The moment Erza stepped through the Gate, reality unraveled.
The sky became a broken canvas of bleeding stars. Colors bent the wrong way—reds hummed like music, blues whispered doubts into his ear. The ground beneath his feet wasn't solid—it remembered solidity, but flickered like a half-recalled dream.
His body felt heavier. Not physically—but mythically.
Like the Gate itself was trying to rewrite who he was.
"Hold formation!" Seris's voice snapped through the haze.
They landed in a jagged wasteland that echoed with the sound of laughter—their own voices, distorted and delayed, mocking them from nowhere. Shattered constellations drifted like dead leaves across the blood-tinted sky.
A twisted lion's head made of iron and ember rose in the distance, snarling in silence.
"Welcome to Inverted Gate IX," Lysra muttered, adjusting her resonance compass. "This place hates memory. Time won't make sense here. Beasts aren't the only danger—we'll start forgetting ourselves if we stay too long."
Korr spun his blades, eyeing the black-glass ridges ahead. "Guess we'd better move fast."
Deeper into the Gate
The squad passed half-sunken temples made of stardust bones and molten stone. Celestial runes crawled along the surfaces—inverted myths, like reversed prayers.
They passed murals that once showed Leo defending the heavens… now redrawn to show him burning it down.
It made Erza's core pulse in unease.
"Do you think this is what he sees?"
"Noctyros?" Seris asked.
Erza nodded. "This world. This... twisted story. It's not just power. He's trying to change the entire truth of the cosmos."
"Then we stop him before the next chapter is written," Auren said.
Encounter: Inverted Beast – Cindercrowned Mauler
From beneath the molten soil, a roar split the dream-horizon.
A hulking creature of lava-blood and charred constellation bones burst forth—its face an inverted lion mask, its body built from cracked planetary fragments. A Cindercrowned Mauler, one of the Gateborn Beasts twisted by the corrupted Leo myth.
It charged.
"Positions!" Erza barked.
Korr vanished in a flicker, reappearing behind the beast and slashing its hamstring. Auren loosed a volley of photon arrows, embedding explosive bolts into the creature's cracked ribs.
Seris lifted her palms. "✴ Starbind: Polaris Spear!"
A streak of silvery light shot from her hand and pierced the monster's spine. It shrieked—a sound like glass shattering underwater.
Erza moved last.
The flame along his arms surged. But it wasn't pure anymore. Leo's resonance inside him stuttered, and his fire flickered—like it doubted him.
Still, he launched.
"✴ Solar Fang—Threefold!"
A triple spiral of golden flame tore across the beast's front, cleaving through its mask. It howled as it exploded into mythic ash, leaving behind only a smoldering crater and a broken glyph.
They won.
But Erza staggered.
Seris caught him. "What happened?"
"My power…" he clenched his fists, "Leo's flame is losing shape. The closer we get to the Gate's core, the more corrupted our constellations become."
"We're on a timer," Lysra warned. "Once your flame fully inverts, you become vulnerable. To the Gate. To him."
Auren cursed. "Then we skip the subtlety. Find Noctyros. End it."
"No," Erza said, regaining his footing. "We find the Gateheart. Every Inverted Gate has one. A tether to the original myth. If we restore it—we weaken Noctyros's hold."
"And where is it?" Seris asked.
Erza turned his eyes to the lion-shaped mountain in the distance.
"There."
Elsewhere – Noctyros Watches
From atop his inverted throne, Noctyros watched the battle through a cracked star-mirror.
"Still clinging to broken fire, Erza?" he murmured. "I wonder how long it takes before even you start to question who you really are."
He closed the mirror. Beside him, another Warlord approached—a massive figure clad in obsidian-plated armor, a warped Scorpio Sigil glowing crimson on his shoulder.
"Shall I meet them?" the figure asked, voice like a forge choking on smoke.
"No," Noctyros said.
He looked up at the sky—where constellations flickered, some vanishing completely.
"I want the Flame Prince to see the truth first. Let him reach the Gateheart."
He smiled.
"Let him remember what really happened… the day his kingdom fell."