The Academy's mission board glowed beneath soft white light, dozens of requests scrolling in orderly columns. Roy barely glanced at most of them—until one entry pulsed faintly at the center of the board.
C-rank. High priority.
Jean stopped beside it, her usual stern expression softening with professional interest as she read aloud.
"The daughter of Lady Aramelle, House of Shaman, has received a death threat.
Assassination date specified.
Bodyguards requested."
Lyra let out a low whistle, running a hand through her silver hair. "Nobles, huh? Those usually pay well, but they come with baggage. And drama."
Taro adjusted his glasses, eyes narrowed as he scanned the detailed breakdown. "If the threat includes a date and time, it's not empty intimidation. It means the perpetrator is confident in their capabilities or their system. This is an orchestrated job, not a drunkard's letter."
Roy clenched his fists, feeling the familiar, steady hum in his chest—the Fluxite core responding to his resolve. He wanted to move. He wanted to act. "Then we take it. The longer they wait, the more confident they become."
Jean studied him for a moment, her analytical gaze searching his. She knew that look—the desire to dive into the fire. She nodded, giving in. "Fine. But stay sharp. This doesn't feel like a simple escort. I want perimeter, history, and threat analysis done before we even knock on the door."
The Shaman estate sprawled across the hillside like a fortress disguised as luxury. White stone walls gleamed beneath the sun, crimson banners snapping in the wind. Tension hung thick in the air.
Inside the grand hall, Lady Aramelle awaited them. Tall, elegant, draped in flowing crimson silks, she regarded the team with cool, almost insulting appraisal. Her gaze lingered on Roy, faintly dismissive of his youth.
"You're the students assigned to protect my daughter?" she asked, her voice a low, perfectly controlled drawl. "I asked the Academy for proven Pulsars, not a study group. You look… young."
Jean stepped forward without hesitation, her stance radiating calm authority. "We are Academy-trained, ma'am. Our records are impeccable. Your daughter will be safe, and any threat will be neutralized."
Lady Aramelle raised a brow, unconvinced. "We'll see. Follow me."
She led them into the inner courtyard.
Faylen stood near a marble fountain—fifteen years old, long dark hair tied with ribbons, emerald eyes bright with mischief. The moment she spotted Roy, her face lit up, and she dropped her book.
"Ooooh," she gasped, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You're handsome!"
Roy froze, stammering. "Uh—"
She darted forward and wrapped both arms around his. The contact was surprising, and the Fluxite core in his chest gave a tiny, involuntary thrum.
"You are my bodyguard, right?" she asked, looking up at him with wide eyes.
Jean's eye twitched; her control was momentarily fractured. "Roy."
"I didn't—!" Roy lifted his hands helplessly, caught between professional duty and a clingy noble teenager.
Faylen squeezed tighter, pressing her cheek against his arm. "You're warm. I like that. They said the bodyguards would be big and grumpy, but you're soft."
Jean's Pyrrion aura crackled faintly, causing the air around her to shimmer with heat. Her voice was pure ice. "Release him. Now. This is an operation, not a parlor game."
Lady Aramelle clapped once, completely ignoring the student tension. "You'll remain here until the assassination date passes. A threat like this means compromise. Guards have been bribed. Servants watched. Spies everywhere. Trust no one."
Her gaze hardened, falling squarely on Jean. "Do not fail me. My house and lineage depend on this girl."
The team split up immediately, establishing a tactical rhythm.
Kira inspected the guards' rotations, her massive shield resting against her back. She reported back to Jean via their comms. "They're trained, yes, but morale's fractured. They're terrified of a non-conventional threat. Fear's already done half the intruder's work."
Taro examined the original death threat letter under a handheld spectroscopic lens. "The ink is cheap, mass-produced. Smudged strokes suggest it was written with deliberate sloppiness. But the wording is formal, almost liturgical. It was designed to feel inevitable, like an invocation."
Lyra prowled the kitchens and servant passages. "Spoiled fish, nervous cooks, and one guy muttering about 'crimson omens' in the washroom. The psychological warfare is already in progress. Real welcoming place."
Roy wandered into the mansion's vast, forgotten library—a place of quiet shadows—and stopped cold between the stacks.
Hidden behind a row of ancient, oversized ledgers lay a black dagger, its hilt etched with crude, crimson runes. Cold radiated from it, warping the very stillness of the air.
His Fluxite core reacted instantly.
The hum in his chest deepened, resonance spiking violently as if the core were recognizing something—a familiar, antagonistic signal. Not the hunger he sometimes felt near raw Neutrons, but a perfect, hostile alignment.
Roy pulled his hand back quickly, feeling the skin tingle. "Not now," he muttered to the core, forcing his focus.
Jean appeared silently in the doorway, alerted by the sudden spike in their internal comms. "What did you find, Roy? Your heart rate just accelerated."
He showed her the dagger, lifting it gingerly by the blade with a cloth.
Her expression darkened, Pyrrion energy instinctively coiling around her fist. "That's cursed. Not common Neutron residue—worse. That is… deep."
The dagger pulsed faintly—a subsonic pressure that only Roy seemed to truly perceive—whispering something inaudible:
Merge… recognize… merge…
Roy felt a profound chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the stone. "What is it, Jean? It's reacting to my core."
Jean's voice dropped to a near whisper, her eyes fixed on the crimson runes. "Cult of Vanes artifacts. They're experimenting—forcing Fluxite lattice compatibility between human hosts and corrupted Neutrons. They don't want fuel; they want a new kind of soldier."
The Fluxite hum in Roy's chest steadied, no longer panicked, but alert—a deep, territorial drone.
The team reconvened in the dining hall, the polished wood reflecting the flicker of candlelight.
Jean spoke first, her tone professional but urgent. "This wasn't a ransom bluff. The dagger confirms it—the Cult of Vanes is involved. Taro, what's the Vanes' motivation?"
Taro stood rigid. "The Vanes are an apocalyptic cult. They claim to restore a pre-Pulsar age. They don't want money; they want catalysts. Fear, funding, and high-quality human targets go hand in hand with their ritual goals."
Lady Aramelle's composure cracked for the first time. "Then my daughter is—?"
Roy glanced at Faylen, who was sitting beside him, still clinging shamelessly to his arm, sipping tea with an air of unconcern. "They won't kill her instantly. They'll use her as leverage. A hostage, or worse, a ritual component."
Faylen smiled sweetly up at Roy. "You'll protect me, right, Roy? I trust your core more than I trust these gloomy old guards."
Jean nearly choked on air. "Enough. Faylen, sit. Over. There." She gestured fiercely to a seat across the table.
Faylen completely ignored her, leaning her head on Roy's shoulder.
Lyra leaned back in her chair, a perfect smirk on her face. "Wow. Jean. Jealous that the nobleman's daughter prefers the Umbryon aesthetic to the Pyrrion heat?"
"I am not!" Jean snapped, slamming her cup down.
The laughter and tension died instantly as the mansion shuddered. The heavy, polished silverware danced on the table.
A deep, guttural, non-human roar echoed from the courtyard, followed by the distant clash of metal.
The main doors exploded inward, splintered wood scattering across the hall.
Hooded figures poured into the hall, robes marked with the jagged, spiraling sigil of the Vanes. Their leader stepped forward, his face hidden behind a grotesque bone mask carved with the same crimson runes as the dagger.
"House of Shaman," he hissed, his voice amplified and distorted. "You were warned. The girl comes with us. She is required for the Great Alignment."
Behind him shuffled twisted hybrids—half-human, half-Neutron, their flesh marred by shifting obsidian plates, crimson eyes glowing with malice.
Roy's Fluxite core thrummed sharply, resonance climbing now to an alarming pitch. Jean's flames flared, bathing her in defensive light.
"This is it," she whispered to Roy, her focus absolute. "The Cult of Vanes. Don't hold back. Use the core."
Roy drew his pistols, wind and darkness already coiling around his hands. "Then let's end this."
Lyra surged forward, twin water blades spiraling, a blue flash in the candlelight. "You idiots picked the wrong mansion! We were bored!"
Kira blocked a jagged spear strike from one of the hybrids, the force of the impact sending her skidding, but she held firm. "Taro! The hybrids are too fast!"
Puls waves spread instantly from Taro, focusing on Kira and Roy, reinforcing muscle and dulling pain. "You're clear! Go!"
Jean's fire sword roared to life, a searing arc of crimson, cleaving through a corrupted axe. "Fodder. Roy, take the flank!"
Roy moved like a gale-shadow, pistols crackling with wind and darkness, pinning cultists to the marble walls with bursts of pressurized Umbryon energy. The increased Fluxite resonance fed his precision, stabilizing every motion until his movements were machine-perfect.
Jean met his gaze briefly over the chaos. "Good. Keep pushing. Don't let them near the girl."
💀 Capture and Interrogation: The Apex Threat
The final cultist fell, pinned beneath Kira's shield—the sheer weight and force snapping his ribs. His bone mask cracked, revealing a gaunt, terrified face carved with crimson, bleeding runes.
"Kill me," he hissed, spitting blood. "You won't stop what's coming. The Great Alignment is inevitable."
Jean pressed her scorching blade to his throat, ignoring the heat. "Why this house? Why the girl? What is the Alignment?"
The man laughed, blood bubbling through his teeth. "Ransom is nothing. We gather coin, shards, marrow—fuel for the Vanes of Despair."
Roy stepped closer, his Fluxite core suddenly screaming at him. "What's that? Tell me."
The cultist's eyes burned brighter, a manic light consuming his fear. "Six champions. Masters of the elements—Zephyros, Veyra, Pyrrion, Terralith, Voltaris, Umbryon. Six masters, each a corrupted Pulsar."
Taro went pale, clutching his glasses. "Six S-rank entities… Impossible."
"And above them," the cultist screamed, his voice rising to a religious fervor, "the seventh—Aetherion, Lord of Space! Gravity, void, stars—he bends them all to the Spiral!"
Roy's Fluxite core shuddered violently, an internal, tectonic shift, the resonance spiking at the name Aetherion like a struck bell.
Jean pressed harder, the flames licking his skin. "Where are they gathering? Where is the ritual?"
The cultist convulsed once, violently, as dark, corrupting Neutron energy consumed him from within, leaving only a rapidly charring husk and the smell of ozone.
Silence settled. Ash and splintered wood lingered in the air.
Lyra whistled softly. "Six champions and a space controller. Great. Just when I thought this was just a hostage situation."
Kira crossed her arms, her face grim. "We fought pawns. This was a probing attack to test the Shaman defenses and eliminate the guards."
Taro murmured, kneeling to study the charred remains. "They're trying to create something beyond the Pulsars. Something… divine."
Jean turned slowly to Roy, noticing his clenched fists and the shallow rhythm of his breathing. The profound Fluxite hum beneath his skin hadn't faded; it was still vibrating with residual shock.
"You felt it," she said quietly, her professional mask dropping for a moment. "That name. Aetherion."
He nodded, forcing the words out. "My Fluxite reacted. Violently. Like it… recognized the threat. Not just an enemy, but the apex of the threat."
Faylen—who had been miraculously silent during the entire interrogation—snaked her hand around his arm again, her emerald eyes fixed on him. "You were amazing, Roy. You're going to be a champion too, aren't you?"
Jean's aura flickered in annoyance. "Roy. We'll talk. Alone."
Lyra smirked from the corner. "Can't wait."
Lady Aramelle entered the ruined hall, silk trailing across the debris, her face a mask of calculated horror. "Is it over?"
Jean nodded, pushing the tactical briefing aside for a moment. "For now, Lady Aramelle. But this goes far beyond your house. You were a means to an end."
Roy stared at the burned runes on the floor where the cultist lay.
Six champions.
A lord of space.
Deep within his chest, the Fluxite core pulsed—low, steady, and terrifyingly resonant.
Not hunger.
Anticipation.
This was only the beginning.