Far to the south—within one of the cities belonging to the Iron Rebirth Alliance—an anomaly sent shockwaves through the entire population. From the depths of the wild forest, a tide of Primal creatures surged forward… and at their center, two Origin-class Entities advanced toward the city's fortress.
Emergency sirens wailed.
Within moments, hundreds of supers assembled at the frontline, bracing for the incoming assault.
They knew they couldn't defeat two Origin-class Entities…
But victory wasn't the goal.
They only needed time—time for thousands of civilians to escape before the fortress fell.
Thin smoke drifted through the air as the sirens continued to cry from the watchtowers. Atop the main battlement stood Commander Zaron, face tight, both hands gripping his scanner until his knuckles whitened.
He aimed the device toward the blackened forest in the distance.
"Where did these things come from…? Why didn't our radar pick up anything…?" he muttered, his voice nearly swallowed by the cold wind.
A soldier sprinted up the battlement stairs. "Report, Commander! The Primals are advancing rapidly toward the northern wall!"
"What?"
Zaron snapped his head around, staring at the hundreds of supers gathered at the front—hundreds of faces waiting for their fate.
"Who's posted there?"
"Dragan, Marko… and roughly forty others."
"Forty?" Zaron pressed his fingers to his forehead, exhaling sharply. "That's all?"
"Yes, Commander."
"Tell them to hold. I'll send backup… if I make it in time."
"Understood, Commander!"
Zaron strode into the center of the field, standing tall before the assembled supers. The wind carried the scent of dust and fear. He raised his hand to shoulder height.
"TANKS—activate!"
In an instant, the frontline ignited with shimmering shields, each one locking into place to form a wall of light guarding the fortress. The energy resonated like thunder trapped within the sky's ribs.
And then… the Primals appeared at the base of the hill—massive, frenzied, charging like resurrected beasts of an ancient age.
But they were not the true terror.
The two Origin-class Entities—who should have been visible first—were nowhere to be seen.
Because their colossal forms were cloaked, projecting illusions that fooled both radar and the naked eye.
"STRIKERS!" Zaron roared, voice cracking.
"PREPARE!"
The Strikers in the second and third rows raised their weapons, energy flaring within them like embers fanned by a storm. In their eyes there was no longer hope—only resolve tangled with fear.
They knew…
Their end might be here.
And death was no longer a possibility—it was a near certainty.
"Do not fear!" Commander Zaron shouted, though the trembling in the hand gripping his weapon betrayed him. His voice was strained, but his stance remained unbroken before his troops.
"If we fall today… we fall with honor!
Neka živi Gvozdeni Savez!"(Long live the Iron Alliance!)
"Neka živi Gvozdeni Savez!"
The answering roar from hundreds of supers shook the fortress, a single battle cry that heated the night air.
Spotlights swept across the battlefield as the horde of Primals stormed forward, smashing soil and stone as if they weighed nothing.
But before the first impact landed—
"ARGH!!"
A scream tore through the sky, ripping the very air apart.
It was too loud, too sharp—pure force slamming directly into their eardrums.
The Tank shields shattered instantly, fracturing like glass caught in a cyclone.
Everyone on the battlement collapsed, covering their eyes and ears. Some screamed, others toppled backward in agony.
"BOOM! BOOM!"
Explosions followed—rapid, violent.
Each impact thundered through the earth, accompanied by shrieks of Primals crushed and hurled aside by something far larger than they were.
"AARRGGHHKK!!"
Commander Zaron forced his eyes open. His vision blurred, then slowly—sharply—returned.
And he froze.
Breathless.
Unable to believe what he saw.
In the ruined battlefield, thousands of Primals lay strewn across the ground—and amid the debris, dust, and flickering neon lights—
a lone figure was tearing through them.
One individual… moving too fast, too strong, every motion releasing shockwaves that annihilated anything in their path.
Zaron's face drained of color.
"ARGH!!"
The figure screamed wildly as they slaughtered the Primals, each swing obliterating them like fragile mud puppets. Blood, dust, and chunks of flesh erupted with every impact of raw force.
The gathered supers could only stare. Some stood frozen with mouths agape; others gripped their weapons tightly, unsure whether they were witnessing a savior… or a new threat.
Once the number of Primals dwindled, the true nightmare emerged.
From the darkness—
two colossal Origin-class Entities stepped into the light. Their tower-sized bodies shimmered with crawling energy that gathered at their throats, preparing to unleash a devastating blast.
But before they could fire—
SCHRAKK!!
SCHRAKK!!
Both heads were severed instantly, spinning through the air before crashing to the ground. Their giant bodies toppled seconds later, shaking the earth.
And in that same moment…
the mysterious figure vanished.
Gone like a shadow snatched by the wind.
Chaos erupted atop the battlement.
"Where did he go?!"
"That power… what the hell?"
"Search the entire perimeter! Move!"
Before anyone could move, several explosions detonated along the northern wall—followed by a shockwave roaring across the sky.
Everyone—civilians and supers alike—looked up.
High above,
a streak of light shot across the city's airspace like a hypersonic missile breaking the clouds.
In the blink of an eye—
the light vanished, leaving only the faint tremor of displaced air humming through the night.
----
Elara Queen's expression twisted into something feral and terrifying—like something ancient and vengeful had clawed its way into the depths of her soul. The energy around her roiled violently, black and white spiraling together like an uncontrollable storm.
Her face darkened, veins bulging across her temples and neck as if her body was straining against power far beyond its limit. Her eyes burned a deep crimson—not the ordinary red of rage, but a red that looked sharp enough to split someone's spirit apart.
Yet her gaze wasn't empty.
It hunted.
Searching for something—anything—to unleash her fury upon.
In a burst of impossible speed, her body shot across half the main plaza in an instant, whipping up a vortex so fierce it shattered the stone beneath her.
Then suddenly—
her eyes flashed, pupils fracturing light like shattering lightning.
A vision hit her.
A distant place was under siege, crushed beneath a swarm of Primal creatures. But this time, it wasn't just regular Primals—
Several Origin Titans were present, and behind them…
a silhouette of an Origin Entity—something far more dangerous than the ones she had encountered before.
Elara didn't hesitate.
Without warning, her black-white aura detonated outward, sending a shockwave rippling through the entire area. She drew her power inward, focusing every shred of it until her body compressed into a streak of blinding light.
In the next heartbeat—
Elara shot toward the location of the attack, leaving a fractured wake in the air where the sky itself seemed to split open behind her.
----
"Stop them! Stop them!" a young man in a tattered red uniform shouted—clearly an Academy student, though his uniform was torn, scratched, and splattered with blood.
In the next instant, his entire body ignited with energy, forming a suit of crimson armor reminiscent of an ancient warrior. With a shield forming over his left arm, he braced himself as a primal beast lunged at him—
Crash!
He slashed upward, his longsword cleaving straight through the creature's skull in a single motion.
His friends to the left and right were no less fierce.
A young man with a golden aura drew a bow forged entirely from energy and—
Tsiing!
He fired three arrows at once. Each arrow split into three mid-flight, puncturing nine primals in a blink.
Others swung spears, axes, and one of them spun a long chain with a spiked iron ball at the end. A single sweep sent three—sometimes four—primals bursting apart like clay dolls struck by a storm.
But the city was on the brink of collapse.
Half the main fortress had crumbled, rubble littered every street. Inside the walls, bodies were everywhere—some ordinary civilians, some fallen supers.
Screams, explosions, and the wet rip of tearing flesh fused into a single horrific symphony of war.
Outside the broken walls, several supers hovered weakly in the air, their bodies covered in wounds. They were desperately holding back regular-class Origin Titans—towering giants with bodies as hard as living stone.
They were clearly at their limits, yet they held on… even if only for a few seconds—seconds that meant life or death for thousands below.
"Alex!"
The armored young man turned sharply. His breath was ragged, but his eyes remained firm.
"We need to go… we can't win this!"
"Don't be a coward, Victoria!" Alex snapped. "This is our duty as Academy students!"
"We didn't come here to die, Alex!!" Victoria screamed, her knees finally giving way. She collapsed, shoulders trembling, her face twisted with exhaustion and despair.
"Stand up, Victoria!" one of their classmates shouted.
"We're going to die! All of us are going to die!" Victoria's voice cracked, panic spilling out of her. "Can't you see that!?"
Alex tightened his grip on his sword, jaw clenched hard.
"Then we die here. If we run… who stays behind to protect this city? Look out there! The professors—they're fighting an Origin just to buy us time!"
"Arghh!!" Victoria slammed her fist into the ground, completely losing control.
Outside the walls…
Professor Griffon—fourth-year professor from Global Apex Academy—staggered as a shockwave from an Origin Titan's strike slammed against him. He glanced—just for a moment—toward the city, toward his students.
His expression hardened.
"Hold on… all of you. I'm sorry… I can't help you right now…"
He faced the giant again, his body trembling from the pressure of its energy.
Then suddenly—
NYAUGHHHH!!!
A roar—an Origin-class Entity's bellow—exploded across the battlefield.
But it wasn't a roar of attack.
It was a roar of agony.
Instantly, everything changed.
Everyone on the battlefield— the students, the professors, the supers, even the primal creatures themselves—
froze.
Primal beasts mid-leap stopped as if time itself skipped. Their eyes darted around wildly, confused, afraid.
Every gaze—students, professors, supers—locked onto a patch of darkness beyond the ruined wall.
From within that shadow, pulses of light flickered—like a heartbeat—growing brighter… and more threatening with each pulse.
And then—
"ARRGHHHH!!!!"
A wave of pure terror swept across the entire city. The sound wasn't merely loud—it vibrated through bone. Walls that were barely standing trembled, dust rained down, and the air felt as if it was being sucked away.
Everything stopped.
Then something even more shocking happened.
Every single primal—
whether inside the city, clinging to the walls, or charging across the battlefield—
abruptly turned back, fleeing toward the source of the scream.
Even the Origin Titans pounding on the supers' shields froze, twisted around, and let out anxious bellows before retreating in panic.
"W–what's happening…?" Alex staggered, grabbing onto a broken piece of wall for balance as the ground shook from the mass retreat. He gasped, chest heaving, the wind of fleeing giants buffeting his body.
Victoria slowly pushed hers
elf up, her face pale.
"Why… why are they running?"
Their classmates stood frozen as well, staring toward the darkness, too afraid to even breathe.
-----
A hundred kilometers from the crash site of the Three-Alliance mothership, the barren wasteland still trembled with lingering energy rippling through the air. At the center of a massive crater, a colossal scythe stood embedded in the ground, its blade piercing into the clouds as though attempting to split the sky itself.
Southern Haven had yet to send anyone to investigate.
The area remained silent—untouched, unguarded.
Then—
A light transport craft descended slowly, its beams slicing through the darkness.
A tall man with long hair stepped out, his hair tied back behind him. The glare of the ship's lights cast his entire face in shadow, giving his silhouette an almost supernatural mystique.
He walked calmly toward the giant scythe. But before his hand could reach it, another aircraft landed beside the first. He didn't turn—clearly, he already knew who had arrived.
He removed his glove and placed his palm against the weapon. The surface of the blade pulsed faintly, emitting a dying whisper of energy… like a life hanging by a thread.
"How is it?" a voice asked from behind.
"Its energy… is too weak," the long-haired man replied without looking back. "As if something forced it to stay alive."
A lighter clicked. The second man lit a cigarette, exhaling a slow stream of smoke.
"That means its wielder is dead," he said calmly. "But their Stone of Life… isn't destroyed."
The first man narrowed his eyes.
"Which means someone took it."
"Possibly."
"Who? The Chief?"
He was just beginning to turn when—
"No need to investigate further."
A deep voice rolled across the crater, freezing both men in place.
From beyond the circle of light cast by the ships, a massive figure stepped forward. In his hand, he dragged something across the dust—a dark, oily creature bound in glowing chains.
"Chief?"
"Long time no see, Guan. Heracus."
The giant man tossed the creature onto the ground as if it weighed nothing.
The creature let out a weak, distorted hiss, its body trembling violently.
"Take this thing back," the Chief ordered. "Careful. Do not let it break free."
"Is it Legion?" Heracus asked.
"No."
The Chief nudged the chained being with his boot, his gaze icy.
"This… is one of their messengers. A scout for the Legion. They call it… Zerus."
Guan pressed his foot onto the creature's back.
"They detected the incident pretty fast."
"All their Stones of Life are linked," the Chief said quietly. "When one falls… the rest know."
Heracus lifted his eyes toward the towering scythe whose blade pierced the heavens.
"Chief, will you return with us?"
"Not yet."
The man turned away. "I have unfinished business."
He paused, not bothering to look back.
"When you return… tell Scarlett to halt all organizational operations for now. With Wiser gone, chaos will erupt out there."
"Yes, Chief."
The massive figure stepped forward until the light washed fully over his face—
Victor Sergei.
Leader of The Silent Sovereigns.
An organization composed of only ten S-Class supers.