They didn't see her.
Not the UNEX soldiers fidgeting at the barricades. Not the Ecclesian enforcers draped in gold-threaded robes. Not the civilians filming with shaky hands and whispered prayers.
And certainly not the Deepwell agent with wings like white fire slicing through the skyline.
Soryn stood barefoot atop a derelict office tower, one block east of the quarantine zone. Her coat—woven onyx laced with golden alien alloy—shifted gently in the wind, catching flecks of sunlight before dimming them into shadow. Her bodysuit clung like second skin, dark green scales etched with glowing Draconian glyphs that pulsed softly beneath the surface, like a heartbeat felt in the bones.
To the eye, she was nothing. A trick of light. A smear of heat rising from broken stone.
Her body shimmered faintly, blending into glass and sky. Her aura, normally radiant with volcanic intensity, was dimmed to a soft human hum. Cloaked in full chameleon phase—no signature, no shape, no trace.
But her eyes never blinked.
They tracked him.
Jinhai Rush.
She watched as he descended into the cordoned block—armor gleaming, wings fading into smoke. The moment his boots touched the ground, the atmosphere shifted. Fear rippled through the crowd. Even the cameras seemed to hesitate.
Soryn tilted her head slightly, one crimson strand of hair escaping the veil and catching the light.
So that's what all the fuss was about.
He stood tall — always did — with that athletic frame sculpted by combat, duty, and whatever lonely ideals Deepwell still clung to. His hair, white as starlight, was pulled back in that deliberately careless way of his — smoothed but never strict, with stray strands that always curled forward near his temples like they refused to obey orders.
And those eyes.
Glowing blue. Piercing. Not just bright — alive — like they saw straight through bodies and walls and lies. Like they saw her.
He looked... composed. Beautiful, even, in that cold, monastic way Deepwell trained into their elites. Rigid. Moral. Clean lines and cleaner ideals. He moved like someone who still believed in truth.
She smirked.
How exhausting that must be.
A whisper brushed her mind.
Not a sound. A presence.
A voice she knew better than her own heartbeat.
"You're watching him."
Soryn's smile didn't fade. "You're early, Father."
"She's not the only one watching."
The presence of her father Vaeryx folded into her thoughts—heavy, scorched with old power. His words carried the weight of ancient fire, but the warmth had long since cooled. What remained was ash, tempered by exile and time.
"Something is beneath that district. I can feel it. A Draconian signature—alive, but… changed."
Her brow furrowed. "One of ours?"
"In part. But it resonates like nothing we've seen before. Mutated. Or evolved. It's masking its presence, even from me."
That admission meant something. Vaeryx didn't speak weakness lightly.
"Capture it," he continued. "If it has survived this long in hiding, it may have knowledge we've lost. Or worse—it may be a harbinger of what the others will become."
"And what if it's hostile?"
A long silence.
Then:
"You are my daughter, Soryn Ayla. You are Draconian. If it threatens our kind, you burn it."
The link dimmed.
Soryn exhaled slowly, her breath steaming against the barrier of her cloaking field.
She looked down at the barricade, now erupting in movement as Jinhai vanished into the infected zone. UNEX scrambling. Ecclesia posturing. Deepwell, silent as always.
She stepped off the edge of the building without a sound.
Cloaked in light-bending fire, her form blurred as she dropped silently between alleyways, gliding low above the cracked concrete until she reached the perimeter's edge.
One thrum of her will and the sensors ignored her completely. She passed through the checkpoint like a ghost.
Following him.
Not out of duty.
But curiosity.
He was going to find the creature first.
And if he died down there... well.
She'd collect the ashes herself.
Soryn moved like a breath between walls, silent and weightless, her cloak shimmering around her as she slipped deeper into the quarantined zone.
Inside, the building was a hollow cathedral of dust and distortion. The hallway twisted slightly, as if space itself had flinched. Lights flickered without source. Gravity bent in slow pulses, like the heartbeat of something deep below.
She felt it even through the cloak — a pulling, gnawing force. Gravitational warping this dense… it wasn't natural. Not even for Draconian tech. And yet…
Her gaze shifted ahead — and softened.
Jinhai stood in the center of the lobby, knees bent in quiet focus, his fingers touching the temples of a frozen Solborn woman. His wings were gone now — just residual glimmers of blue flame drifting like feathers around his boots.
The victims hovered mid-motion, their expressions locked in agony, their bodies displaced from time itself. It was horrifying. And beautiful.
Because he was fixing it.
He moved carefully. Tenderly. Like a man mending silk with his bare hands.
Soryn let herself linger in the shadows.
There he is, she thought.
His armor was midnight-dark, forged in seamless curves that drank the light instead of reflecting it — elegant in its restraint, like shadow tailored to fit a man. — not brutish like UNEX plating. It moved with him like water over stone. The nodes embedded in his limbs glowed gently as he worked, each hum responding to his breath.
His face, though — that's what always disarmed her.
Not the kind of face one expected on a Deepwell operative. Too soft. Too human.
Too kind to be Deepwell's top agent, she thought. They're colder than this. Sharper. Especially that headmaster of theirs — all silver tongue and black glass eyes.
Sharp jawline, sure. Strong brow. But the rest…
Warmth.
His features were shaped by balance, not harsh angles — a quiet symmetry in the curve of his cheekbones, the soft taper of his jaw. His skin held the warmth of sunlit earth, like river clay steeped in light. Almond eyes that smiled before his lips did. And when he laughed — or tried not to — a single dimple creased his cheek, as if joy had left its mark there long ago.
Soryn blinked, then looked away.
Focus.
He was surrounded by time-locked victims. The air rippled around him in spiraling threads of distorted light — and still he moved gently. Always gently. That was the part no one ever expected from someone in armor.
You don't belong in war zones, Flyboy, she thought. And yet here you are. Every damn time.
He didn't see it. Not the way she did.
That gentleness of his — the way he always tried to fix things, to save everyone — it made him dangerous.
Not to others.
To himself.
Kindness like that gets you killed. Or worse — compromised.
It's a beautiful flaw. And it's going to cost him everything.
She stayed hidden, watching as the final echo of force left his fingers.
The frozen Solborn woman gasped, color flooding back into her face as time caught up with her lungs. One by one, the other victims shuddered free of their stasis — gasping, blinking, stumbling as if waking from a nightmare they hadn't dreamed.
No grand gestures. No dramatic commands.
Jinhai simply nodded to the nearest one, gesturing toward the shattered doorway.
They moved.
Weak at first — dazed — but when the first scream of panic tore free, the spell shattered. A mad dash erupted. The victims ran for the exit, crashing through doors and barricades, collapsing into the arms of stunned medics just beyond the perimeter.
The crowd outside surged in chaos.
UNEX soldiers scrambled to contain the flood. Ecclesia enforcers barked orders. Civilians screamed or recorded or both. One of the Solborn fell to their knees, crying into a paramedic's shoulder.
And Jinhai?
He just stood there. Quiet. Watching them go.
Like he always did.
Soryn felt something tug deep in her chest. That familiar ache. The one she never admitted aloud.
Fixing people. Always fixing people.
While Jinhai stepped forward to restore the frozen victims, she stayed cloaked — her body humming in phase with the warping air around them. Her footsteps silent. Her aura suppressed to that of a civilian.
She moved like smoke behind him, as he turned back toward the anomaly and lit his arm with flame.
And when he raised his arm, igniting it in that signature blue flame and driving it into the floor — her eyes narrowed.
That's new.
He wasn't just displacing matter. He was folding it — drilling down with pure will, bending the weave of space-time itself. Not even the elder operatives in Deepwell flaunted that kind of finesse.
The drill of blue flame cut open the floor, carving a slow spiral downward. Jinhai leapt into the breach without hesitation, vanishing into the abyss.
Soryn followed a heartbeat later, invisible to all.
They descended into a yawning underground cavern — one so deep it shouldn't have existed beneath the city. No subway, no sewers, no construction markers. Just raw, carved-out stone and the flicker of something… alive.
The corridor beneath pulsed with force. The walls were cracked open, not by age — by force. Each step down felt heavier, like gravity thickened with every breath. Whatever lay beneath wasn't just dormant. It was hungry.
And he was going toward it. Of course he was.
She stopped short of the basin and knelt low, still cloaked.
And what she saw pulled the breath from her lungs.
Eggs. Thousands. Maybe more. Massive, dusk-plated, and pulsing in eerie synchrony — not just with each other, but with the gravity shifts she had felt above. Each one vibrated with a low-frequency hum. Not sound. A signal.
Filial force. They're feeding off the merged above.
Her eyes narrowed. That would explain the time-lock ripple. The frozen Solborn. The collapse of local physics. The eggs were the distortion.
But Draconian nests didn't belong here.
They only bred near the Rift — close to the Ark, deep in the ocean. This wasn't random. This wasn't rogue instinct.
This was coordination.
Her blood ran cold.
Then something moved.
A towering figure emerged from the darkness — twenty feet tall, sinuous and plated in segmented onyx armor. Its wings folded behind it like collapsed blades. Red eyes gleamed with awareness. Intelligence. Hunger.
Soryn stilled.
She had never seen a creature like this — not even in the vaults of the Eternal Guardians, as her people called themselves. The outside world spat another name: Scalebound cult. But this... this wasn't in any record. Not even among her father's darkest fears.
The thing's mouth curled open — fangs glistening with dark fluid — and then it spoke.
Its voice rasped through the cavern like sand over steel, each word dragging slow and sharp:
"Sooo… they've finally brought someone… who could discover… meee."
"A human… with an elder Filial soul… it seeems…"
The creature's tail flexed around the largest egg. Its membrane pulsed, syncing with its voice.
"We… are the next… the new breed… the onesss… who will end… thisss war."
Soryn's heart thudded in her ears.
They're not just evolving.
They're planning.
Soryn didn't move. Still cloaked, still crouched in the shadows of the cavern wall, she watched them — Jinhai and the beast — like two opposite ends of the same flame.
He didn't flinch. Didn't posture. Just stood there, arms at his sides, studying the creature with a calm she found both familiar… and maddening.
Jinhai (eyes narrowing, stepping forward):
"You're not like the others. You waited. You spoke."
Draconian Beast:
"Yesss… I waited. I watched. I adapted. And now… I awaken."
Jinhai:
"You've been feeding off the Filial above. Sapping their bond. Why?"
Beast (grinning):
"Because your light… nourishes us. Evolves us."
Jinhai (quiet, almost to himself):
"They're evolving. Coordinating. This isn't a mutation… it's strategy."
Beast (eyes glowing):
"And you… are a keystone. The first to see. The last to live."
Jinhai (raising his hand, letting blue flame crackle in his palm):
"We'll see about that."
Soryn's grip tightened.
She could hear every word.
The beast wasn't just speaking. It was revealing. Too much.
She didn't know what unsettled her more — the creature's intelligence, or the fact that Jinhai wasn't afraid of it.
She weighed her options. Fast.
If she helped him now, he might survive — but the chance to capture this thing might vanish.
And if she went after the beast alone, she'd risk losing Jinhai.
Her mission was clear.
This wasn't just any Draconian. It was evolved. Intelligent. Coordinated. And it had nests buried beneath the city.
The others had to know.
Her father had to know.
Her fists clenched at her sides, every muscle coiled to act — and yet…
She stayed hidden.
For now.
The creature let out a slow, low laugh — not quite sound, more like the hiss of boiling tar. Then its body unraveled into a thick cloud of black smoke.
"I will enjoy thisss," it murmured, voice echoing in unnatural delay. "I will enjoy… you."
Soryn stayed perfectly still.
Jinhai, unshaken, tapped his wrist. A plume of orange particles burst forth — weightless as ash, drifting upward like embers caught in slow motion. They hovered in the air, flickering gently... then pulled inward, collapsing into shape.
In an instant, the sword formed — nearly as tall as he was, its frame cooling from searing orange to darkened steel. Only the blade remained alive, glowing like a fault line of fire, radiating heat in pulsing waves.
This was Icefang.
A sword of ice and will — nearly as tall as its wielder, and twice as unforgiving.
He gripped the weapon without hesitation. The orbs on his suit lit up in sequence — chest, shoulders, knees — pulsing with gathered force.
His Filial vibration. His resonance.
The blade shifted hue — flowing orange cooling into brilliant blue, then erupting into flickering flames streaked with indigo. Sparks trailed from hilt to tip as fire turned ghostly white, burning not with heat, but a frostbitten blaze that radiated sub-zero steam.
The cloud of smoke shot forward, flashing across the cavern in a blur of motion. A bladed arm whipped out of the mist, arcing down at Jinhai.
CLANG.
He blocked it, blade catching the strike with a hiss of steam.
Another flash — another slash.
Parried.
The beast attacked again. Faster. Each strike came from a different direction — above, behind, the side — a blur of shadow and steel.
Jinhai blocked every one. But his counters met only vapor. The creature wasn't there.
"Enough of these games," Jinhai muttered.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he pushed.
Filial resonance surged from his chest, racing down through the gates in his legs. The cavern trembled.
A ripple of force pulsed outward, invisible to most, but he felt it. Felt it.
The beast.
He marked it with his mind's eye — not sight, but presence. And then he moved.
Moonfire and frostlight exploded from his boots as Jinhai shot forward, blade in hand.
Supersonic.
The hunt had begun.
The creature tried to vanish again — blinking across the chamber — but this time, Jinhai was ready.
He had already activated the resonance — a burst of vibration through his neural lattice and suit nodes that mapped the rhythm of the beast's movement. And in that moment, he saw it.
A sliver.
A fraction of a breath.
Each time the creature struck, there was a millisecond of materialization — a blink in the smoke — where its true body took form before impact.
That was the window.
And Jinhai moved.
Steel and shadow collided midair. Sparks and flame carved trenches into the stone.
Jinhai spun, driving his foot into the beast's ribcage — bones cracked beneath the blow — and followed through with a rising slash. Icefang tore a gaping wound from torso to shoulder, frost blooming along the exposed flesh.
A shriek tore through the cavern.
The smoke thickened.
Retreated.
Reformed.
But the beast was wounded now. Slower. Angry.
"You… were not… ssssupposed… to ssseee…" it hissed, staggering back.
Jinhai raised his blade, the tip burning bright.
"I see more than you know."
The creature didn't flee.
Instead, it let out a sly, guttural laugh that reverberated through the cavern like an oil-slicked whisper.
"You think you've won?" it hissed. "Let me show you… our evolution."
Then it howled.
The sound wasn't just loud — it was seismic. A piercing echo that shattered silence and rippled upward like a wave of pressure.
Aboveground, the crowd jerked as one.
Civilians grabbed each other. Solborn reeled. Reporters turned frantically toward their cameras.
"Breaking update!" one anchor cried. "Something's happening beneath the city — a tremor just shook the entire block—"
"Could this be another Draconian threat?"
Holo-Phones pointed downward. Drones hovered uncertainly. A wave of unease spread through the perimeter.
Below, the glow began.
The eggs.
All of them.
A deep violet-black shimmer bled across their surfaces, each one pulsing to the same beat. A synchrony of rot and intent.
Jinhai staggered.
His hand pressed to his chest.
The nausea hit like gravity folding in on itself. His limbs trembled. The air thickened. His vibration flickered, struggling to stabilize.
Then he saw it — that same ghosting effect that had taken the Solborn.
Afterimages.
His body doubled in faint outlines, trapped between frames of time.
The beast stood tall again, the glow from the eggs crawling across its form like searing silk. Its wounds sealed. Its frame widened.
"This is what we are now," it growled. "Your Filial light? It means nothing. We are beyond it."
Jinhai's blue flame sputtered in his hand. He gritted his teeth, channeling every ounce of resonance to stay rooted — to not be erased.
This shouldn't be possible.
His thoughts spiraled, not in fear — but in disbelief.
They evolved.
Not through feeding on essence. Not through touch.
It was happening now — in real time.
But how?
If they were consuming matter to evolve, then what were they consuming to grow this fast?
He'd seen Draconians feed before — on chaos, on fear, on matter itself.
But this… this was different.
He stared at the beast, breath ragged.
"They've changed the rules," he muttered.
Pressed against the cavern wall, Soryn's breath caught.
That glow — that signal in the marrow — it wasn't just stolen anatomical structure. It was transmuted. Twisted.
He wasn't just feeding off the eggs.
He was breeding them — letting some hatch just long enough to draw in ambient power.
Then consuming them before they could become a threat.
A savage shortcut. A violation of ancient Draconian law.
She felt her gut twist — not from pity, but the grotesque logic of it.
Self-cannibalization. A culled brood to birth a singular apex.
No wonder his evolution had jumped. He'd sacrificed his own to bypass time itself.
Her eyes narrowed behind the veil.
This wasn't power. It was desecration.
My father taught preservation. Balance. Stewardship of the bloodline.
But this… this is something else entirely.
What are you becoming?
And below, Jinhai's body slowed — breath caught between heartbeats, limbs leaden with collapse.
Muscles locking. Breath catching.
And the beast lunged.
Fangs bared. Arm raised. The killing blow coming fast—
WHOOOM.
A wall of fire erupted.
The beast's strike slammed into glowing flame and was stopped cold.
Soryn.
Her camouflage unraveled in a burst of heat and light. Fire curled around her like a storm given shape. Her onyx-and-gold coat ignited, the weave of alien alloy reflecting the inferno in bursts of green and crimson.
Her hair — that deep crimson — now blazed behind her like a comet.
And in her hands—
A weapon formed from the flames.
She conjured a polearm of elegant brutality — its shaft forged from dark metal that shimmered with oil-slick hues, catching traces of violet, green, and deep blue as it moved. The head flared outward: a long onyx spearpoint flanked by twin crescent blades, each pulsing like black diamonds torn from a dying star. From its base trailed a single tassel of living flame, hissing with every motion, as if the weapon itself breathed fire.
She didn't speak.
Not yet.
The beast recoiled, stumbling back in a blur of shadow and hate.
It stared at her.
Then it hesitated.
"Zha'kural… ai'thess… Soryn'their?" it rasped, the words like coals cracking in a dying fire.
The creature hissed, a guttural language spilling from its throat — all jagged consonants and coiled vowels, like smoke grinding against stone. Draconian. Harsh. Primal.
Jinhai understood every word.
So did she.
And just like that, the meaning bled through — as if the air itself.
"P-Princessss?" it rasped, voice thin as smoke. "You… you shouldn't be here. Y-you're not… ssupposed to---"
Soryn twirled her spear once, letting it hum with flame, then leveled it at the creature's chest.
"My clan disagrees."
She stepped closer, eyes cold. "What is your name, beast?"
The creature hissed, smoke curling from its maw.
"This one is called… Draemyr, Princessss."
Soryn's gaze didn't waver. "Draemyr, what is all this?"
Her voice tightened. "What have you done?"
"You've evolved," she said. "Without council. Without oversight. You're nesting beneath human cities — feeding off Solborn. Feeding off…your own?"
She stepped forward.
"You've butchered the code that shaped us. Fed on your own kin. You call that progress?"
she said, voice like a blade — sharp, steady, and cold.
The beast's body coiled tighter. The politeness vanished.
"Authority? PermissSsion?" It laughed low, dark. "Just because your traitorous pacifist sect are the last cowards left doesn't make you royalty, little girl."
Its eyes burned brighter.
"You're not even a true Draconian."
That stung — but she didn't show it.
"We've already begun," the creature sneered. "You're too late."
Soryn spun the spear, heat spiraling off her in waves.
"Maybe," she said. "But I'm here now."
Flames curled around her shoulders as she turned toward him.
"Hey, Flyboy," she called out, voice dipped in playful mockery. "Looks like you're not doing too hot."
Jinhai groaned.
She drifted closer in a swirl of smoke and fire, lowering her spear. Her lips curled into a mischievous grin.
"There's no time for beauty sleep now, hero," she cooed in baby talk, brushing a lock of scorched hair from his forehead like a nursemaid from hell.
Jinhai exhaled slowly, half a sigh, half a wheeze.
Figured you'd wait until I was half-dead. Got a hand for me, princess?
Soryn tilted her head, mock-offended.
"You knew I was there the whole time?"
"I didn't need my resonance to smell you."
His voice was softer now, almost reverent.
"It's my favorite smell. Lavender… and white tea.", he says while grunting trying his best to stand.
Soryn's eyes softened. For a moment, the fire between them wasn't just heat — it was warmth. Memory.
She stepped a little closer, voice quieter now.
"You could've said something," she murmured. "We could've gone in together."
His smile deepened, tired but full of that old familiar glow.
"What's the fun in that?"
He coughed, the sound rattling in his chest. Still, his eyes sparkled with something light — rare and fleeting. A flicker of who he used to be.
"What kind of knight turns down a chance to impress a fire goddess?"
Soryn smirked. For a second, it almost masked the worry in her eyes.
"Jokes aside…" Jinhai winced as waves of oppression surged through the air. "Little help?"
"Only if you admit I saved your ass."
Jinhai slumped.
"In that case... I'll be unconscious if you need me."
The moment cracked — and then it shattered.
The eggs pulsed violently.
A new surge of tremlrs rolled outward like a psychic scream. Jinhai cried out, clutching his ribs as he collapsed again, veins flickering with unstable light.
The Draconian beast roared.
"Enough!"
The glow of the eggs intensified. The chamber darkened.
Soryn spun around, eyes narrowing.
"Hang on, Jinhai," she said, dropping to a knee beside him.
She pressed her palm to his chest. Fire bloomed outward — a barrier of orange light that flowed around him like liquid flame, soft in motion but unyielding in purpose.
Then her hand shot to her pendant.
"Ignis," she whispered. "Time for action."
The gold amulet rippled. Then ignited.
Flame burst outward in a spiral of glyphs. The pendant grew, unfolded, twisted in midair — until a massive form unfurled from its heart.
Ignis emerged.
Black-scaled. Sleek as onyx glass. Eyes glowing like twin suns behind stormclouds. He landed beside her with a thunderous impact, his wings nearly touching both cavern walls.
"Burn them," she said.
Without hesitation, Soryn and Ignis unleashed hell.
A blistering flame shot from her palms, a twin cascade of burning arcs that carved into the rows of eggs. Ignis exhaled — a searing jet of fire that tore across the nest like a solar flare.
It let out a bone-shaking shriek.
"Not the spawn... not the nest!"
It surged forward in a blur of smoke and claws, aiming to rend Ignis apart — but Soryn was already there.
Her spear met its strike midair with a deafening clash of heat and shadow.
"Not so fast, Frankenstein."
The eggs cracked and screamed — tiny silhouettes writhing inside before being consumed. One by one, they burst in shrieks of black ichor and fire.
The beast howled — a sound that shook the stone and split the air, filled with rage, grief, and something deeper. Something ancient.
As the chamber shook, the flames wrapped around the cavern like a crown of wrath.
Behind them, Jinhai stirred.
The glow in his veins steadied. The afterimage flickers began to fade.
He reached forward, fingers steady now.
"Icefang," he said.
A shimmer responded.
The sword blinked into existence — the same blade as before, summoned clean and sharp into his hand, its edge burning with focused blue light.
He rose, slow but steady.
Back in the fight.
Draemyr, who was predator now prey, feeling outnumbered and at a disadvantage, let out a shrill and — in a burst of supersonic speed — flew upward through the chasm Jinhai had created earlier.
"It's escaping!" Soryn shouted. "What's the gameplan, Jinhai?"
"Hurry — it's getting away. We can talk on the way!"
The two launched into pursuit.
Jinhai soared upward, fiery blue wings unfurled, trailing flame and smoke as he burst through the rising air column.
Soryn followed, astride Ignis, the jet-black leviathan wreathed in flame and fury surging after them in a blur. Together, they emerged into the shaft of light above, racing after the fading shadow.
The wind howled around them as they gained altitude.
Soryn pulled closer.
"We've got a problem," she said, glancing at the sky above. "There are cameras. Reporters. Civilians. I'm not supposed to be seen."
Her voice was sharp — not panicked, but tense. Calculating.
"I can't engage the beast in my camouflage — and not everyone has flashy wings like you, Flyboy.
And Ignis isn't exactly... discreet."
Jinhai's eyes narrowed as he flew.
"What matters is that we capture the beast. We have to know everything it knows."
Soryn exhaled hard through her nose.
"You're right. My mission is to capture it.
My old man isn't exactly the kind to take failure nicely."
"Here's the plan," Jinhai called out. "You go out first. I'll follow.
We fight the beast — together."
"Wouldn't that cause a panic?" Soryn asked.
"Let everyone assume Deepwell's backing the Scalebounds?"
Jinhai shook his head.
"Not if it looks like we're enemies. If you take the beast down while fending off my interference, we can spin it as a three-way conflict — no clear alliances."
He paused. "I'll handle the story. The media's hungry for spectacle. We'll give them one — just... carefully curated."
Soryn smirked, bitter but unsurprised.
"You think anyone's ready to give us the benefit of the doubt? They'll still blame us. They always do."
Jinhai's voice was calm, unwavering.
"Then we keep trying."
A roar split the sky.
They broke the surface.
The Draconian beast burst through the street above, kicking up debris and a shockwave of pressure as it broke through asphalt and concrete into the open air.
Above ground, the city skyline exploded into a panoramic burst of gray, red, and gold — and ahead, the smoke beast shot toward the skyline like a bullet. A blur of darkness tearing through the sky.
Civilians screamed. News crews scrambled. Reporters shouted breathless updates.
"Breaking news — a Draconian has breached the surface! We have a visual — I repeat, we have—"
UNEX soldiers mobilized instantly, weapons locking into place.
Ecclesia enforcers spread their golden mantles wide, forming defensive sigils around the perimeter.
Then — from the crumbling asphalt — Soryn ascended on Ignis, wings of flame arched behind her, spear drawn.
The crowd erupted in renewed panic.
"It's another one! Another threat!"
Drones zoomed in. Broadcast feeds cut live. The voice of a stunned anchor echoed from every screen:
"Another unidentified figure has entered the airspace — winged, armed — and riding what appears to be a massive Draconian-class beast."
A second reporter chimed in, panicked and breathless:
"That's not UNEX. That's not Ecclesia. We're seeing Scalebound iconography — glyphs glowing red across her armor — and the creature… that dragon is the size of a military transport carrier!"
"She's armed with a spear and flying directly toward the conflict — we cannot confirm her allegiance. Authorities are urging civilians to shelter in place."
A third feed switched in:
"Ecclesia officials have not confirmed whether this individual is part of the rogue Scalebound sect believed to be harboring Draconian sympathizers. This could be an escalation."
Speculation cascaded in real time.
"Is this a second Draconian attack?"
"Is she allied with the first one?"
Did Deepwell fail to contain the threat — or worse, are they collaborating?"
And then Jinhai followed.
Trailing fire and wind, armor gleaming, blade in hand.
The stage was set.
Soryn chased after the smoke beast atop Ignis, flame trailing in her wake. The Draconian fled through the skies in streaks of black mist, darting between towers and clouds.
Ignis let loose a stream of fiery breath, scorching the air behind the beast. Soryn stood firm in her saddle, hair wild with wind, spear in hand.
Behind them, Jinhai followed — his wings of blue flame slicing through the sky. He raised his hand and pretended to fire feathers of blue force — each shot aimed near Soryn, crackling past her in bursts of heat and light.
From the ground, it looked like chaos — a three-way clash between angel, dragon, and monster.
Mid-chase, the smoked beast twisted back, claws flashing as it lunged. Its bladed arms collided with Soryn's spear. Sparks flew.
A breath later, it spun toward Jinhai.
Searing metal met claw. Jinhai's sword clashed with the beast mid-air, their silhouettes flickering against the clouds like dueling shadows.
The battle streaked across the Manhattan skyline.
Just as the creature prepared to retreat again — body shifting to smoke, eyes narrowing for a final escape — Jinhai acted.
He fired another volley of blue-feathered flame past Soryn. But this time, the shots bent mid-flight — curving into a glowing square.
A blue force cage formed in the air, locking around the beast.
Soryn grinned.
"Nice trick," she said with a flick of her eyes.
She extended her hands, and white-hot flame erupted, forming the remaining walls of the prison — a heat so intense the very air warped beneath it.
The beast screeched — but it was trapped.
"Ignis!" Soryn shouted. "Time to show them what you're really made of!"
The dragon roared — and then expanded.
What had seemed large before was merely a sliver of his true form. Ignis expanded mid-flight, muscles rippling beneath onyx scales that caught the light like glass forged in lightning. His wings spread wider and wider, their span blotting out neon signs and rooftop gardens alike.
Shadows rushed ahead of him, sweeping over buildings and streets as if night had fallen in an instant.
Windows dimmed. Streetlights sputtered.
Cars skidded to a stop. Civilians froze mid-step, heads tilted skyward.
And for a breathless moment, the city forgot how to breathe.
Then he roared — a sound that cracked windows and sent pigeons scattering like leaves in a storm.
He lunged.
Draemyr was swallowed whole.
A burst of dark flame followed as Ignis closed his jaws. Inside his belly, the beast thrashed — but the seal held.
Soryn dropped low and began to inscribe glowing Draconian glyphs across Ignis' chest and sides, locking the creature inside with binding flame.
"That should do it," she muttered.
From behind, Jinhai flew up — blade still lit. His face serious.
He roared and lunged at her, their weapons clashing in a burst of sparks.
"Hurry," he whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear. "Punch me across the sky."
Soryn gave him a mischievous smile.
"With pleasure, wingboy."
She leaned in close, whispering, "Meet me at our usual place later?"
Then — with their weapons locked — she drove her fist into his gut.
BOOM.
Jinhai went flying — a comet of blue fire trailing through the air — and crashed through the side of a corporate skyscraper.
Glass shattered. Steel groaned. Alarms blared.
He hit the floor hard — but his wings folded in instinctively, wrapping around him like a cocoon of blue flame. The impact dispersed through the force lattice, cushioning the fall.
The room was empty. All the civilians had already evacuated.
He lay still for a moment, staring up at the cracked ceiling through the haze of smoke and dust.
Then he sighed.
"…Next time, I'm punching her first." he muttered to himself, coughing smoke.
—END CHAPTER 2—