Elian's POV
*****
His eyes fluttered slowly as he woke up. There was a searing heat that surrounded his body, causing him to grit his teeth with pain and confusion.
He realised that a thick smoke surrounded the place, clouding his eyes with soot and ash. The sky was ashen red and embers fell to the earth like snowflakes of fire.
"W–Where am I?" He asked himself with a shaky voice, sitting up and scanning his gaze with even more confusion.
The last thing he remembered doing was sleeping on his bed in the Lunarian Royal Palace. Now he was surrounded by ashen black sand which burned like coal.
The sand stretched as far as his eyes could see, the smoke obscuring most of his vision.
Elian clenched his jaw. His eyes stung—not from emotion, but from smoke and ash burning their way in.
He coughed, placing his right hand in front of his mouth and then trying to use his long-sleeved shirt to cover his nose.
Was this some kind of sick prank? Did Lucian do this to him while he was asleep?
"Or... Estella?" Elian mumbled, shaking his head. "System? Say something. Where's your usual sarcasm? Tell me what the hell's going on!"
Silence.
There was no response from the system, causing Elian to blink with more confusion as he coughed once again.
'Is it because I'm not speaking mentally? Answer me, come on...' He said in his mind.
But again... Silence.
A cold shiver ran down Elian's spine at that moment as dread froze him. The system wasn't there.
He thought he was imagining things but he really couldn't feel the system in his mind anymore. The only thing in there was his own thoughts, which were getting more erratic by the second.
"What in the moon's name is going—" before he could complete that sentence, a gush of wind sounded above him, forcing him to raise his head.
A flash of blue light shimmered through the smoke above, and then several crescent-shaped crafts swooped overhead like silent spectres. Their exteriors shimmered with glyph-like markings, rotating slowly in a language Elian didn't recognise.
One of them paused—hovering—before vanishing in a sudden blink of warped air.
"Those... Those look like Warcrafts. I've seen them during news broadcasts in the palace." Elian muttered to himself as more confusion slowly began twisting into fear in his system.
Pure, primal fear.
This wasn't just a wasteland. It was a fucking battle field!
Suddenly, as if to validate his thoughts, he began hearing screams and shouts tearing through the smoke and soot. Elian quickly got on his feet, staggering a bit as he tried balancing himself.
"There are survivors over there!" A man yelled from a distance.
"Scouts, go and confirm it! We can't let any of those witches survive!" Another added.
"For the glory of the Rogue King!"
Witches? Rogue king?
Elian blinked when he heard all that coming from his right but he was too disoriented to even make sense of what they were saying.
But he was sure of one thing. Witches... They don't live in the Lunarian Empire.
He has lived in the palace most of his life, making him sheltered, but he knew damn well that the empire was a "werewolf only" Empire.
Which means…
"I'm not in the empire right now." He blurted, shaking his head with disbelief.
How is this even...?
Suddenly, Elian picked up the sound of approaching footsteps heading his way and felt like sinking into the ground. He had heard the soldiers talking about "not letting any witch survive" and he wasn't a witch.
But at the same time, he had no business on this battlefield. Not as an Omega.
If a fight broke out, he'd be blown to smithereens.
Fearing the worst, Elian crouched to his knees and lowered his head, closing his eyes and hoping he'd be invisible to the soldiers.
The footsteps were so close now that he was certain they were literally a few feet beside him, but he still kept his eyes closed. It was only a matter of time before one of them...
"Hey! Over there!" A voice yelled out, causing Elian's heart to skip a beat.
"Halt!" Another barked.
Elian slowly raised his trembling hands over his head and got on his feet. But when he turned toward the shouting, heart in his throat... he realised they weren't looking at him at all.
And the soldiers in question?
They wore black armour moulded to their bodies like a second skin—sleek, jointed at the knees and elbows, with glowing red lines that pulsed in sync with their movements. Each chestplate bore a shifting insignia that shimmered like an oil slick, morphing every few seconds. Their helmets were smooth and visorless, but a vertical slit glowed where their eyes should've been, casting an eerie crimson light through the smoke.
Each soldier carried a long-barreled rifle that crackled faintly with light. They weren't metal exactly... more like obsidian carved with glowing runes, powered by cores that buzzed faintly at the base.
Seeing these soldiers, Elian knew instantly that they weren't soldiers of the Empire. Meaning... He needed to get the fuck away from them.
After slowly getting on his feet again, Elian turned away from the soldiers and ran as fast as his feet could carry him. He didn't understand why they hadn't spotted him but he didn't want to wait around to find out.
His breathing was heavy and his heart raced heavily in his chest, but he didn't mind. That beat lingering around with those soldiers.
"I... I just need to find a settlement of some kind. Maybe hide in a cave or..." As he was saying this, he began hearing the sounds of laser blasts, like lightning swooshing through the air, behind him.
Whoever those soldiers were after, they had found them.
Suddenly, the low hum of a craft landing echoed, causing him to pause in his tracks. Gusts of wind blew on the ground from above, causing the smoke and ash around him to part.
Was he discovered?
He raised his head slowly, just in time to see a craft which seemed a bit bigger than the rest lowering above him.
The craft went ahead of him but remained hovering about ten meters above the ground. Slowly, the back panel of the craft opened up, revealing blinding blue light inside it.
A menacing silhouette with long white hair that fluttered like snakes around him stood at the entrance of the panel. The person wore sleek black armour, similar to the one on the soldiers.
But there was something... Different about this person. He had his back facing Elian, who stood frozen with confusion.
That's until he felt the thud of a heartbeat that wasn't his echoing in his mind. Something pulsed inside him, seemingly drawing him to this person. Pulling him to move closer and... Touch him.
This... Man.
Suddenly, the silhouette looked over his shoulder, revealing a pair of piercing red eyes that shone through the brightness of the blue light in the craft.
He was staring at Elian!
They locked eyes, causing Elian's heart to skip a beat. He knew in that moment who this person was, even though he had never met him in his life.
"M–Mate number three..." He whispered to himself, blinking as he took a single step back.
His instincts were screaming "danger" even though this man was one of his mates. He knew this man was trouble. This wasn't the kind of mate you ran toward. This was the kind you survived.
And now he was staring at him!
A scent of burnt roses wafted into Elian's nostrils at that moment.
And as if things couldn't get any more suffocating, the man began slowly turning around to face him fully. Elian's breath hitched as he swallowed hard.
He needed to get out of here. He couldn't deal with any of... THIS.
When that thought crossed his mind, a flash of silver light flickered past his eyes, blinding him momentarily. But then when he opened his eyes again... It was gone.
The war-torn battlefield, the space crafts, the soldiers, the mysterious man who he was sure was his third mate... They were all gone.
He was back in the comfort of his bed, but before he could even begin to comprehend what had just happened, his instincts flared.
[SYSTEM ONLINE. WARNING: ASSASSINATION IN PROGRESS.]
[Initiating reflex override. Move, Elian... NOW!]
The system. It was back!
It was then that Elian realised that a person clad in black was standing over him with a silver dagger raised above their head. Without warning, the assassin plunged the dagger down.