The air cracked.
"Vorren, left!" Jex shouted, eyes flaring gold as he threw his hand forward. A ripple of space bent midair — a gravity knot — crushing a Voyari into the floor like a paper cup.
Vorren didn't speak. He raised both arms, palms up, and pulled. Dozens of silver-skinned Voyari, mid-charge, were yanked into the sky as if gravity had flipped. They screamed without mouths. He closed his fists — the void collapsed. Their bodies folded like cloth.
"Clear north!" yelled Solin, psychic flame trailing from her feet. She blurred forward — her hands coated in molten light. She passed straight through a Voyari's projection and tore the real one from behind, fingers burning through its head.
Their enemies kept coming — tall, skeletal creatures with glowing bone-horns and long fingers that flickered between realities. Their forms split and twisted, illusions upon illusions, every second showing a different face or body. Silver skin cracked to show roots of color and energy beneath, shifting, pulsing.
From the backline, Kaien clenched his jaw and raised one finger. "Now," he whispered.
A beam of sound — visible, sharp — erupted forward, slicing through seven Voyari in a line. The noise didn't echo. It rang in their bones until they shattered. Behind him, hundreds more poured in.
That's when the masked one moved.
No name. Just a step.
He walked forward, calmly. The ground behind him cracked, lines of psychic pressure expanding from his feet like shockwaves.
One Voyari lunged — its arms turning into blades mid-air. The psychic didn't dodge. With a glance, the creature froze mid-motion. Twitching. Then fell, blood trailing from its nose, eyes, ears — its mind overloaded.
"Fifty more ahead!" Jex shouted.
The masked psychic looked up. No words.
Then they all heard them.
Screams — from the minds of the Voyari themselves.
He didn't raise a hand. Didn't run. He just looked.
And twenty Voyari collapsed.
Their illusions faded. Their bodies followed.
The last Voyari fell, its silver form splintering into ash. The gate's inner realm fell silent — cracked sky above, floating debris all around. The masked psychic stood still, gaze fixed on the broken horizon. His aura was faint now, almost fading. Drained.
Behind him, Jex spoke quietly. "Now."
Kaien was the first to move.
A sound spike — tuned to disrupt mental channels — exploded from his palm and drove straight into the masked psychic's back. Not enough to kill. Just enough to knock him off balance.
Vorren followed instantly, dragging space itself. Gravity folded around the masked one like a cage, crushing inward.
Solin raised her hands, fire bursting along her arms — then twisted it into something else. Psychic searing — it targeted memory, not flesh.
The masked psychic staggered.
He didn't scream. He didn't turn.
But he moved.
His body shuddered, then pulsed — a shockwave erupted, breaking the pressure zone Vorren had created. The red sand flared around him. Pieces of shattered Voyari flew into the sky like shrapnel.
Jex lunged. His psychic blades locked to the nervous system — invisible, precise. He struck the back of the masked psychic's neck.
For a split second, the world froze.
Then the masked psychic dropped to one knee.
Solin stepped forward, flames flickering. "He'll wake. Finish it."
But Kaien hesitated. "He shouldn't have gone down that easy…"
Then they saw it — not blood, not cracks — but his fingers twitching. Barely. He was still conscious.
And he was listening.
Solin stepped forward, eyes wide with panic. "What the fuck are you doing? Hurry up and kill him — he can use biokinesis!"
Before Kaien could speak, Jex raised both arms and fired.
Two psychic blades — thin, fast, nearly invisible — shot forward with a snap. They tore through the masked psychic's shoulders, piercing clean through and jutting out from his back.
He froze.
No scream. No motion. Just stillness — spine curved slightly, head down, black hoodie torn and soaked.
Then nothing.
The masked psychic stopped moving.
A silence settled. No more Voyari. No breath. Just the slow hiss of reality folding around the Red Gate's inner field.
Kaien stepped back, his voice low. "He's dead."
Solin looked around the warped battlefield, then turned to the others. "If we leave him here, he'll be eaten by Voyari."
Vorren said nothing.
Jex pulled his coat tighter. "Good."
They turned away, one by one, leaving the body behind — two blades still lodged in his back, vanishing slowly into the red fog as the gate began to collapse.
...
It had been three years since that incident.
The sky above Mythara was cloudless, but the air felt heavy. A man stood in the shadow of a broken tower, eyes fixed upward. His black hair hung just to his shoulders, unmoving in the still wind. His eyes — equally black — held nothing. No sadness. No joy. Just silence.
He walked through the crowded streets like a ghost, unnoticed and uncaring. People rushed past, screens flashed news, vendors shouted. He heard none of it.
Then the screaming started.
A ripple tore through the air — soundless, yet deafening inside the skull. A Voyari had slipped through the dimensional fractures and entered the city. Tall, silver-skinned, its form wavered in and out of perception. Its gaze alone shattered minds.
In seconds, a hundred people dropped — blood leaking from their ears, eyes wide in terror, thoughts ruptured.
The creature turned toward the next block.
That's when she landed.
A blur of black hair — a girl, young, calm. She held a blade in one hand, etched near the hilt with a simple number: 2.
The Voyari turned toward her.
She didn't flinch.
The blade shifted in her grip, reacting to her thought. In an instant, it turned icy blue — cold mist trailing from the edge.
The girl lunged forward.
Her blade, now glowing icy blue, slashed upward — clean, fast, aimed for the creature's head. But it wasn't there.
The Voyari's form flickered — then split.
One, two, three versions of it shimmered in a tight circle around her. Each identical. Each grinning with those stretched, bone-white jaws. Her eyes narrowed.
"Cheap tricks."
She spun, swinging the blade in a wide arc — but it passed through air.
Behind her, the real one struck.
A long, clawed arm crashed into her side — sending her skidding across the pavement. Her back slammed into a shattered car. Metal groaned under the pressure.
Before she could move, the Voyari blurred forward — illusions dancing behind it like afterimages. Its claws extended, sharpened to thin blades. It moved faster than it should. Stronger than it looked.
She raised her blade to parry — too slow.
It grabbed her by the throat.
The illusions faded. This was real.
She struggled, eyes flashing pale blue, blade twitching in her hand. Frost crackled down her arm, but it wasn't enough.
Its free hand rose — psychic energy crackling. Mind-shatter. The same attack that had killed a hundred already.
Then — everything stopped.
Literally.
The Voyari froze mid-motion.
Its claws hung inches from her face. The flickering psychic energy in its hand stopped moving — frozen like a paused frame. Even its illusions stilled.
She dropped to the ground, gasping. Looked up.
The man was standing ten steps away.
Still. Quiet. His black hair fell over one eye, his hands tucked in the pockets of his worn hoodie. No glow. No dramatic aura.
But his eyes were fixed on the Voyari.
His presence pressed down on the space itself.
The girl understood instantly. He had stopped it.
Without wasting a breath, she shot forward — blade-first.
The icy fragments of the Voyari scattered across the pavement, evaporating into a thin mist.
Kaela lowered her blade, panting. "You… did you awaken an ability just now?"
The man didn't answer.
He turned his head slightly, shadows cutting across the lower half of his face. Still expressionless. Still silent.
She took a cautious step forward. "At least tell me your name. Mine's Kaela. Rank Two."
A pause.
Then he spoke — voice low, flat, not cold, just empty.
"Eason."
And with that, he turned and walked off, vanishing into the crowd, like he'd never been there at all.