Arya stood alone on the balcony of his apartment—luxurious, but hollow. The night air of Yogyakarta brushed against his skin, heavy with smoke, dust, and a faint metallic tang: the scent of his own altered blood.
His mind was a storm.
Fragments of Bayu's laughter. The look in his eyes before the lab exploded. The sound of his last breath. Pieces of a bond too strong for death to shatter.
Serambi Nusantara—the organization that once masked itself as hope—now revealed as the hand that destroyed everything he held dear. Their betrayal stabbed deeper than any knife. And within Arya… the parasite's whispers had grown louder. Anima Terrae. A name that felt ancient. Primal. Alive.
"What now?" he whispered, voice hoarse, nearly lost beneath the hum of the city.
He felt stranded, standing at the edge of a life that no longer belonged to him.
Then a voice answered—soft, warm, threaded with static like an echo from another world.
"Calm yourself, my brother. We'll find the way… together."
Arya flinched.
Bayu.
But not quite Bayu. His voice was deeper now, laced with something older, something… more.
"You're still here?" Arya asked, his voice trembling with hope and dread.
"Always. We're bound now. Like we always said—together forever."
Arya's chest tightened. A flicker of warmth pierced through the darkness.
"How? I watched you die."
"My body died. But our bond? That survived. The parasite took a part of me. A fragment. Enough to stay. Enough to help you."
Arya turned his eyes to the sky, starless and heavy. His hands trembled, black veins pulsing beneath his skin.
"So you're part of it now. Of this… thing inside me."
"I'm part of you, Arya. We're still us. Still the Two Eagles. And this power? We can use it. We can finish what we started."
Tears welled in Arya's eyes—thick, black, flecked with tiny spores that glinted faintly in the dark.
"I miss you," he whispered. "I miss your voice. Your dumb jokes. Your goddamn nagging."
"I miss you too. But this isn't the end. We keep going. Together."
A cough broke the moment. Professor Hadiwijaya stood behind him, arms crossed, eyes wary.
"You're talking to yourself again, Arya," the professor said with a sneer. "You sound like a madman."
Arya turned slowly. His red eyes glowed beneath the moonlight, casting a spectral light over the balcony.
"I'm talking to the future, Professor," he said. "A future where you and your kind no longer exist."
The professor took a step back, his face paling. "You've changed. You're not even human anymore. What happened to you in that lab?"
"I evolved," Arya said flatly. "Just like you wanted. Just not in the way you expected."
He stepped forward, his shadow engulfing the professor. His voice was low, lethal.
"I'm going to burn your organization to the ground. Every facility. Every experiment. Every corrupted name hidden behind a government title. Gone."
"You can't do this alone," the professor hissed. "We have resources, influence. You're one man."
"I'm not alone."
Arya tapped his chest.
"I have Bayu. And I have this—Anima Terrae. The soul of something ancient. And together, we're going to rip your world apart."
The professor's legs buckled. Arya shoved him back, turning toward the door.
He didn't need to say more.
The war had begun. Not between nations or armies—but between gods and monsters. Between what humanity was… and what it feared becoming.
He wasn't afraid anymore.
Bayu was with him.
And they were coming.