The silver blur that was Valer crashed through the ancient forest like a meteor of condensed starlight, his Light of Dawn ability wrapped around himself and Tommy in a protective sphere that barely extended three feet in any direction. Valer, a living meteor covered in condensed divinity, raced between the trees with Tommy clinging to his back.
Every muscle in his body burned with spiritual exhaustion, but he pushed himself harder, faster, drawing upon reserves of power that would leave him bedridden for days.
Then suddenly, He stopped.
The abrupt halt sent shockwaves through the forest floor, creating a small crater where his feet had been. Without warning, his boots skidded into the dirt, splitting the soil with deep grooves. He turned sharply to the northwest, his brows knotting as an icy weight sank into his gut.
His enhanced sense that had been honed for years produced a sixth one that could slightly detect the supernatural, and always kept him safe. This time, that extra sense told him something was wrong with his assistant captain and friend: Baldur.
As if responding to his growing dread, the bracelet on his right wrist- Life Seeker, began to heat up. The mystical item grew so hot it felt like molten metal against his skin.
Then it completely shattered.
The silver-blue fragments disintegrated into motes of scarlet light that drifted away on the wind like dying stars, vanishing into the cold wind.
Each particle carried a red fragment of Baldur's life essence, following an ancient compulsion to return to the place where its owner had drawn his last breath.
'No.This can't be...'
Valer's eyes widened, his composed facade cracking like ice under pressure. Life Seeker only broke when its linked target died—and it had been attuned to Baldur, his closest friend and battle-brother for over a decade.
"Tommy," he said, his voice carefully controlled as he set the boy down with shaking hands. "Please give me a moment."
His breath caught, and a deep shadow fell across his weathered features. He gently expanded the Light of Dawn with a burst of effort.
The Light of Dawn expanded outward, consuming vast amounts of his spiritual energy to create a protective barrier fifty feet in diameter. The halo grew, bathing a ten-meter radius in an argent glow. His rapidly depleting spirituality cried out in protest, but he didn't flinch.
The silver radiance pushed back the shadows of the forest, creating a sanctuary of warmth and safety that would repel most supernatural threats.
'Baldur... my friend...'
Valer dropped to one knee, his hands clasped together in the traditional prayer position. His voice was barely above a whisper, but each word carried the weight of a soul in mourning.
"Lord, May you guide him to your divine kingdom in the afterlife. May his blade find rest in your celestial presence, and may his spirit know the peace in his next life that eluded him in this one."
He closed his eyes and bowed to the ground three times, each genuflection a ritualistic acknowledgment of loss. The prayer was one he had hoped never to speak—a funeral rite for a warrior who had fallen in battle.
When he rose, Tommy was watching him with those innocent, trusting eyes. There was weariness in his eyes, but also something gentler—a protective warmth.
The boy's presence was like a knife in his heart—a reminder of what he was fighting to protect, and what he might have already lost.
"I have a dear friend of mine who is in trouble," Valer said, forcing a smile that felt like broken glass. "Would it be alright if we went to his location and then the orphanage after that?"
Tommy nodded silently, his small face serious with the gravity of the moment.
Valer squatted to the boy's height and ruffled his hair, the simple gesture helping to ground him in the present moment. "Thank you, Tommy. You're being very brave."
He picked up the boy and launched himself toward the northwest, following the trail of dissipating essence from the Life Seeker. The mystical bracelet's blood essence fragments had a simple but effective enchantment—they would always seek out the location where their linked target had died, drawn by the residual yet primal instinct to return to the target's body.
Fifteen minutes of supersonic travel brought them to a wooded clearing that showed no signs of a battle or even a potential struggle at all. Valer materialized from his silver blur, his Light of Dawn condensing back into a protective sphere around them both. The forest here felt wrong—trees withered at the edges, flowers blackened and dead, the very air thick with the lingering presence of something that should not exist.
"This is where it happened. Where Baldur made his last stand." He said, wearily exhaling.
But there was no body, no corpse to be found or grieve over. In order for the death of a patrol member to be marked off as abnormal means and not foul play by a squadron member or civilian, the body or beyonder characteristic has to be taken back and marked off by a coroner.
So without the appearance of both, Valer himself could be suspected of foul play even with his position as the head captain of the entire patrol team.
He then set Tommy down and swirled the protective light around him, and started to walk the area in slow, methodical circles
Valer began to search relentlessly for anything, his enhanced senses cataloging every detail. The ground showed signs of being walked upon—gouges in the earth. But still of Baldur himself, there was nothing.
While pacing over the area, His boots crunched faintly over scattered fragments of something dull but metallic.
He then directed his gaze downward, and noticed something glinting in the moonlight. Valer knelt and picked up a fragment of silver metal, its surface inscribed with partial runes that he recognized immediately. It was a piece of Dawnbreaker, Baldur's consecrated weapon—the blade that had served him faithfully for several years.
His chest quickly tightened as he slowly examined it.
'Shattered. A mid-tier beyonder weapon, inscribed with powerful protective runes and even imbued with some of the power of Dawn. Whatever he fought had enough power to destroy it with brute force.'
He continued searching, his trained eye picking out details that would have been invisible to a normal person. Numerous scuff marks on tree bark. Disturbed moss, and patches of earth that had been compressed by superhuman force.
And then he found it.
A single footprint, pressed into the side of a massive oak tree at head height. The print was small—size seven or eight—and clearly belonged to a male child. But the force required to leave such a mark twenty feet off the ground spoke of abilities that no human child should possess.
'A monster disguised as a little boy. That's what you fought, wasn't it, Baldur? Something that wore the face of innocence while harboring the strength of a demon. Or was it even really a monster at all...?'
Valer placed a finger to his chin, his mind racing through the implications. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to form a picture that filled him with dread.
'First, the creatures at the orphanage. Two staff member who transformed into something inhuman, but one of them left behind no beyonder characteristics whatsoever. No sign of spiritual possession nor any traces of an evil entity released after its death. The transformation had to be the result of someone else's beyonder power.'
His jaw clenched as he deeply further contemplated the matter.
'But the only pathway known for such extensive mutative abilities is the Mother pathway. And only higher sequence beyonders can affect and induce such dramatic changes in others. In the City, only seven people have access to those potions: including myself and the six-member council.'
'Unless one of the council members has turned traitor...'
He forced himself to breathe slowly, to regulate his thoughts and prevent his mounting paranoia from clouding his judgment. The Mother pathway was not the only possibility—there were other forces at work in the world, older and more terrible than he could understand.
The preposterous idea that one of the council members had betrayed the city that they attentively loved and governed made him feel an enormous tinge of guilt inside his heart.
'Think, Valer. Start from the beginning. First the fire at the orphanage.There were then two children and two staff members who went missing according to the others. Philip and Claire. I found Phil...'
The realization instantaneously hit him like a physical blow.
His thoughts crystallized into a terrible clarity. The innocent boy who had never once cried or complained despite witnessing horrors that would have broken most adults.
But his face showed nothing of his inner turmoil. Instead, he walked over to Tommy with the same gentle smile as before, extending his hand to ruffle the boy's hair.
"You are being really good throughout all of this," he said, his voice warm with false affection. "Not once did you cry, nor did you misbehave."
Tommy looked up at him with those ocean-blue eyes, a soft smile gracing his cherubic features. "Th-thank you, mister," he stammered, his voice carrying just the right note of shy gratitude.
Valer stopped ruffling the boy's hair and took a step back, his expression remaining perfectly composed. "You're such a well-raised boy. But could you please tell me again what happened after the fire?"
"Ok," Tommy said softly, his story unchanged from the previous tellings. "Miss Sarah and Miss Catherine told me and Claire to follow them into the woods, and they suddenly turned into monsters! They then took us away from everybody else."
"I thought so," Valer muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible.
"Why do you ask, mist-?" Tommy asked, that innocent smile still playing across his lips.
But before he could finish the question, Valer's spiritual energy exploded outward. The twilight-made silver spear materialized in his hand—a weapon of pure spiritual force.
The spear moved with the speed of thought, its crystalline edge separating Tommy's head from his shoulders in a single, fluid motion. Blood spilled out from the boy's body as it crumpled over onto his head, creating the same gory scene that had previously happened when Baldur met his cruel end.
In a way, this was poetic justice.