The road back to Rexor was slower than expected. The rescued prisoners, though grateful and cooperative, were exhausted—many limping, many silent, their souls still recovering from the camp's cruelty.
Ajax led the front, his cloak still torn from the battle and his uniform stained but intact. It had already started piecing itself back together. Reva held the rear, a hand never far from her dagger. Between them, the strange silver-haired girl walked like she was somewhere else entirely.
Reva's eyes kept returning to her—not with suspicion, but with a strange ache. Like she'd dreamed of this girl long ago and couldn't remember why. The way she moved, the way she held her silence, even the cadence of her breath—it stirred something buried deep.
The travel back to Rexor took a little more than a week due to the injured. Each day spent traveling and each night spent resting for the next.
By the time Vorthryn's high spires glimmered in the fading light, Ajax glanced back.
"Not far now."
Reva nodded, not breaking her gaze from the girl. "We should be safe before sundown."
Amidst the file of rescued prisoners the girl suddenly stopped walking. She stared directly at Ajax, almost as if she could see through him.
Ajax felt her gaze. He turned on instinct. "Something wrong?"
The girl didn't answer. She stepped forward instead—quietly, almost reverently—and gently reached out.
Her fingers brushed Ajax's wrist.
The moment snapped like a spell unwinding.
A ripple passed through him—faint but unmistakable. The hum of his gates faltered for a breath. His vision dimmed at the edges. And in that brief touch, he saw something impossible: himself, older, surrounded by swirling arcs of magic in shapes he'd never conjured. A weapon too massive to be real. A battlefield soaked in blue fire.
The image vanished in a blink.
Ajax recoiled. "What… was that?"
The girl's expression softened. "Everything," she whispered. "That's what I needed. Thank you, Ajax Myrelis."
Then the heavens screamed.
A tear ripped open the sky. Directly above them a rupture in the sky itself.—a jagged abyss flashing with crimson and violet. The air cracked like lightning, and from the rift dropped a single figure, landing in a plume of dust and force that knocked several prisoners to their knees.
And with the figure came pressure. Pressure Ajax had only felt one other time in his life.
When it cleared, the man stood tall and still.
A black coat hung from his frame, fluttering in the dying wind. One sleeve was gone, revealing a muscled arm wrapped in crimson bindings. A red veil floated lazily around his neck, not hiding his face, but distorting it slightly—like smoke over glass. Red smoke. His eyes circled with deep black voids. His body emitting sparks of blood red lightning.
Ajax stepped in front of the others. "Crimson Veil."
The man gave a short, amused bow. "You're not completely hopeless, then. Good." He spoke with confidence. No, not just confidence. He spoke with assurance. As if his victory is guaranteed.
Reva drew her blade. "Back away."
But the girl didn't.
She took a step forward.
"You done with your reunion, Ms. Seer?"
"I'm ready," she said quietly.
Reva's voice sharpened. "What are you doing? We saved you."
The girl looked over her shoulder. There was no malice in her face—only a deep sorrow.
"I was never yours to save, Reva"
Ajax narrowed his eyes. "You used us."
"I needed to touch him," she said, gesturing gently to Ajax. "To see the future. It only works on contact. I couldn't reach him any other way."
The Veil operative smiled. "She's not lying. And now that her vision's complete, her purpose with you is finished."
Ajax's fists clenched, and the familiar hum of mana gathered in his palms.
"You're not taking her."
"Oh, I am," the man said. "Try and stop me."
"Careful, Raycrozma." Said the seer, "You'd be surprised by the outcome."
Ajax didn't wait. Twin daggers of mana flared into existence, spinning once around his arms before he launched forward, boots skimming across the dirt. Reva was right behind him, Spiral flame magic arcing along her blade with a pale orange flicker.
The operative moved with chilling grace. He caught Ajax's first dagger midair and shattered it between two fingers. The second, he dodged by pivoting so fast the air bent.
Reva struck low, forcing him to block with his arm. She nearly landed a cut—but it her swing was shallow.
Ajax circled, conjuring a flurry of short blades and throwing them in a spread pattern. The Veil member countered by sweeping one hand through the air, creating a ripple that deflected half of them. The rest he dodged, effortlessly.
"Clever," the man said. "But not strong enough."
Then he moved.
A flicker—then he was there, inside Ajax's guard, driving a fist toward his ribs. Ajax twisted just in time, taking the blow across the arm. The force cracked bone.
Reva aimed for the throat with a reverse grip strike—but he leaned back, just enough to dodge, then flung her away with a wave of kinetic force.
Ajax landed hard, coughing, pain blooming through his chest. He rose fast, lips bloodied, breath steady.
"Don't let up," he called.
They attacked in tandem. Reva came high, Ajax low. The operative parried one, ducked the other, but missed the third—Ajax's conjured shortblade bit into his thigh, leaving a trail of glowing blue blood.
The man's smile twitched. "Oh. You do have some teeth."
Then a blast of force flattened the space between them, knocking both scouts back like broken dolls. Ajax slammed into a rock outcrop and crumpled. Reva rolled into a crouch, breath ragged, then stopped moving.
Ajax froze mid-motion.
Something in him twisted.
Her body didn't move.
The sounds of battle—the wind, the pulse of gates, the mocking rhythm of the Veil member's steps—faded to a dull roar.
All Ajax could hear was the blood in his ears.
His breath hitched, and then steadied.
And then—broke.
The Pulse Gate and Breath Gate detonated inside him, surging beyond control. The air around him shimmered, distorted like heatwaves on stone. His eyes flared with deep green light as mana spilled from his skin in sharp arcs, crackling like living lightning around him.
The Veil member turned, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.
"Oh?" he said. "So you do have more."
Ajax didn't answer.
With a growl that felt too ancient for an eight-year-old's body, he roared, and the ground beneath him cratered. Mana erupted upward like a geyser as dozens of weapons burst into being—blades, chains, spears, even blunt axes of raw energy—all orbiting him in erratic patterns.
Then he moved.
He didn't blur—he blinked.
One instant he was still. The next, he was swinging a conjured sword down at the Veil member with enough force to cleave the ground in two.
The operative parried—but barely. The impact knocked him back a full step, his boots grinding against the dirt.
Ajax pressed forward. Weapons rained down in waves, each summoned mid-motion, hurled, slashed, exploded into another. A chain looped for the Veil member's throat. A hammer descended toward his shoulder. A hail of throwing daggers curved midair for vital points.
The man snarled and casted a curved blade of red lightning, lashing out in a perfect arc. The weapons shattered one after another—but more replaced them. For every attack Ajax lost, he created two more. He fought like a storm made conscious.
The Veil soldier pushed Ajax backwards with wind magic to create space so he could find a way to counter this unique magic.
But it wasn't enough.
As Ajax flew backwards he conjured a spear and set off an explosion of fire magic behind it, propelling it directly into his unsuspecting opponents shoulder.
He growled, pain twisting his face for the first time.
And Ajax wasn't done.
Ajax advanced, eyes wild, feet almost floating now from the surging force beneath him.
The man blocked a conjured halberd, but Ajax was already spinning low, conjuring a wide mana glaive and sweeping the ground.
The Veil member stumbled.
For one heartbeat, Ajax was winning.
But then the Veil member stopped moving.
And smiled.
"You're more dangerous than I expected," he said calmly. "Cassian was right about you."
In a single motion, his arm twisted outward and released a flash of violet light. The spell struck Ajax directly in the chest—a raw force spell with no finesse, just pure kinetic violence.
Ajax flew backward like a fired arrow, smashing through a boulder, then a tree, before landing in a trench of upturned soil. He groaned, the wind gone from his lungs, limbs trembling.
His weapons faded. The light dimmed.
The Veil operative turned to the girl, his voice clipped now. "We're leaving. I've seen enough."
She hesitated for half a breath.
Then followed.
With one final glance at Ajax—conflicted, unreadable—they both vanished in a bolt of red lightning.
The forest quieted.
Ajax lay among the rubble, panting, bleeding, eyes half-lidded.
He didn't move—not for a long time.
The forest was silent. The wind had stopped.