Deep Jungle Laos-Vietnam Border
Approx. 11 hours after crash
Rain poured like warm knives through the dense canopy, hissing as it hit the smoldering wreckage. Steam rose from the scorched earth. The night was heavy with humidity, shadows clinging to every tree like parasites. Atlas Vale limped through twisted branches, his Mythralite arm glowing faintly to cut the dark. His suit was partially activated shoulder plating cracked, visor dimmed, and internal power cells running on reserve. Blood streaked down his jaw, but his focus never wavered. Stella moved beside him, one arm clutching her ribs, the other dragging a broken power cable turned into a makeshift spear. Her suit had saved her but just barely.
They had hiked for hours, guided by instinct, hunger, and the distant smell of smoke not theirs. Something else. Something older. Atlas stopped, raising a fist.
Stella froze. "What?"
He pointed.
A stone archway stood buried in the jungle.
Ancient. Overgrown. Covered in moss and bone charms. Carvings in a forgotten language spiraled up its sides symbols that twisted the longer you stared at them.
"What the hell is this?" she whispered.
Atlas knelt, running his fingers across a familiar mark.
A half-mask carving. Same as the tree.
"Some kind of waystation," he said. "Old. Maybe centuries. Maybe more."
Stella exhaled. "This isn't just some jungle, is it?"
"No," Atlas said. "This place… it's on the Pale Order's map."
"How do you know that?"
He showed her the HUD projection from his wrist a fractured map file from the Pale Order's leaked documents. The coordinates matched. Barely.
"We weren't shot down at random," he said. "We were lured."
Suddenly, a low hum vibrated through the earth beneath their feet.
Atlas drew his arm cannon.
Stella readied her broken spear.
Something was waking.
A faint glow seeped from the stone under the archway.
Then.
A whisper.
Low. Metallic. Ancient.
Two arrive… marked by war… chased by fire…
Stella froze. "That wasn't you, right?"
Atlas shook his head slowly.
From behind the arch, the jungle moved.
Figures appeared.
Three.
Tall. Silent.
Each wore a different mask one a cracked bird beak, one a horned oni, one a full veil etched with script.
They raised no weapons.
They simply watched.
Atlas stepped forward, tense but unafraid. "Are you the Masked Circle?"
No response.
Then the center figure, voice like layered steel, spoke:
"You were not supposed to find us. Not yet." The jungle air went cold unnaturally cold. The three masked figures didn't flinch. But Atlas and Stella both turned, senses screaming.
Something was coming.
The rustling stopped.
Then laughter.
High-pitched. Wet. Off-rhythm. The kind that makes your skin crawl.
From the canopy above them, something landed hard a distorted creature in a rotting jester's garb, its face painted like a broken clown mask, skin melting around the corners, and its legs replaced with serrated, obsidian blades.
It drooled a slick, black oil that hissed as it hit the ground.
Stella staggered back, eyes wide. "What the hell is ?"
SHUNK.
The clown-demon leapt, a spinning blur of laughing madness. Its leg-blade slashed a tree in half mid-air, angling straight for Atlas's neck.
CLANG!
Atlas blocked it with his Mythralite arm sparks flying as metal screamed against metal.
Then more movement.
Dark fog billowed from the trees behind them—thick, choking black smoke, but it wasn't natural. Within it, two smoky figures emerged, only their glowing eyes visible. Their bodies shifted like shadows, intangible one moment, solid the next. Smoke bled from their mouths like reversed fire.
One spoke in a voice layered with screams. "You should have stayed in the light."
They charged.
Then came the next wave.
Atlas barely had time to react before a group of hunched demons burst from the foliage armor made of bone and iron, carrying scavenged weapons. Machetes. Blunt hammers. Even a rusted RPG.
Stella's eyes widened. "Demons use rocket launchers now?!"
Atlas ducked as one of them launched the RPG the rocket screaming through the jungle and smashing into the old stone arch. The explosion threw them all back in a rain of dirt and roots.
Atlas coughed, rising slowly, wiping blood from his lip. "Really? Demons with weapons now? What's next, a tax system?"
One of the armored demons lunged at him with a war axe.
Atlas threw a punch just a normal, grounded, human punch.
It connected square in the demon's jaw.
THUD.
The demon's head snapped back and just fell over.
Atlas blinked, winded. "That was… normal-speed."
The demon twitched once, then stopped moving.
He looked at his hand.
"I think that one wasn't even fully possessed."
Behind them, the masked figure in the veil raised a hand.
A glyph burst to life in the air bright blue. Ancient.
Suddenly, the shadow demons screamed, their bodies unraveling like wet paper. The glyph burned brighter and brighter until.
FLASH.
Everything went silent.
When the light faded, all that remained of the ambush were ashes and twisted metal, scattered in a ring around Atlas and Stella.
Only the masked three remained unmoving. Untouched.
Atlas panted, crouching beside Stella. "You okay?"
She wiped blood from her temple. "We need to retire harder next time."
The center mask the bird-beaked one finally spoke again.
"Now you understand why we hide. Why we kill in silence. The Hive knows you're here."
Atlas stood slowly. "Then show us what you know. Teach us. Help us stop this."
There was a long pause.
Then the lead figure nodded once.
"Follow us. But know this once you step into the Pale Trail… there is no coming back."
The jungle was breathing.
Not metaphorically. It breathed with shallow, raspy gusts that carried whispers not made by wind. The trees bent unnaturally. The air was soaked in black fog. Ash drifted down like snowfall, only it reeked of blood and oil.
Atlas stood with Stella behind him, arm raised, Mythralite glowing dimly barely enough power left for another full-energy strike.
The demon clown was laughing again.
Its head twisted backward bones cracking as it stared at them from the wrong angle. Its blade-legs tapped impatiently across the ruined shrine stones. Behind it, the smoke-demons hissed, reshaping their bodies like melting wax.
And above them, shapes moved in the trees. Heavily armed shadow-creatures crouched with serrated blades and rusted RPGs strapped to their backs.
"Getting surrounded," Stella muttered.
Atlas scanned the area. "Two more minutes and we'll be out of juice."
The clown-demon giggled louder and raised a legready to pounce.
Then it stopped.
Mid-motion.
Its body shook.
A clean line appeared across its midsection.
SHNK.
The top half slid sideways then fell.
Blood sprayed in an arc. Not red. Not black. Something in-between.
The demon's head hit the jungle floor with a wet thud. Behind it a man with silver eyes, wind-swept hair, and a scarred coat dragged in the mud. A sword, long and clean, gleamed in his right hand.
Katzuki.
"Sorry I'm late," he muttered, stepping through the corpse. "Traffic was murder."
Beside him quieter than silence itself the Plague Mask appeared.
He didn't walk. He materialized as though the shadows had shaped themselves into a man. His curved blade, still dripping, vibrated softly as if it were humming a prayer.
Atlas and Stella turned fast, weapons up.
"Hold!" Katzuki said. "Not your enemies."
"Debatable," Stella replied, eyeing the blood on his coat.
Then, Atlas saw him.
The Mask.
The same one from the temple footage. From the mountains. From legends.
But for the Plague Mask… the world stopped.
He hadn't seen his stepbrother since the day he disappeared into the 7th Chaos of Heavens. Since the day Atlas was still a child. Since before the Archons.
And now… here he stood. Grown. Armored. Determined.
Atlas Vale.
The name screamed in his skull but he said nothing.
He couldn't.
He wasn't ready.
Instead, he simply tilted his head, his blade lowering slightly not in surrender, but in… acknowledgment.
Atlas, oblivious to the blood-deep connection, watched him cautiously.
"You're the one from China."
Plague Mask didn't reply.
"Who are you?"
Still nothing.
Katzuki rolled his eyes. "Don't bother. He barely talks to me and I'm his best friend-slash-occasional babysitter."
"I've seen that mask before," Atlas continued, eyes narrowing. "And that blade. You cut through creatures like they were paper."
Plague Mask finally spoke, voice low and dry:
"You shouldn't be here."
"Believe me, I agree," Stella muttered.
Atlas took a step forward. "You fight the Hive, don't you?"
Plague Mask didn't answer but his silence was answer enough.
Before more could be said the trees lit up with lightning.
BOOOOM!
The sky tore open.
A bolt of white-hot plasma struck the jungle, incinerating a circle of demons that had begun to regroup.
Then a man landed in the center of the inferno.
Boots crashing into earth. Cloak billowing. Fire swirling at his back. Lightning crackled off his chest like a living storm.
Captain Spirit.
Eyes glowing with elemental fury, fists radiating plasma and thunder.
He rose slowly, lifting his arm and pointing forward.
A second bolt of lightning split the sky frying a demon into ash mid-scream.
Captain Spirit turned slightly, his voice ringing with layered power.
"Sorry I'm late. I had to burn through a portal filled with teeth."
Katzuki smirked. "You always show up with fireworks."
"Would you prefer I walked?" Spirit quipped. "You left a crater. It was rude not to invite me."
The Plague Mask nodded once to Spirit.
Then Captain Spirit looked at Atlas and Stella.
"So," he said, stepping closer, lightning flickering in his palms. "We're all here now. The old world, the masked world… and the new."
He looked at the Plague Mask directly.
"We should talk. Before more things try to eat us."
A guttural roar echoed in the distance too deep to be animal. Too loud to be human.
Atlas looked around at the others.
Katzuki. The Plague Mask. Captain Spirit. Stella.
A strange team.
A broken team.
But maybe… just maybe…
A necessary one.
--- To Bo Continued...