of confusion before she realized that the TV was muted.

Misha pressed the "MUTE" button. "—st ended! I repeat, the battle has just ended! Th-This is crazy!"

"Reports came in just... two hours ago? One and a half? Fuck, who even cares!" He ripped the useless glasses off his dirty face. "We at sp-Spearhead News are, uh, the first at the scene, of-offering you exclusive reporting on this groundbreaking— this groundbreaking event!"

Well, he was certainly not being very professional. But normal civilians weren't expected to have much calm in the face of an Outbreak anyways. She wondered if there were any monsters still around, but from the lack of guards around she guessed not.

'What even is the grade of that thing? For it to have appeared in such an unusual way... B-Rank? A-Rank? Shit, this is international news. Though even that wouldn't be enough to be called "groundbreaking". Just what happened there?'

His eyes were practically shining as he struggled between speaking, stuttering and laughing in disbelief, a full smile covering his face. Her eyes shifted around the shaking footage, stamped with a blue "LIVE" on the corner. 'It matches his eyes,' she thought absentmindedly.

"y-You don't even know how fucking hard it was to get here! We had to come in by he-helicopter, and all the— all the way from outside the zone of combat too!" He rambled on and on despite losing his breath, red-faced as he blurted out everything he wanted to say.

All around were the corpses of slaughtered monsters, missing huge chunks and pieces of themselves, and still bearing traces of powerful magic. After a second thought, it didn't seem right to call it magic, no — Aura techniques were hardly as fantastical as sorcery. But these ones sure looked special.

The bodies bore unnatural, acidic wounds like something had ravenously eaten away at their skin. The long lashes of a whip, and maybe something that could be thought of as burns? Still, they all looked noticeably like they were made by Force Aura.

In the distance, she could barely make out alien giants and armored titans, already slain and fallen over as if asleep. She felt a strange mix of apprehension-excitement deep in her bones, growing all the way from her marrow. Something momentous had happened.

"an-Anyways," he exhaled loudly, going back on track, "Barely, ah, hours ago we received reports that Bayleon, the Devil King, was defea—"

His words died in his throat as he looked at something outside of the camera's range, wide-eyed.

Then the camera froze too, pointing at a single direction. Four people were framed in the center, one male and three female. They were memorable, to say the least — a fair-skinned man in shining silver like the full moon; a pale, slit-eyed lady wearing fiery vermillion and orange like a burning phoenix; a short younger girl clad in deep blues and blacks with flowing, rich ebony hair tied in a ponytail; and lastly, the one closest in age to the man, a dark-skinned woman in pale white and green robes.

The festive mood had reached them as well. They whooped and hollered and cheered like there'd be no tomorrow. But the man wasn't celebrating, she belatedly realized. He was of average build and size, with hair flowing to his nape and his back turned to the camera. It was naturally black, but it'd been dyed soft purple at some point before it grew out.

Almost immediately, the reporter ran by the cameraman towards the group, yelling and throwing his arms up and down to catch their attention. As he came closer, the oldest of the group — the Asian(?) lady — threw her arm over his shoulders like an old friend.

Their elated voices streamed in through his extended microphone, but she wasn't paying attention to them.

She couldn't take her eyes off that man's back.

"I'm sure," she whispered, narrowing her eyes, "I'm sure I've seen him somewhere before..."

The cameraman ran closer to them as well, their heads turning to greet the new arrival. They were all so happy, so full of joy. Like they'd saved the world or something. 'Wait.' She thought back to the reporter's words. 'It can't be, can it...?'

And then, the man's head turned to the camera as well.

The focus was on him in particular, like the camera was naturally attracted to his face. A soft, well-proportioned face with a well-defined jawline, a nice, straight nose, and... truly mesmerizing eyes. Deep pools of swirling, pitch-black darkness that made her feel vertigo, like she could fall into them.

Julius.

It had to be him.

The strongest S-Rank in the entire world, the mightiest man on Earth, humanity's most powerful... There were a thousand-and-one titles she could've used to describe him, but they all meant the same thing in essence. Him being there — still breathing — could only mean that—

"—So the world's been saved? For real?"

It meant that Bayleon, the Devil King, mankind's greatest calamity, had been felled.

Her mind reeled.

Half of his face was covered in sticky blood, darker than a normal animal or person's ought to be. All of them were stained with it, she realized from closer up. Still, his face illuminated the bleak environment; she didn't like him personally, nor did she suffer from attraction to men in general, but even she admitted his appearance was amazing.

He was gorgeous; not quite beautiful or handsome, but something perfectly in between. The best of both worlds.

For the first time since she'd first seen him on TV, he smiled.

A genuine smile, cool and gentle and happy; still cocky and confident, but not arrogant like the cold smirking masks he wore on his usual broadcasts. This one reached his eyes and lit them up just as much as it did his face. His mouth broke open as if he wanted to say something, but she didn't listen.

She pressed the power button.

Much needed silence descended upon her, the rain softly pitter-pattering outside her window, but her whole apartment was also immediately shrouded in darkness. Oh, right, she hadn't turned on the lights.

Instead of standing up for the light switch, she remained rooted to the spot. 'So the world isn't ending?' It surprised her, but not as much as it should have. In the back of her mind, she guessed, she was confident that Julius and his team could succeed... somehow.

It still didn't mean she was unmoved, though.

After a few more seconds of disbelief, she got up and reached for a metallic spot on the wall. The room was bathed in light as the circular dragonfly-shaped sigil in the ceiling quietly crackled to life, the spherical indent of dark metal on the wall gaining a soft blue hue to signify it was turned on.

She stepped closer to the TV, bending down to look at herself in the dark reflection. A pair of bright silver eyes which glimmered like stars, and a more-or-less average face — marred by disbelief. Her cold platinum eyes widened with surprise and astonishment, but beyond that, she still looked exactly the same. Unhealthy, but still alive.

And she would remain alive, she realized.

Even as she tried to focus on herself to slow down her thoughts, her mind still wandered back to those scenes on the broadcast.

"Holy fuck," she murmured, "I'm gonna have to pay all my bills now."

 

Extinction.

Complete eradication of all forms of life. There was no better way to describe the scene in front of her.

A warped crimson and violet sun the color of fresh, tainted blood wept silently in the sky, bathing everything below it in a sticky light. It seemed more like a bleeding eye than the warm, precious star it had once been, rippling with traces of corrupted energy.

Casting a long shadow over the city, a sprawling castle-like complex with towering spires covered in blinking lights took up a large swath of the bloody sky, resting decrepitly atop its rapidly collapsing island. The sea of jagged blue crystals that kept it airborne from below, formerly numbering in the high thousands, were now shattered like blown light bulbs.

The buildings around her were bent and falling over themselves like sagging corpses, windows cracked and concrete ruptured as debris fell like crystalline stardust all around her, twinkling in the red light of the sun. The howling wind brushing over her pale skin smelled... old and dead, in a way, stagnant, with an undercurrent of sterile decay to it.

"Holy fuck," she sighed.

She couldn't help but let out a hollow, soulless laugh while staring at the thing pretending to be the sun in the sky.

"How did this even happen?"

It was the end. The end of everything.

'How can fate be so goddamn fickle...'

Mere days ago, people around the entire world celebrated the defeat of the Devil King Bayleon. Such an unlikely victory for humanity, going against the long odds and almost fate itself, was just like something from a fairy tale. Of course people couldn't help but kick up a huge carnival.

It was a massive world-wide celebration, the likes of which had scarcely happened ever since the Dimensional Catastrophe ten years prior, in 2020. Gate appearance rates were falling lower by the day, and a future not endlessly hounded by otherworldly monsters was in sight again.

A future of peace. So close, just around the corner.

But then, the world was engulfed in chaos again. The very planet crumbled and fell apart underneath them, and people began to die in huge waves. It wasn't long before mountains of corpses piled higher than the mass graves they dug could possibly hope to swallow up.

The ending had come. It had come so damn unfairly.

Furthermore, that useless savior who lost all his blessings, Julius, couldn't do anything even to save his own life.

His incredible luck, aptitude for explosive growth under danger, and monstrous talent all disappeared without a trace. His beautiful lovers and steadfast allies turned their backs on him in the blink of an eye, their loyalty waning and flickering out like candles.

When the world truly needed him most — even more than when Bayleon appeared — was when he was at his weakest. She'd been the only survivor in the world somehow — that she knew of, anyways. Maybe it was just luck? Or was it fate finally catching up to her?

The universe's cruel way of fixing it's past mistakes?

'How egotistical,' she thought, 'even when the world's ending you still only think about yourself. Stop kidding yourself, none of this is about you — you don't matter. Certainly not enough for all of this.'

Well, nothing mattered now. Not anymore.

The only thing that mattered was the ground being erased beneath her feet, and the fact any and all hope to stop it had long been extinguished. The world had just... suddenly collapsed, yes, but that wasn't all — it's most brilliant minds rusted; it's strongest protectors lost their power; and it's most pious believers exhausted their faith.

"Even our great "hero" couldn't do anything in the end..."

Julius acted like he was the king of the world when he closed the S-Rank Gate the Devil King called home, becoming the first Awakened to be graded as SS-Rank, the unattainable 'Unlimited Rank'. His bizarrely large and more decorative-than-not party — composed of solely his lovers, the most beautiful women of the world, an even more bewildering detail — were regarded with almost as much praise as he was.

The entire world believed that nothing would be able to threaten mankind ever again. That everything would be perfect forever after, like — yet again — a fairy tale come true. Monsters and superpowers had become reality, so why couldn't fairy tale endings?

But it seemed the actual biggest threat had never been the Gates, or even Bayleon himself.

She struggled to keep walking forward, stumbling as she panted with exhaustion. She felt as if all her energy had been drained away, like a leech had sucked the life and vitality straight out of her body. Everything was... dull, empty.

"I'm crumbling," she chuckled. "Just as badly as the world is."

She'd almost never felt so weak before — just once, many years before — and it made her feel so... small, so insignificant.

The heavy spear strapped to her back, a long handle draped in dark gray leather topped with a half-as-long, sharp silver blade also didn't help her current state. It was almost as big as her body, the weight was no joke even when she was at her prime.

'I want to just lay down and roll into my grave already.'

Though she wasn't among the droves of people who suddenly keeled over without warning as if their souls had left them, she hadn't been left untouched by the creeping weakness that burned through the world. She could see an example of the second disaster to befall those who survived right in front of her — a gaping crater in the middle of the street, a wide void-mouth with a pitch-black throat, slowly expanding as the surrounding pavement was gobbled up.

She could feel the distinct call of whatever alien hell was beyond those widening cracks roping her in ever so slightly, like all those who'd been devoured were beckoning her from beyond, trying to lure her deeper and deeper in. It was hypnotizing.

Faintly, she felt like she'd experienced something like that before. Swirling pools of darkness that made her feel vertigo.

Pushing it out of her mind, she took a step away from the circular hell-pit, and the spell was broken just like that. 'It's better to get out of here right now. I'm not sure I'll be able to put some distance between me and that hole after a few more minutes.'

Even now, she already felt herself breaking down further.

She knew she was going to die no matter what she did, but she just kept thinking that even if her existence would come to an untimely end anyways, she didn't want it to be down there of all places.

'There's no way my death would be natural if I fell in there, after all.'

But then, how would she die? Who or what would kill her, if she was the only one here? The vicious curse spreading through her and bogging down her every step would certainly fell her, but she wasn't sure if it'd be before there wasn't any ground to stand on anymore.

If it didn't spread fast enough—

"Let's think about that later. No sense in losing hope now." She swallowed dry, eyes emptier and muddier than they'd been for months.

Although it was one of the cruelest tortures she'd ever experienced to see the world slowly wither away as she remained, she couldn't shake off that key human instinct to survive. One of the few things that assailed everyone alike without distinction, like disease or death.

Although the broken-down houses and buildings kept reminding her of the billions of lives that were lost without warning, she still wanted to live. Even as her eyes wandered to the crumpled shapes in the dark, shadowy corners with empty, glassy and foggy eyes...

But somewhere in the back of her mind, she already knew the cruel truth:

She was just futilely holding onto this broken world in a last ditch attempt to stay alive. Because she was too cowardly to meet her death.

When she stayed still and quiet, she felt like she could still see, still hear— still feel the remnants of the dead lingering behind the ruined windows and collapsed doorways, glaring at her with hateful, loathing eyes for surviving alone what they couldn't survive even with all their joined efforts.

'Still just as cowardly, aren't you?'

"Don't think like that. Anyone would do what you're doing right now." She didn't feel any better, and her voice got smaller and smaller until it was a mere whisper, "There's no shame in surviving."

She slowly trekked through the bleak, destroyed city as she panted for air. All kinds of residences and buildings near her were crumbling into rubble, while some had already been completely swallowed by numerous craters that'd joined into one huge, singular maw.

Some were only as large as her hand, while others were bigger than even the one she'd seen earlier. They didn't lead anywhere as far as she or anyone else knew, and from simple observation, they could keep growing indefinitely.

Almost all of Earth had already been gnawed into and devoured by an ocean's worth of them.

Her feet trailed across the cracked asphalt without stopping, even as they sometimes slowed with sudden weakness. Where was she even going? She didn't know, but that was alright, she was certain her body was taking her somewhere important, she just couldn't remember where.

Through the ruined streets, deeper into the destroyed neighborhoods of the city, and then coming face-to-face with a towering building the size of a small skyscraper, she finally reached her goal. A trio of hollow, platinum blue circles interlinked with each other like the Olympic logo greeted her above the double-door entrance made of cyan glass.

Directly below the logo, a few words were written in a sharp and stylishly futuristic font — Kinetic Pharmaceutics Institute, American Branch Headquarters — and colored in a fluorescent light of the same color as the door.

A dreary smile settled on her face.

"The only good thing about the world ending," she mumbled, "Is that I get to see them disappearing, even if it's like this."

K.P.I had been — for five torturous years — a curse in every Awakened's life if they weren't D-Rank or higher, or if they didn't have enough money and influence to counter them. They were monsters, worse than even vultures and hyenas — those animals ate carrion because it was what nature intended them to eat, but K.P.I devoured the bodies of the dead simply because they could.

In the beginning, when the Dimensional Catastrophe occurred, they hadn't been nearly as disgusting as that.

Low-ranks were always searching for ways to strengthen themselves and become the ideal Awakened society wanted, so naturally, myriad companies like that appeared, studying their unique biology and even offering them "remedies" and "supplements" for growth. In fact, they were the ones that discovered how to safely train the body to wield Force Aura without causing harm to the user themselves.

But then, roughly three years afterward when Julius appeared and quickly ascended through the ranks — going from F-Rank, to E-Rank, and then to D-Rank in just a handful of months — their leadership changed drastically and a new man took over, ushering in a new dark chapter for the company.

'He was a fucking pig.'

Although he rarely appeared in public, and most didn't even know his name, he was immediately recognizable by the thick and nasty smile always on his lips, and how he... leered when he talked to others face-to-face in such a macabre way that no one had ever been comfortable personally speaking to the man.

He was also made the new CEO under incredibly dubious circumstances. If they could even be called only dubious and not outright incriminating, since the former head of the Institute ended up dead mere days before from "undisclosed complications" to his already frail state. Green Flame Centipede poison, rare and costly to procure, had been the primary suspect in most discussions since the dawn of his presidency.

And the gruesome cherry on top, he pioneered an unofficial team of researchers called the Black Kingdom Division to manufacture the first batches of Berserker, a new drug the world had never seen before. A special concoction which had, at first, quite positive effects on the ingester — Awakened under a certain margin of strength would artificially evolve into higher ranks.

This was done by directly boosting the power and production rate of their Force Aura, but these drugs only brought serious problems later on — Aura was made in the heart, so forcing it's production rate to speed up caused serious cardiac problems.

But that wasn't even the worst of the side-effects. That honor belonged to the much more terrible Aura Toxification, a condition that mutated Awakened and transformed them into feral abominations, pitiful creatures emptied of their very humanity with no recollection of who they were before transforming.

Their predatory, monstrous conduct was eventually exposed by Julius and his teammates, forcing the upper researchers of K.P.I into jail and even indirectly bringing the death of the man behind it after he overdosed on Berserker to fight authorities.

Even then, the indemnity their surviving victims had received were measly compared to everything they suffered.

And unfortunately for everyone, such a big international company wouldn't go under so easily. They washed themselves clean after heavy backlash and pinned all the blame on the CEO and his researchers. Although it wasn't a complete lie, it wasn't close to the truth either.

'It would've been impossible to keep such a huge operation going,' she reasoned, 'Unless the lower workers also kept quiet.'

Whether it was through bribery or threats didn't matter to her; what mattered was that they'd lied and let people die. Now, she didn't think that a bunch of normal scientists and labhands without any power or status could confront the top brass of the company like that, but they could've leaked the details of the experiments some way — in any way, she reasoned — years sooner and saved millions.

And even after that huge scandal, things didn't get better:

The Black Kingdom Division was supposedly disbanded, but Berserker still circulated the black markets until recently.

'They were so shameless they kept going until the very end.' The sheer quantity of drugs flooding the back alleys was too humongous for any other organization to produce, even if they had the complicated synthesized materials on-hand.

"It always smelled rotten." Her face wrinkled in disgust.

Personally, she didn't have many connections to the illegal market, but sometimes selling the resources she harvested from monsters was much easier and more lucrative through the dirty channels. But that was okay, every Awakened did a bit of that on the side — it wasn't like she was hurting anyone. Or so she thought, but she couldn't know for sure, could she?

Maybe her materials had been used to lubricate the gears of that horrible machine. Maybe someone had met their end because of the fuel she'd provided to K.P.I in her ventures.

'Well, I was just trying to get enough money to survive. If it wasn't me it'd be someone else.' She'd always tried to sell only to people she trusted, but looks could be deceiving and temperaments could be faked. And she'd sold her spoils to some shady folks once or twice. 'Everyone else did it as well. And damn, I'm sure anything of mine that went to them didn't even make a dent in their fucking multi-billion dollar expenses.'

Who could possibly pass judgement onto her, when she was just trying to survive with the cards dealt to her?

That was what she believed, at least.

Pushing that onto the back of her mind, she walked inside as the automatic doors parted for her. The reception area was huge and still well-lit, with a large, octagonal reception desk with chairs and computers for three people, surrounded by many sofas, couches and coffee desks. There were two stairways on either side leading up, and other doorways sprinkled throughout the room.

Ignoring those other paths after a quick glance, she quickly stumbled her way to the elevator behind the desk, then closed her eyes while muttering to herself as she took the chance to rest on the terminal. Slowly, she caught her dwindling breath.

"Maybe I'll even get to see the city for the final time," she hummed out loud, "Should be a pretty sight."

She breathed in, then out, then in, then out. Heavy and slow like someone on their deathbed, her normally deep and baritone voice raspy and creaky like old furniture about to break. Hell, she sure felt like she was about to break.

She clicked the button to call the elevator, and a crisp ding came out. It was a miracle that their generators were still working after the city's power lines had gone under.

The thoroughly-cleaned cabin that opened up to her was made of white metal, with large mirrors covering every wall, a delicate flower-shaped fixture on the ceiling that radiated soft yellow light, and a dark blue carpet lining the floor. The buttons on the side of the door were outlined in fluorescent cyan light and went from the reception area to the seventy-second floor, the terrace.

She pressed for the terrace without a second thought, and a calm tune seeped out of the glowing blossom on the ceiling.

While inside the elevator, her mind traveled freely. To her present, to her past, certainly not to any kind of future... Her mind was blank with exhaustion, but she still tried to reminisce as much as she could about her past. Still tried to stave off her eminent end.

Her past was... bare, for the lack of a better word. Her life before she Awakened wasn't anything worth remembering, and after that the only things that made up her existence were the K.P.I and her Guild. She couldn't think about the K.P.I without thinking about her Guild, and couldn't think about her Guild without mentioning the K.P.I as well. Those two were impossible to decouple from one another in her head, like a pair of conjoined twins.

A "Guild" was a clan of Awakened whose purpose was to have the increased safety of a group, both from monsters and criminals; within or outside Gates. Her's was a relatively unknown band of misfits and dejects named the Solar Knights, a clan that mainly accepted F-Ranks and E-Ranks under their wings.

She — at first only an inexperienced E-Rank — was sorely in need of that protection. And the infamous K.P.I was one of the many dangers she faced in the beginning of her career, of course.

She'd first started producing Aura at the age of twenty-two, five years ago before the start of Julius' meteoric rise. She awakened the interest of many lower-ranking Guilds after she went through her Awakening, as normal Awakened — no matter their luck or talent — almost always started as F-Ranks. Such cases like her's were few and far in between, almost completely unheard of.

Their interest didn't last for long though, as did Julius proceeded to steal the limelight from every single Awakened in the world. But in the end it wouldn't have mattered anyways — her potential was ridiculously terrible, having hit her growth ceiling as soon as she Awakened. Straight-up abysmal, even compared to an F-Rank.

With no protection, no prior experience or much knowledge of the industry, and no attention from the "good" Guilds, she was a deliciously easy target for the Black Kingdom Division that had recently sprouted, in sore need of fresh test subjects to experiment on.

'They must've thought I looked like an A-grade lab rat.'

She vaguely remembered almost being taken away by them on numerous occasions and narrowly getting away by relying on the sheer brute strength her inexperienced handling of Force Aura gave her. At the time, they fortunately didn't have many funds to hire proper specialists.

And after some time, the Solar Knights Guild luckily took an interest in her.

When she was recruited, K.P.I cut their losses short and shifted their attention towards other Awakened.

Her impression of them only got worse from there, as multiple of her fellow Awakened comrades were kidnapped, and then appeared mutilated or turned into abhorrent beasts a few days or weeks later. She still remembered one particular occasion.

Thankfully, she wasn't the one to find it, but one night a "gift" had been left behind in one of the dumpsters of her Guild's headquarters. It was a black bag clumsily tied with coarse rope and covered in splashes of red, dripping so much blood that it leaked from the large green bin onto the floor. The one who'd opened it found something terrible inside, the poor man.

He found a corpse, wounds and injuries so horrid they looked sadistically inflicted rather than for any type of "research".

It was the body of a young woman; a former member of the Solar Knights, to be more precise. She'd disappeared five days earlier, taken by men in masks and armor and thought dead, but she— it wasn't dead, no. It was very much alive. Even butchered, surgically dismembered and dissected, it was still alive. A drooling, howling and snarling mess of a blood-crazed beast.

Filled with rabid fury, given fangs, claws, scales and blunt, spiraling horns growing from her blind eyes like parasites to let out all her pent-up rage onto the world. Her case of Aura Toxification still hadn't progressed too much, thankfully, so her strength and healing capabilities were barely above her initial tier — measly F-Rank.

He'd taken care of her remains fairly easily, a gruesome but necessary affair. They hoped she was finally resting in peace. But even after all that, no matter what she or anyone else did, no one succeeded in damaging those mighty bastards until Julius.

"Just another tragic fool, so drunk on her new power she overdosed," the official investigation concluded.

They all knew that wasn't the real reason, but no one had proof of anything, and they didn't care to investigate. The media didn't even touch the case, since it wasn't nearly unique or even isolated. Nothing happened, and she became just another faceless number.

For years, everyone from young to old, from man to woman, to everything in between, were kidnapped as long as they had even a single strand of Force Aura, meeting early ends as repugnant, grotesque mutants that resembled monsters even more than the ones inside Gates, or disfigured and butchered corpses. Or a mix of both, like that poor woman.

The cases of people taking drugs willingly was larger due to how extremely... toxicly Awakened on the weaker end of things were treated, of course, but those didn't weigh on her mind as much. They chose to do it of their own accord, while the former were viciously deprived of agency.

And to make matters worse, any accusations were knocked down by K.P.I's huge legal team, and the law didn't help much — it was taboo for normal folks to get involved in Awakened affairs, unless things got really out of hand.

Still, even though she was happy with the eventual outcome, she had her doubts about the process itself.

'How did Julius even do it anyways? Was it really always that easy to just find proof laying around their warehouses?' The implications in his version of the story — both if it was true or otherwise — left a bitter taste in her mouth. 'Did nobody really ever try to look for them?'

If his account was indeed truthful, then that meant the only thing holding K.P.I's entire charade up was that no one with the influence to back up their claims had bothered to try unmasking them. 'They were just warehouses, for god's sake.' Not secret hideouts or underground vaults, just everyday concrete buildings with perfectly breakable locks that numerous employees frequented.

A pit formed in her stomach when she thought about everyone who must've tried to blow the whistle, only to end up silenced and stuffed into trash bins to be forgotten. Maybe it wasn't that nobody came forward like she thought, but that no one survived to be heard.

Or that no one cared to hear them before they were killed.

But she didn't think he was telling the full truth, no. She liked to believe otherwise. 'Honestly, how the hell can someone just walk into a public warehouse and find a bunch of drugs laying around?'

She didn't buy it was that easy. Maybe he really did find his proof inside one of their warehouses, but there was no way in hell — she thought — that they weren't locked away somewhere secret. Maybe he'd gotten inside information? Bribed or threatened someone?

Julius liked to posture as a righteous prince charming, but she didn't buy someone being so spotless, so perfect.

She always thought he was suspicious since the very beginning, but everyone around her... they trusted him so blindly, she didn't have the guts to bring those worries out of her heart. When she was faced with the reality of not being able to say that to their faces anymore, she came to deeply regret her decision; not being more open with them while they were still with her.

"Just..." She shrugged, to no one in particular. "Everyone acted like they'd lost their minds when he was involved."

She muttered something quietly under her breath in irritation, scratching the back of her head. She felt sick and lightheaded.

The elevator stopped abruptly, and then came another ding. She was brought out of her reverie by the calming music suddenly ceasing and the doors opening, drowning her in cold silence again. While she would've found the lack of the typical city buzz relaxing in any other situation, since the reason for the complete absence of noise was that everyone was dead...

She wasn't able to find even a grain of enjoyment inside her.

She stepped out of the small, grayish metal bulkhead and onto the roof. Her head fogged up again momentarily and she stumbled as her vision swayed, grunting and pressing a palm to her temples. These episodes were getting more and more frequent as time passed, she realized. She felt even sicker now, her body and mind even lighter. Like a bundle of feathers.

After steadying herself, she reached towards her upper back and clumsily unhooked the clasp of the belt that looped around her torso and held her spear, letting it fall to the ground with a heavy clank. She wouldn't need it anymore, after all.

Other than that... Honestly, the roof wasn't that special.

The terrace was as large as was to be expected from K.P.I's headquarters, and although it wasn't the tallest edifice in the city of New Haven, it still let her comfortably see a huge part of the surrounding region uninterrupted by other buildings. She slowly walked to the parapet and grumbled under her breath about how heavy her armour felt.

After she looked down to the remains of the city below, her eyes trembled:

"Ah, this... This is fucking crazy..."

The city was really standing on its last leg. No, maybe that was already an understatement.

A rough circle surrounding the headquarters was all that she could see before it became a sea of black holes, ones that were expanding slowly but surely towards her current position. The other buildings were already being digested even as they stood tall, giving an illusion of there still being solid ground beneath them.

The abyssal ocean crawled silently towards her along with a dizzying, hypnotic vertigo...

She felt like she was looking into the maw of a starved beast, but she still couldn't help but find herself enthralled by it. Almost like a deer in headlights, or a tiny shrimp drawn to a angler fish's bioluminescent bait.

The giant island in the sky was almost gone now too, its lower half disappearing as it rapidly sunk into the abyssal ocean below it, the numerous bright lights on the castle's walls flickering out one by one as any artificial Aura and electricity that remained vanished.

"It's kind of sad to see it going like that," she lamented. "Even if I never got to actually step foot on it."

The castle atop the island was the number one place that all Awakened coveted attending, the Taurus Hunting Academy.

It was an international training institution set up by the League For Awakened Peoples, the precursor to the current Awakened Association that managed all affairs concerning Awakened and Gates alike. Just having ties with the Double A would be enough for it to be famous around the globe, but its fame was increased by its purpose more than anything else.

It dealt with recruiting and training the cream of the crop of Awakened society all around the globe, after all.

The entire island was a haven for the ignorant elites new to the Awakened scene, a lavish fortress for wealthy geniuses. And to fan the flames of jealousy of the common folk even more, the freedoms afforded to them for simply attending were also nothing to sneeze at.

She sighed while looking at that once marvelous island, which was now sinking into the nothingness.

That hallowed place used to be powered not only by "magic" but also cutting-edge technology, the ideal training environment for Awakened to become proper hunters. It was rare for students to get seriously hurt because of the countless countermeasures put in place, and even if they did—

'—Those guys employed the most talented healers,' she freshly remembered. It meant that any damage was negligible at worst.

The crystals below it were Ethers, marvelous inventions that made it possible for the island to fly around the whole planet seeking out pupils instead of being permanently rooted to a single country. Publicly, it was so that talented students could be found much more easily.

On the down-low though, it also prevented one single country from boosting its influence because of it, and because it was easier to keep a tight leash on the world's nations when their future pillars were kept away in a faraway, isolated fortress, being indoctrinated to believe in their ideals and being given their benefits of choice.

But the Double A never admitted to either, of course.

Her chain of thought was broken as her vision began to swim again, sight blurring as she stumbled and barely held herself together. She felt like she'd crack and shatter like glass if she didn't keep her guard up, and that truly brought things into perspective:

It was really a miracle she was still alive despite being only an E-Rank, and in the last few hours, she couldn't help but continuously wonder just how the thirty-two A-Ranks and seven S-Ranks in the world died, but... she still hadn't.

But to her, it was nothing more than a punishment.

As she groaned, the soft chime of a bell rang close to her. Like it was right next to her ear. No, actually... it sounded much closer than that, like it was coming from within her head. Where was it even coming from?

At first she thought it was just her ears buzzing due to her perpetually worsening condition, but then she glimpsed a bright light seeping in through her closed eyelids. Confused, she took a step back and opened her eyes.

Before her appeared a pair of ruby-colored claws connected to disembodied forearms, joined as if in prayer but pointing to the ground. A symbol like a single pale eye, sharp and stylized, decorated the back of their palms along with two white bracelets on each wrist. Misha's eyes widened and her mouth parted with quiet surprise.

Slowly and gracefully, the hands separated, fingers bending into the crook of each other's knuckles and interlacing fleetingly as claws brushed the air and a rainbow of colors surged from nothing. Misha's eyes burned at the impossible colors lining the ridges between the familiar ones she could perceive, and she retreated as her hand went to her spear defensively, her head spinning with a shot of adrenaline.

Her mouth hung open with unsaid words, a stutter of pain or surprise lingered at her tongue.

The light solidified into a scarlet screen, pulsing and thrumming before bright golden text in sharp writing manifested as well, the two claws gracefully holding it afloat by the sides. Everything stilled.

 

[Misha Sol Callahvan, do you wish to survive?]