The afternoon had slipped by in quiet embrace, time melting between their bodies.
Now, night crept in, soft and slow. Outside their suite, the garden buzzed with life — frogs croaking along the koi pond, crickets chirping in steady rhythm beneath the cherry blossoms. A warm summer breeze stirred the washi-paneled doors, whispering through the quiet room.
Inside, Jinhai lay atop Soryn, his head resting against the curve of her chest, his arm draped protectively across her waist. One hand moved in slow, absentminded circles along her stomach.
"How far along are you?" he asked tenderly.
"Just a few months," she murmured, fingers sliding gently through his white hair.
He glanced up.
How do you know it's a boy?"
Soryn tilted a smile.
"You forget who you're in bed with. We Draconians don't leave things to chance. We shape the matter we consume. We shape what's within us — blood, bone… even our children."
Jinhai fell quiet, his gaze drifting downward.
"He'll be part Draconian," he said at last. "But there's also part of my resonance inside him. One day, it'll awaken. He'll need guidance. Maybe we should take him to the Deepwell. My master would accept him. Raise him like one of our own."
Soryn's expression softened, but she shook her head.
"And ignore his other half? No. He'll also need guidance from my people. From the Guardians. He'll feel emotions you won't understand — the hunger, the fear, the desire to dominate, to consume. He must pass our sacred trials. Learn restraint. Learn who he is."
Jinhai gave a dry laugh.
"You mean the sacred death traps I walked into by accident? Yeah, fond memories."
Soryn's eyes gleamed.
"Those were sacred trials for our initiates — not curious thieves. You dove twenty-thousand feet chasing scraps of Ark tech, stumbled into our sanctum, and waltzed through laser grids and gravity snares like it was a playground."
"What can I say? My sensors picked up scattered Filial tech. I had to take a look," Jinhai said with a soft laugh.
"And yet you bypassed every trap like you were born to it. How did you even get that deep, anyway?" Soryn asked, voice edged with playful suspicion.
"My suit," Jinhai replied, tapping the side of his temple. "Top-tier Filial tech. Only Deepwell's top agents — me, my three brothers, and Orin Thal — have access to it. Not even UNEX or Ecclesia get a glimpse. It's how we explore the zones around the Ark. Unimpeded. Undetected."
"Mmm," she said suspiciously. "Sly fox. You never miss a detail, do you?"
"Just lucky," he replied, kissing her shoulder.
Jinhai shifted, resting his chin lightly on her belly.
"Hey there, little one," he whispered. "I can't wait to meet you. There's so much I want to show you… so much to teach. I'll protect you. Always."
Soryn's breath caught. Her hand curled gently around his.
For a moment, the world felt still — just the two of them, and the life between them.
***
But beneath her warmth, a tremor stirred in the earth.
Faint. Then again. Louder.
They both froze.
A rumble shook the floorboards — soft at first, then enough to make the hanging lanterns sway.
Jinhai rose to his feet in an instant.
"What was that?" he muttered.
Another quake hit — this one sharper. A sliding panel cracked against the floor, splinters forming along the plaster wall.
Jinhai grabbed his wrist brace, the Aetherlock. Holograms blinked to life above it, red and pulsing.
"Omega-class Draconian signature detected," the warning read.
Soryn was already on her feet. "How did it get past the Rift's monitoring stations?"
"I don't know," Jinhai said, strapping on the emitter, "but we don't have time to ask."
Soryn tapped her own Aetherlock — a matching device, his old wrist brace custom-modded for her last birthday by Jinhai. Beside her, his emitter flared to life. A black cube lifted from Jinhai's emitter, floating and spinning midair. It disintegrated into fine, smoky dust, coating his bare skin. The nanobots ignited, forming the dark steel mesh of his Deepwell suit in a flash.
From Soryn's wrist, a green lizard-like creature slithered out, coiling up her arm. She stroked its head once.
"Time to wake up," she whispered.
The creature hissed affectionately and dissolved into her skin, spreading like liquid over her body, forming her battle-woven Draconian armor — deep green scales marked by faint, glowing glyphs. Threads of glistening black metal emerged from the lamina, wrapping around her arms and shoulders. The coat took shape — her obsidian, gold-veined mantle laced with living fire.
They stepped toward the window — their bodies now sheathed in war.
Outside, the night trembled again.
And far off, something massive was coming.
Jinhai's eyes flicked toward the window, pulse sharpening.
"We have to get out of here," he said. "If this really is an Omega-class threat, it's serious. This would be the fourth colossal Draconian in the last fifty years."
Soryn checked her sensors, jaw tightening. "UNEX and Ecclesia will be here any minute. So will the cameras."
She turned to him, eyes hard.
"If they catch us together again, there's no way you'll be able to talk your way out of it. Not this time."
"I'll fight it," she said. "You cloak and slip past the guards. They'll have full-range scanners up—"
"No," Jinhai cut in, voice firm. "You're not going anywhere near that thing."
She narrowed her eyes. "You can't take it alone."
"I won't have a choice," he said quietly. "If you try to leave now, they'll spot you. If you fight beside me, they'll know. We can't risk that. Not anymore."
He stepped closer, gaze steady.
"You need to hide. Cloak yourself and wait for an opening. When it comes, get out. Disappear."
Soryn hesitated. "And what about you?"
"I'll buy us time," he said. "I'll hold the line."
His gaze dipped briefly to her stomach, then rose to meet her eyes — steady, unshaken.
"This isn't just about us anymore."
Jinhai took her hand and placed it against his chest, letting her feel the measured beat beneath.
"It's about him. It's about our family now."
He exhaled, a faint smile brushing his lips.
"Speaking of family… mine should be here soon."
Soryn arched an eyebrow.
"Your brothers?"
He nodded.
"If this really is an Omega-class Draconian, Deepwell won't stay idle. We've faced monsters like this before — together. They'll come."
His tone grew heavier, but his gaze remained calm.
"And if I need their help… I'll call on them."
Soryn hesitated, just for a breath.
She'd never met his brothers — only heard whispers. Operatives so deeply embedded in Deepwell's inner circle they might as well be shadows. They were loyal, she knew that. But loyalty and mercy weren't always the same thing.
"Let's hope they're as trustworthy as you," she muttered, more to herself than him.
"They're better," Jinhai replied with a dry grin. "And they'll do what needs to be done."
As they spoke, the air around them began to shift.
At first, it was subtle — a strange light blooming where there should have been only shadow.
The night sky began to glow.
Above downtown Manhattan, something stirred.
The sky opened.
No thunder. No lightning.
Just silence — thick and unnatural.
A luminous sphere bloomed overhead, growing steadily across the sky like an expanding wound in the fabric of night.
Pink. Ethereal. Ominous.
Then the pressure shifted.
Not suddenly — but with weight.
Like the world was inhaling.
The air grew hot and dense.
An invisible force began to pull. First the dust. Then debris.
Streetlamps flickered. Windowpanes warped.
A portal — seething and luminous, its edges writhing like a living wound, breathing waves of heat and gravity into the night. It kept growing. Stretching. Swallowing the skyline.
Gravity no longer obeyed its master. The rules of the world had already begun to unravel.
The pressure beneath the portal twisted. Buildings groaned. Steel beams bent. Hovercrafts frozen. Bricks and debris lifted upward — rising — pulled slowly toward the growing sphere above.
Solborn and human alike locked in place, expressions carved in panic, rising inch by inch, as if tethered to a malevolent puppeteer.
The Haven Hotel trembled violently as the distortion reached them.
Lanterns shattered. Walls cracked.
The roof above them split open like paper, revealing the sky — a swirling, otherworldly maelstrom.
Jinhai reacted instantly.
White-blue wings erupted from his back, flaring to full span with a pulse of Filial resonance. He slammed both feet to the ground, anchoring himself with a lattice of radiant energy. The wave threatened to tear him free, but the ground yielded first. The floor buckled, then shattered, panels sucked into the swirling void.
Jinhai shifted his resonance, channeling it into his wings and core. Gravity slipped, but he held — by only will, suspending himself in midair as if anchored to the very fabric of space.
He reached for Soryn, pulling her close, shielding her with his body as debris spiraled around them.
"Hold on!" he shouted.
Soryn's armor stirred — responding to her will.
The living Draconian creature bound to her body awakened, its form rippling just beneath the surface of her skin.
Glyphs shimmered along her arms, pulsing with emerald light — veins lit by will.
From her forearms, tendrils unfurled — smooth, sinewed strands of living matter that twisted through the air before hardening into jagged spines.
She drove them into the bare concrete foundation where the floor used to be like harpoons, securing herself beside Jinhai.
The wind tore through the shattered ceiling.
Glass. Leaves. Dirt.
Fragments of memory and stone lifted from the wreckage, spiraling into the void above.
The koi pond had ruptured. The cherry blossoms were stripped bare.
Their sanctuary — quiet, hidden, untouched — was coming apart piece by piece.
No fire. No fury.
Just silence.
And the slow certainty of collapse.
The world was being pulled inside out.
And the true storm had yet to come.
The pressure collapsed in an instant.
Gravity snapped back — brutal and sudden.
All at once, the debris above them came crashing down.
Jinhai reacted without hesitation.
A pulse of cold light erupted from his palm as he raised one arm overhead.
A dome of crystallized frost exploded into shape above them — sharp, translucent, and laced with glowing veins of Filial energy.
Shards of glass and stone slammed against the shield and scattered harmlessly to the sides.
Above the city, the portal convulsed.
Two enormous, scaled arms reached outward — black and ridged with muscle, ending in claws longer than city buses. The fingers flexed and hooked into the sky itself.
Then it pulled.
A body emerged — massive, hulking — claw by claw, limb by limb.
It had no head.
Where one should have been was a wreath of thick, writhing tendrils — worm-like and slick, each one twitching as if tasting the air. No eyes. No face. Only motion.
Its torso bulged with unnatural weight — bloated and reptilian, like a drowned dinosaur left to rot in the sun. Dark purple scales shimmered across its body, twitching with latent energy.
Its legs were thick and stunted, ending in massive dark hooves. From its back, a pair of wings unfurled — not feathered or flesh-bound, but swirling smoke and shadow, impossibly vast and shifting.
And on its abdomen — a mouth.
Not just a mouth — a gaping maw of jagged teeth.
Where a tongue might have been, there was instead a single, flaming eye — burning red and alive, seething with ancient hunger.
It turned downward.
The eye locked onto the world — and the world recoiled.
Even from afar, the air rippled where it gazed.
Its presence pierced. It judged. It devoured.
With a single step, it dropped from the portal.
The city trembled beneath the blow, as if a mountain had come crashing to life.
Glass shattered for miles. Car alarms shrieked in every direction. Buildings groaned and wavered under the shockwave.
On the streets below, chaos ignited.
Humans and Solborn alike screamed in terror, their cries swallowed by the roar of crumbling concrete and twisting metal.
People fled in all directions — wings beating, feet pounding — a stampede of pure survival.
Some flew. Some ran. Some fell beneath the crush of the crowd, vanishing in the blur of motion and dust.
A young Solborn child tripped near the center of the avenue — her wings too small to fly.
She cried out, hands scraping the pavement, feet slipping on glass.
Her mother swept down in a blur, scooping her up just as a car behind them was lifted by the collapsing air and hurled into a building.
Overhead, camera drones captured the madness — broadcasting it live.
News banners flickered.
"OMEGA-CLASS ENTITY DETECTED OVER MANHATTAN"
"CIVILIAN EVACUATION IN PROGRESS — STAY INDOORS"
The city was no longer a city.
It was a battlefield.
***
The creature roared with a wave of pressure and heat that bent reality.
Buildings collapsed in waves. Metal screamed as it bent. Concrete decimated.
And the beast fed — drawing in the chaos like breath, absorbing the energy of destruction, growing stronger with every moment.
Then the sky broke again.
Dark shapes burst through the cloud cover — brutal silhouettes against the burning sky.
UNEX had arrived.
Their carriers weren't sleek. They were monstrous — slabs of steel and soul-reactive plating stitched together by war, not elegance.
Engines howled like wounded machines as dozens of hovercrafts descended — each one bristling with artillery, soul turbines spinning with flickers of corrupted light.
From their undercarriages dropped the soldiers of UNEX.
Weaponized Solborn — no longer born, but built.
Their wings were mechanical frames threaded with energy veins, their eyes glassy with programming.
Their bodies moved in perfect sync — no emotion, no voice.
Just commands.
Just war.
Every soldier was a drone wrapped in flesh — the fusion of soul-energy manipulation and brutal machine logic.
They didn't question. They deployed.
And behind them came light.
Streaks of gold and white fire rained down from the heavens, each one trailing wings of flame and divine purpose.
Ecclesia Callei.
Where UNEX was a war machine, Ecclesia was a doctrine.
Their priests descended in formation — cloaks of silk and armor etched with divine word, their wings feathered in searing light.
Gold-threaded robes flowed behind them as they dropped from the sky, weapons drawn like relics of myth.
Some bore flaming halberds. Others, chains of light that danced like living scripture.
Their voices rose in unified chant — not words, but resonance.
Judgment made flesh.
And still the beast waited — as if daring them to strike first.
High above the wreckage, Jinhai stood at the broken edge of the Haven's roof, watching it all unfold.
His frost shield was fading, fracturing under the heat. Ash drifted through the air like snow.
Beside him, Soryn said nothing.
The city screamed below.
The sky had turned to fire.
And between it all stood a single truth —
There's no turning back now, Jinhai thought. Not for me. Not for her. Not for the world we knew.
He closed his eyes for just a moment, feeling the weight of the world pressing in.
Then he stepped forward — into the storm.
—END CHAPTER 4—