- A few hours earlier, near the ruined village -
The aircraft knifed through the clouds, black against an even darker sky.
Inside, the lights turned green. The aircraft slowed down right as the hatch hissed open.
"Drop now." a calm voice said in their ears. "Division One, you're on the ground in twelve seconds."
Two silhouettes stepped into the wind and jumped.
The woman fell first, a railgun already in her hands. At the last second, she aimed straight down and pulled the trigger. A brutal shot right into the earth. The blast slowed her fall just enough for her to land on one knee.
Her partner came down a second later.
He held a greatsword taller than his shoulder, edge glowing a steady orange. As he fell, he dragged the blade along a pine from crown to root. The tree split clean in half, stealing most of his momentum before he hit the ground.
The man exhaled once.
"Lighthouse, Division One on site" he said, scanning the horizon with his eyes. "No visual yet."
Static scratched through their earpieces, then a familiar female voice came through. Cool. Sharp. Slightly amused.
"Alteea here. Copy, Division One. You're at ground zero of the anomaly. I still don't have any other signals on it. Be careful… And try not to erase the entire treeline this time..."
The swordsman glanced at the split pine.
"No promises" he muttered.
The village lay ahead of them.
Or what was left of it.
Collapsed roofs still burned in slow orange waves. Smoke crawled into the air. Bodies lay where people had fallen mid-run, mid-reach, mid-scream. No movement. No cries. Only the soft hiss of dying fire.
"Fortitude scans said six, maybe seven" the woman said. "That's pretty high..."
The warrior lifted his sword into a ready stance. "Then it must be here somewhere."
The two walked forward in a slow pace. The greatsword's orange edge glowed brighter now. The railgun hummed under the woman's grip, red lines slowly pulsing along its rings.
Alteea spoke again.
"Reminder: you were not sent just for a Nyx. The anomaly we picked up wasn't standard. It had a human pulse. Nyx signature. It spiked once, then vanished."
"Human with a Nyx signature, huh?" the woman frowned. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking" Alteea replied. "Eyes open."
The man slowed down.
"Something feels wrong" he said quietly.
He never finished the sentence.
A black blur appeared from behind a broken doorway, already leaping towards the man, impossibly fast.
Claws swept across his back.
Metal screamed as the man's armor split open like paper. Heat burned across his spine.
The woman planted her foot, railgun already pointed toward the Nyx.
But she fired a second too late, missing by a hair.
The beam ripped a molten line through a half-collapsed house and into the forest beyond, turning wood into smoking coal.
"I got a signal, yayy!" Alteea snapped in their ears. "Reading fortitude six-point-eight. That's your guest. Don't let it touch you again."
"Trying..." the warrior grunted.
The Nyx was already rushing him.
He met it head-on.
His sword's glow climbed from orange toward a warm yellow. He raised it above his head, and swung with all his might.
The Nyx blocked with its claws. The impact sent a shockwave across the street, shattering the nearest windows.
He slid back a step, shifted his stance, and slammed his greatsword into the ground. Dirt and ash exploded upward, blinding the Nyx for a second.
That second was enough.
He stepped in and sliced through one of its limbs.
But the severed arm started growing itself back before it even finished falling.
"Oh, that's cute" Alteea muttered in the earpieces. "Eon multiplier at forty-one percent. Do you want the railgun overcharged or are we pretending to be subtle?"
"Overcharge it" the woman said, gripping her railgun harder.
Lines along the railgun brightened. The rings around the barrel began to spin, faster and faster. A low vibration crawled into the air. Ash and leaves lifted off the ground and hovered.
The Nyx slammed into the man again. Claws raked across his shoulder. A few blood drops splashed on the ground. He staggered, but he didn't step back.
He planted his heel and punched the creature in what could be considered its head.
The impact sent it skidding along the dirt, before it caught itself on a broken wall and stopped. For a moment, it froze, like it was… surprised by the man's strength.
"Fifty-eight percent" Alteea said. "Your Eon railgun is past safe. Just don't die and we'll call it even."
The woman didn't answer.
The railgun screamed as the charge peaked. Rings spun so fast they became a blur. The air in front of the barrel warped.
The Nyx moved.
So did she.
The trigger clicked.
A beam erupted from the barrel, turning energy into a straight line of red light.
The beam carved through the Nyx's center, through the wreckage behind it, and into the distant treeline. Trees vanished where it passed, reduced to dust and empty air.
The red ray disintegrated everything in its way.
Then it suddenly stopped.
Silence crashed back in.
The Nyx was gone.
Only slow-falling particles remained, each speck shifting from black to ember to a soft gold before fading.
The man lifted his sword. Its glow slowly dimmed. Blood dripped from the torn edges of his armor.
The woman lowered the railgun. The barrel smoked. Her hands were shaking.
"Target neutralized" she said, breathing hard.
"Division One, I just logged a very high-energy discharge" Alteea said. "Status?"
"Area clear" the man replied. "One Vanguard wounded. Weapon stable. Village… gone."
The last gilded particles of Nyx remains drifted down, like ashes.
The woman watched them fall.
"Alteea" she said quietly. "About that anomaly..."
Alteea didn't answer right away.
"When I first saw the spike, I thought it was the Nyx" she said finally. "It wasn't. Human heartbeat. Terrified. And carrying a Nyx signature. I can't categorize it, though. Never seen a reading like it before... "
"So it was just an error?"
"No. The signature was definitely strong. I don't know how strong, but it went past our graphs. Can't even calculate the fortitude..."
"Then what even happened!? We risked our lives for nothing!?" The man snapped.
"Then it vanished completely. No trail. No decay. Nothing."
"So where is it now?" the woman asked.
"If I knew" Alteea sighed, "I wouldn't be asking you to return home."
The man looked past the ruins, toward the direction of Neoshima.
"Something survived and escaped..." he said.
The comms fell silent. For some time, none of them spoke. The two warriors just stood there and looked at the slow fall of Nyx remains - something that looked like ashes dressed in gold... You could even say... Gilded Ashes - the proof that hope burns brightest before it dies.
"And whatever it is…" the man added, "This wasn't the real disaster."
--- Every Arc in this story represents a virtue. The things that oppose darkness. You may skip if you wish, but these questions answer the very things that make us... Human ---
What is hope?
Is it the power to make the wildest dreams reality?
Is it a beautiful lie we tell ourselves, just to keep from drowning?
Is it a debt to owe our future self, a vow we cannot afford to break?
Is it the promise of a sunrise, or the bravery to face the long cold night until it ends?
Is it a silent rebellion? An act of defiance in the face of fate?
Is it a blind promise we make to escape reality?
Is it the quiet strength to wait, to endure, when everything inside you is screaming to give up?
Is it the fire that burns within every one of us?
Or… Is it nothing more than the gilded ashes that remain? Fragments of a fire that once burned bright, embers dressed in gold, daring us to believe that even ruin can shine?