"This is Lieutenant Kelvin speaking! General, do you copy?"
A sudden voice crackled with a frantic, metallic edge through the walkie-talkie pinned to General Koby's upper right chest.
The sound sliced through the heavy, suffocating silence of the hallway as it effectively halted General Koby's execution.
"We just discovered another entrance leading to the Prom Tower! But General... it's a slaughterhouse. We've found dozens of Yuri Calypso's guards dead. They appear to have been roaming the area to establish a perimeter, but they were cut down where they stood."
Koby's expression didn't flicker.
He slowly lowered the barrel of his handgun, the cold steel pulling away from Ramoss's forehead, though he kept the weapon leveled at the man's chest.
He reached up, keying the radio with a gloved thumb.
"I see," Koby said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Report. Is there anything else?"
"Yes, sir—we found one survivor. Barely. He claims a man in a dark cloak was seen moving toward the upper levels. He was carrying a blonde-headed girl over his shoulder... this must be the Alter Being you warned us about. Or perhaps that same demon entity from the initial breach."
Koby's eyes narrowed, a sharp, calculating glint reflecting in his pupils.
The mention of a "blonde-headed girl" struck a chord of recognition that he quickly masked with military stoicism.
Inside the hidden room, Wyne felt her heart hammer against her ribs so hard it was painful.
Her breath hitched, her hands flying to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
A blonde girl? There was only one person that description could mean in this chaos.
Trizha!
Koby signaled the soldiers holding Ramoss, gesturing with a sharp flick of his chin. "Take him. Throw him in a holding cell and double the guard. If he breathes a word to the others, gag him."
He didn't wait to see them drag the defiant assistant away.
His mind was already climbing the stairs of the Prom Tower.
***
High above the blood-soaked carpets and the screams of the dying, the moon reigned supreme.
It shone with a violent brilliance, a silver blade cutting through the darkest night.
Around it, the stars were pinned like cold diamonds, walled between the artificial glare of the city and the vast, uncaring void of the cosmos.
At this altitude, the world was beautiful in its indifference.
The industrial lights of the La Luna Sangre Hotel formed a glowing halo around the base of the tower, but at the peak, the only sound was the mournful howl of the wind.
It was a voice that whispered to those who sought admiration—the voice of Vanity.
It was a call that beckoned to those who dared to remain connected to the world below—the voice of Connection.
That wind, biting and cold, acted as a cruel alarm.
Trizha Frantzes stirred.
Her consciousness returned in jagged fragments, pulled from a deep, forced slumber.
She lay on the hard concrete of the rooftop floor—the highest peak of the Prom Tower—feeling the grit of the roof against her skin.
"Where... where am I?" she whispered, her voice swallowed instantly by the gale.
She pushed herself up, her muscles screaming in protest.
A sharp, throbbing pain blossomed behind her eyes, making the world tilt on its axis.
She winced, clutching her head as she tried to reconstruct the last hour.
The cause of her agony was a blank space in her mind, an unprecedented uncertainty that felt more terrifying than any physical wound.
To be lost is a fear; to be taken by a force you cannot name is a nightmare.
Trizha forced herself to stand, her legs wobbling like those of a newborn fawn.
She looked around the rooftop, searching for a face, a door, or an explanation.
The space was a vast, open square—large enough to hold two hundred people in a celebratory dance—but now it was merely a graveyard for junk.
She saw rusted iron pipes, buckets filled with stagnant, dirty water, scattered sticks, and a lone, dented trashcan rattling in the wind.
"My head... it feels like it's splitting," she groaned, taking a tentative step toward what she hoped was the exit.
She was looking for an escape, a way back down to the safety of the lights.
But the universe had a different design for her this night.
The escape she sought was a ghost; the reality she faced was a god.
The breeze shifted.
It didn't just blow; it began to swirl, gaining a rhythmic, unnatural heat.
Trizha froze.
A presence was descending—a weight in the air that defied logic.
It was a sensation of someone incomprehensible, a being that possessed no human description, a man who dared to interrupt the very flow of the world's narrative.
He descended from the heavens, silhouetted against the glowing orb of the moon.
He didn't fall; he glided, as if the air itself was a staircase built specifically for his feet.
He wore a sharp, dark suit that seemed to drink the moonlight, with crimson long-sleeves peeking out like fresh wounds.
His hair, a shock of vibrant red, flowed behind him like a banner of war.
He was interruption.
He was the change in fate that the stories never warned about.
As his boots touched the concrete, he landed with an ethereal, haunting grace.
He stood with his legs relaxed, slightly apart, anchoring himself to the world he had just invaded.
His arms were extended outward, palms facing upward with fingers spread in a gesture that was half-invitation and half-threat.
His eyes were the most striking feature—burning with a light that looked down upon the world as if it were a discarded toy.
He radiated a power that transcended the conventional rules of the world, a force that turned romance into tragedy and tragedy into a masterpiece.
A power emanating in a way that transcends the conventional rules of Romance… soldiers.
The Seventh of the Ten Powerful Emotions.
Zackier Morkator.