Death.
Massacre.
Destruction.
A thousand years ago, these were not just words—
They were the only truths the world knew.
That era came to be known as the Age of Chaos,
a time when survival itself was a privilege,
and extinction loomed over humanity like an unrelenting shadow.
With technology yet to be born, humanity clung to a strange and powerful force known as mana engineering—
the ability to directly influence the world without tools, without machines… only will.
It was through this power that they endured.
But as time passed, that power began to fade.
The ability to directly influence the world slowly disappeared…
and those who still retained it came to be known as Shamans.
But survival was not enough.
From the depths of that era emerged a war that would change the fate of the world forever—
The Great Schism.
An evil god sought to claim dominion over all existence, unleashing countless abominations upon the world.
Yet humanity did not fall.
Against impossible odds, powerful individuals rose—
who stood together and brought an end to the chaos.
The god was defeated.
The war ended.
But not everything was destroyed.
The creatures born from that era still remain.
Today, they are known as Endbringers.
Humanity has since evolved.
Cities rose.
Technology advanced.
Order was restored.
And from that order, a global force was formed—
The ESA — Endbringer Suppression Authority
A unified organisation created to monitor, contain, and eliminate all Endbringer threats across the world.
Within the ESA exists its primary military division:
The GERC — Global Endbringer Response Command
An elite force tasked with direct combat operations against Endbringer incursions.
From standard soldiers…
to specialised units…
to the few who stand at the pinnacle of human combat
They are the ones sent when humanity is pushed to the edge.
To manage the ever-present threat, all Endbringer activity is classified under a global threat scale:
Category I — Local Infestation
Endbringers are confined within a single structure or enclosed space, such as a building or facility.
Minimal spread.
Typically handled by local forces or low-level response units.
Category II — District Outbreak
Endbringers occupy and spread across a defined urban area, such as a street network or sector.
Civilian evacuation becomes necessary.
Standard GERC units may be deployed for containment.
Category III — Urban Collapse
Large-scale incursion affecting an entire town or city.
High-density Endbringer presence, including the emergence of larger and more powerful variants.
Casualties are expected.
Primary GERC combat divisions are mobilised.
Category IV — National Threat
Endbringer activity escalates to a country-wide level, causing widespread destruction and systemic collapse.
Extremely rare.
It requires a full-scale military response, specialised units, and the involvement of the most elite combatants.
Recorded occurrences: Three.
Category V — Cataclysm Event
A disaster spanning an entire continent.
Endbringer presence reaches overwhelming levels, beyond conventional containment or warfare.
This classification was not part of the original system—
It was created in response to a single event.
Only once has such a catastrophe occurred.
And only once has it been stopped.
By one individual.
The one known as The Codex.
Yet even with all of this…
The Endbringers continue to appear.
Again…
and again…
As if something…
is calling them back.
Still...
Humanity does not yield.
We fight.
We adapt.
And no matter how many times the world is pushed to the brink
We will not stop.
(break scene)
The alarm clock on the nightstand buzzed with a relentless, grating sound. Joan pulled the blanket over her head, but the noise cut through the fabric. She groaned and turned onto her stomach, pressing her face into the pillow. The buzzing continued.
Michelle pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. She stood at the side of the bed, looking down at the lump that was her roommate. Joan's arm was flung out from under the covers, but otherwise, she was completely still. Michelle waited for a few seconds. Nothing.
She walked around the foot of the bed to the other side where the alarm clock sat. She picked it up and pressed the button on top. The buzzing stopped. The sudden silence was heavy.
Michelle reached down and tapped Joan on the shoulder. Joan jerked her arm back under the blanket. Michelle tapped again, harder this time. Joan shifted her whole body, curling up tighter and letting out a muffled sound of annoyance.
"Joan, you are late for this morning's duties," Michelle said.
Joan's eyes opened. She blinked slowly at the ceiling. Then she pushed herself up onto her elbows, her body moving in a long, slow stretch. She yawned and ran a hand through her hair.
"What time is it?" Joan asked, her voice still thick with sleep.
Michelle looked at the clock in her hand. "It's 7:05. You are late."
Joan's eyes widened. She sat up fully, and her hand went to her head. She could feel her hair sticking up in different directions. Her expression shifted from sleepy to horrified.
"Go, just go," Joan said, waving her hand toward the door. "I will be there in ten minutes."
"Okay," Michelle said. She set the alarm clock back on the nightstand. "I will be waiting outside the door."
Michelle left, pulling the door closed behind her. As soon as the latch clicked, Joan threw the blanket off and swung her legs out of bed. She stood up and rushed to the small dresser, yanking the top drawer open.
Joan was out the door in nine minutes and forty-five seconds, still hopping on one foot as she pulled a sock over her other heel. She nearly stumbled but caught herself on the doorframe.
"Let's go," she said, out of breath.
Michelle fell into step beside her as they hurried down the corridor. "You usually get up pretty early. What happened?"
Joan tugged the sock the rest of the way up and reached down for her shoe. "There was a distress call yesterday. Cambodia. A whole category three cataclysm. Took us hours to subdue it."
Michelle stopped walking for a second, then jogged to catch up. "What? I didn't get any call. What time?"
"Around eleven forty-five last night."
Joan was a talented soldier. That was the only reason command had pulled her for a category three operation outside her own district. They needed her attention on it specifically.
They rounded a corner and the hall entrance came into view. Aaron stood at the gate, arms crossed. He grinned when he saw them.
"Morning, late bloomers," he said. "You're up early."
Joan kept walking. She did not look at him.
"Not this morning, Aaron," she said. She stopped at the gate and turned to face him. "And by the way, you call us late bloomers when you stopped sucking your mother's breast at seven. Feels rather ironic."
Aaron's grin vanished. His mouth opened, then closed. He looked at the floor for a moment, then back at her, then at the floor again. He said nothing.
He followed them through the gate into the hall, walking close to Joan. "That was good," he said quietly. "I'm glad you didn't say that in there."
Joan did not respond.
Lieutenant Gozel stood at the front of the hall near the training floor. He watched the soldiers file in, his gaze sharp. When Joan and Michelle entered, his eyes settled on Joan.
"Joan," Gozel said. His voice was calm but carried across the space. "It is unusual for you to be this late. What happened?"
Joan stopped and stood at attention. Michelle moved to the side. Joan explained about the distress call, the category three, and the hours it took to finish. She apologised and said it would not happen again.
Gozel listened without interrupting. When Joan finished, he nodded once.
"You are exempt from this morning's training routine," Gozel said. "Go eat at the cafeteria."
A low murmur spread through the soldiers nearby. Some glanced at each other. A few whispered.
Gozel turned his head slightly. "Shut up."
The murmuring stopped.
Joan nodded to Gozel and walked toward the cafeteria entrance. Michelle watched her go. Aaron stood a few feet away, his jaw tight.
"Tch," he said under his breath. "She always gets special treatment. Not fair."
Michelle looked at him. She did not say anything. She knew what Joan had been through last night. She had zero complaints.
Daniel sat at his usual spot near the back of the hall. He was quiet, always had been. His tray sat in front of him with food he had barely touched. He watched Joan walk toward the cafeteria entrance. A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He did not look away until she was through the doors.
Joan walked into the cafeteria and grabbed a tray from the stack. The breakfast line was still open. She moved along it, picking up eggs, toast, and a cup of coffee. At the register she pulled out her ID card and handed it to the attendant. He scanned it and nodded.
"Three days," he said. "Make it count."
Joan took her tray and found an empty table near the window. She sat down and pulled her communication device from her pocket. The screen lit up. Twelve unread messages. All from her mother.
She shook her head and let out a small breath. "Mom, you like to worry."
She pressed the call button and put the device to her ear. It rang twice before her mother picked up.
"Joan? Joan, is that you?"
"It's me, Mom."
"Oh, thank God. I sent you messages. Did you get them? I didn't hear back. I was up all night worrying."
Joan picked up her toast and took a bite. "I got them. I was busy. There was a mission last night."
"A mission? At night? Are you hurt? You sound tired."
"I'm fine, Mom. I'm eating breakfast right now."
Her mother let out a long breath. "Breakfast. Okay. Breakfast is good. What are you eating?"
Joan looked down at her tray. "Eggs. Toast. Coffee."
"That's not enough. You need protein. Do they have meat? You should eat meat."
"Mom."
"Alright, alright. Tell me what happened this week. I haven't heard your voice in days."
Joan leaned back in her chair and talked. She told her about the training exercises, about a soldier named Aaron who never learned when to shut up. She left out the worst parts. Her mother laughed at the parts about Aaron. She went quiet at the mention of Cambodia but did not ask for details.
When Joan finished, her mother was quiet for a moment. Then she spoke.
"Your brother wants to talk to you."
Joan set down her toast. "What's the issue?"
"He wants to join the GERC."
Joan looked out the window. She did not say anything for a few seconds.
"Put him on," she said. Joan waited. There was some shuffling on the other end of the line, then her brother's voice came through.
"Joan?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Mom said you were on a mission last night. Was it bad?"
Joan picked up her coffee. "It was work. What's this about you joining the GERC?"
The line went quiet for a moment. When her brother spoke again, his voice was different. Defensive.
"I've been thinking about it. You make it look easy."
Joan set the coffee down. "It's not easy. You know that."
"I know, but what else am I supposed to do? I don't have some big ambition. I don't want to sit in an office all day staring at a screen. This would be simpler."
"Simpler?" Joan leaned forward. "Leo, people die here. All the time. Newbies especially. They go out on their first or second mission and they don't come back. I've seen it happen."
"I'm not stupid. I'd train. I'd learn."
"It's not about being stupid. It's about luck and timing and things you can't control. A category two shows up and you're standing in the wrong spot and that's it. You're gone."
Leo did not respond right away. Joan heard him breathing.
"You don't have to do this," she said. "If you don't have an ambition and you don't want to be a salary man, then don't be. Just be who you are. Stay home. I'll take care of everyone."
"What, like a NEET?"
"If that's what you want to call it. I wire you two thousand florins every month. That's over seven thousand dollars. I make enough. You don't need to do this."
Leo laughed. "Joan, I have a life. I have real friends. Not just those guys on Wizzap."
"Sure," Joan said. "I believe you."
"That was sarcastic."
"Was it?"
Leo started to say something else, but a loud alarm cut through the cafeteria. It blared once, twice, then a voice came over the overhead system.
"All personnel in divisions one through four. Fall out to Main Street, Diego. Category two cataclysm has appeared. Repeat. All divisions one through four. Fall out immediately."
Joan was already standing. She grabbed her tray and dumped the untouched food into the waste bin on her way to the door.
"Leo, I have to go."
"Joan, wait—"
"Don't try to join the army. I mean it."
She ended the call and shoved the device into her pocket. Behind her, she heard her mother's voice on the phone, saying a prayer for her safety, before the line went dead.
Joan ran. She did not look back at her tray or her food, or the table by the window. The rule was absolute. Forget everything and move out when a distress call hits.
(break scene)
Joan ran through the corridor and pushed through the double doors into the locker room. Other soldiers were already inside, pulling gear from their lockers. The air smelled of metal and sweat and the sharp chemical cleaner they used on the equipment.
She went to her locker and opened it. A category two was not a big deal. Not after the night she had. She grabbed her vest and strapped it on. She took her standard rifle and checked the magazine. Full. She holstered her sidearm and grabbed two extra magazines for it. That was enough.
Michelle was at the locker next to hers, pulling on her gloves. She looked over at Joan.
"You okay to go out again?"
"I'm fine," Joan said.
Aaron appeared at Joan's side. He already had his vest on and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He was not looking at her gear. He was looking at her face with an expression she recognized.
"Joan," he said. "Can I be on sniper duty?"
"No."
He followed her as she moved to close her locker. "Come on. Just this one. I've been training on the scope for weeks."
"You ask me every time."
"Because every time you say no. This time say yes."
Joan turned to face him. He stood there with his hands out slightly, like he was about to start begging in front of everyone.
"Please," he said. "Please, please, please. I won't mess it up. I swear. If I mess up, I will never ask again."
Joan stared at him for a moment. She exhaled through her nose.
"Okay. Fine."
Aaron's face lit up. He spun around and ran to the weapons rack at the far end of the locker room. He grabbed a sniper rifle and checked the bolt action, then slung it across his back. He jogged back to Joan with a wide grin.
"You won't regret this."
"I already regret it," Joan said.
She walked toward the exit. The rest of the soldiers followed. Outside, three armoured trucks waited, their engines running. The rear doors were open. Joan climbed into the first truck and found a seat along the bench. Michelle sat next to her. Aaron climbed in after them, still grinning, the sniper rifle bouncing against his back as he moved.
The truck doors slammed shut. The driver hit the gas, and they lurched forward toward Main Street, Diego.
Michelle laughed as the truck rumbled down the street. "I hope to see him flop this opportunity as a sniper."
Aaron leaned forward from his seat across from her. "You wish. I have been prepping for this my whole life."
"Practice does not make perfect with a sniper. You could practice every day for ten years and still miss the shot when it matters."
"That does not even make sense. Practice is literally what makes you better."
"It makes perfect sense. You are proving my point right now."
Joan held up her hand between them. "Both of you. Stop."
Michelle closed her mouth. Aaron leaned back in his seat but kept his eyes on Joan.
Joan looked at Aaron. "You can do whatever you want up there. Keeping you away from the battlefield is a good decision. You are practically a burden anyway."
Aaron's mouth dropped open. Michelle snorted.
"For now," Joan continued. "If you botch this one too, I will request you be removed from the frontline permanently."
The other soldiers in the truck burst out laughing. One of them slapped Aaron on the shoulder. Another wiped a tear from his eye.
Aaron's face twisted into something between a pout and a wail. His eyes went wide and his lips pushed forward. He looked like an emoji.
"Ahhh, Joan, you cannot be serious."
Joan did not answer. The truck slowed and then stopped. The driver cut the engine. The sudden silence was heavier than the noise had been.
Joan stood up and grabbed her rifle. "Second unit. Fall out."
The rear doors opened. Joan jumped out onto the street. The sounds of gunfire and screams came from a few blocks ahead. Smoke rose from buildings. She could see the shapes of endbringers moving in the distance, their limbs too long, their movements too fast.
She moved forward. Her unit spread out behind her. The first unit was already engaged further up. Joan raised her rifle and fired. One endbringer went down. She fired again. Another dropped.
She walked as she shot, her movements efficient. To her left, Michelle fired in short bursts. To her right, the other soldiers held the line.
Joan glanced back. Aaron was on a raised platform near a collapsed building. He was prone with the sniper rifle, the scope pressed to his eye. Two other snipers were positioned on similar platforms across the street, one from each unit.
Joan turned back to the fight. The endbringers kept coming. There were more than she expected for a category two. Not overwhelming, but more than usual. She kept shooting. One after another.
She had a feeling. A strange one. This almost seemed intentional. Like someone had placed these things here on purpose. She sneered at the thought and pushed it down. It did not matter. She kept eliminating them. She eliminated several more. They kept crawling out of the rubble, out of the alleys, out of the sewers. She could not see where they were coming from. Every time she dropped one, two more appeared to take its place.
Then a massive scream tore through the air behind her.
Joan spun around. The building where she had stationed Aaron had collapsed inward, dust and debris exploding outward. From the cloud of rubble, something rose. It was massive, easily three stories tall, with limbs that ended in jagged claws and a head that split open to reveal rows of teeth.
A titan.
No.
Joan raised her rifle and fired at it. The bullets bounced off its hide like pebbles.
"Fall back!" she shouted. "Everyone fall back!"
Her unit started retreating, but the numbers were increasing. The more endbringers they killed, the more appeared. And they were more lethal now. Faster. Stronger. The ones from last night had similar behavior, but they had deployed shamans then. They had managed to push them back. Now she understood. They had not retreated. They had respawned here. All of them.
Titans started emerging from the collapsed buildings. One. Two. Three. The whole area flooded with endbringers of every size. Joan fired until her rifle clicked empty. She dropped it and reached for her sidearms.
She needed to tell the sergeant. The category had been miscalculated. This was not a two. This was something else entirely.
A massive endbringer appeared in front of her. It stood eight feet tall, taller than the others, with a humanoid shape but wrong in every proportion. Its skin was black and slick. Its eyes were white with no pupils. It looked at her.
"You," it said.
Joan stopped. Her hands tightened on her pistols.
"You humans are in the way. We shall become the new humanity."
Joan stared at it. She had no idea what it was saying. Become the new human? The words did not make sense.
She raised her pistols. "I do not know what you are saying, but I am going to kill every single last one of you."
The endbringer raised its arm to slam down on her. Joan pushed backward with her legs, evading the strike. The ground where she had been standing cracked apart. She aimed her right pistol at its head and fired. The bullet struck its temple. The endbringer did not even flinch.
She scoffed. She put the rifle aside and brought both pistols up, firing in rapid succession. The bullets hammered into its chest, its neck, its face. The creature staggered back a step but did not fall.
Joan kept firing. She moved constantly, dodging its swings, kicking off its limbs to create distance, punching with her off-hand when it got too close. Her ultrasonic gloves crackled with each impact, sending concussive force through the creature's body. It was a battle of attrition. A single hit from this thing would kill her. She knew that. She did not want to take any chances by leaving it to someone else.
She saw an abandoned building to her left. If she could lure it inside, she could bring the structure down on top of it. She fired twice more to get its attention and started moving toward the building.
The creature did not follow.
Instead, it reached down and ripped a sewer cover from the street. It hurled the disc of metal at her. Joan dove to the side. The cover whistled past her ear and smashed through a car behind her, shearing it in half.
She scrambled back to her feet. What? Did I not provoke it enough? The tactic had worked before.
A titan behind her opened its maw. Fire erupted from its throat and washed over the abandoned building. The structure collapsed in a wave of heat and debris. Joan threw herself behind a concrete barrier as the flames roared past. The heat seared her arms. She rolled out from cover, coughing.
She looked around. The street was chaos. Ten people per unit. Only four units deployed. She could barely see anyone from her unit. Bodies lay in the street. Endbringers swarmed everywhere.
The eight-foot endbringer was behind her. She saw its shadow rise. It was about to slash her from behind.
Whoosh.
The sound cut through the noise of battle. The endbringer's arm snapped back. A sniper round had punched through its shoulder. It let out a shriek and staggered.
Joan turned. Aaron stood on a pile of rubble twenty yards away. He had the sniper rifle braced against a broken wall. His face was smeared with dust and blood.
Joan ran to him. "Oh my God. You are alive."
She grabbed him and pulled him into a hug. For a second she held on. Then she pushed him back, her hands on his shoulders.
"There is no time. Aaron, you need to get out of here. Go call for backup. Now. I will cover you."
Aaron opened his mouth to argue.
"Go," she said.
She took the sniper rifle from his hands. She was the best sniper in her branch. Everyone knew it. Aaron looked at her for a moment, then nodded. He pulled out his pistol and moved forward, firing at the endbringers that came too close.
After Aaron disappeared from sight, Joan turned back to the battlefield.
She climbed onto the rubble and looked out across the street. What she saw made her stomach drop. The soldiers who were still alive were regrouping in small clusters, firing at anything that moved. Bodies lay everywhere. The endbringers kept coming. She could see them pouring from every direction.
The category was extending past three. It was entering four.
They would all die here.
She jumped down from the rubble and ran toward the nearest cluster of soldiers. As she moved, she saw Michelle pinned against a collapsed wall. An endbringer had her by the leg. Its jaws were clamped around her calf, and it was pulling her forward while she fired her pistol into its chest.
Joan sprinted. She reached the endbringer and kicked it square in the side of the head. The creature released Michelle and stumbled back. It tried to run, but Joan raised her pistol and fired three shots into its skull. It dropped.
Michelle was on the ground. Her body was shaking. Her hands clutched at her leg where the bite marks were already turning black around the edges.
Joan dropped to her knees beside her. She knew what this was. The bites could give humans instant rabies due to the level of toxicity in the endbringers' saliva. She had seen it before. Once the convulsions started, there was little time.
She tore a strip of fabric from the bottom of her skirt and folded it into a thick pad. Michelle's jaw was clenching, her teeth grinding together. Joan pushed the fabric into Michelle's mouth to keep her from biting her tongue.
"Breathe," Joan said. "Please breathe. Just hold on."
Michelle's eyes were wide. Her body jerked and spasmed. Joan tried to tear away the layer of skin around the bite, hoping to stop the toxin from spreading further, but the black veins were already climbing up Michelle's leg.
Michelle went still. Her eyes stopped moving. Her body relaxed.
Joan grabbed her shoulders. "I command you to stay alive. Now. Damn it."
Michelle did not respond.
Joan shook her. "Michelle."
Nothing.
Joan let out a sound that was not quite a word. A raw shout that tore from her throat.
"NO."
She stared at Michelle's face. Her friend's eyes were open, fixed on nothing. The convulsions were gone. The breathing was gone.
Joan's hands clenched into fists. Her whole body went tight. She stood up slowly.
The rage came. It was cold and clear and it filled her completely.
(break scene)
A category four flood would swallow an entire country. Joan knew that. The last time a category four appeared, three cities were gone before the backup arrived. They would send reinforcements. That was protocol for anything above a three. But there was a problem. She and her team would not survive until those reinforcements got here.
The good thing was Aaron had gone to call for backup. At least that was done.
Joan carried Michelle's body toward a corner of the street, away from the main fight. She laid her down against a wall and closed her eyes.
She looked at Michelle's face for a second. Then she stood up.
She swore to herself. She would survive this. She would survive until backup came.
She turned and ran. Her speed increased immediately. Her body felt different. Lighter. Faster. Her mind cleared of everything except the next move, the next shot, the next enemy.
She moved through the chaos with a kind of precision she had not known she possessed. An endbringer lunged at her. She sidestepped and fired her pistol into its neck. The disruption wave passed through its flesh and it collapsed inward, its body turning to liquid. Another came from her left. She ducked under its swipe and put two shots into its chest. It dropped.
She kept moving. Her feet found the clean paths between rubble. Her arms raised and fired without conscious thought. Every movement flowed into the next. She was locked in.
A cluster of endbringers blocked her path ahead. She pulled her laser pistol from her thigh holster. It was her last one. She pressed the detonation sequence on the grip and threw it into the center of the group.
The collapse field expanded. A sphere of compressed energy bloomed outward, ten feet in diameter. The endbringers inside it began to lose cohesion. Their bodies folded, twisted, and then ran like water into the cracks of the street. The wave passed through a section of wall behind them. The wall sagged and poured down in a slurry of brick and mortar.
Joan did not stop to watch. She was already running again.
She shot and killed. Shot and killed. Her pistols clicked empty and she dropped them, pulling fresh ones from the bandolier across her chest. The endbringers kept coming but she kept moving. She was faster than them now. Better.
Then something hit her.
The blow came from her right side, a flat impact across her ribs that lifted her off her feet and sent her spinning through the air. She hit the ground hard. Her back slammed against the broken asphalt. Something inside her spine gave way with a crack she felt more than heard.
She could not move her legs. She could not move her arms. She lay on her back staring up at the smoke-filled sky.
A figure stepped into her field of vision. It looked human. Female. It was wearing clothes, a long coat and pants that might have been taken from a soldier. But there were tentacles covering its body, emerging from its shoulders, its arms, its back. They moved slowly, like seaweed in a current.
Joan tried to speak. Her voice came out as a whisper. "What... are you?"
The endbringer reached behind it with one tentacle and brought something forward. It dropped the object onto Joan's chest. She looked down.
It was Aaron's head.
The endbringer smiled. "I saw this puny thing trying to run away. I thought it would be nice to have a fit to try and catch it."
Joan stared at Aaron's face. His eyes were still open. His mouth was frozen in the shape of a scream.
A sound came out of her. It started deep in her chest and grew until it was a scream that tore her throat. "AHHHHHH."
The endbringer waited until the scream faded. Then it crouched down next to her. The tentacles curled and uncurled around its body.
"You humans have rules," it said. "We learned them. We used them against you. This ambush was planned. For you specifically."
Joan's breathing was ragged. She could feel blood pooling beneath her back.
"You are too much of an asset," the endbringer continued. "So this had to be done. A means to an end. We will wipe out Escarados. Then the rest of the world. We will replace humans. We will become the new humanity."
Joan lay there, frozen. Not just from her broken spine. Her mind was frozen too.
These things were not supposed to be capable of this. Communication. Adaptation. Complex decision making. Improvisation. That was not what endbringers were. They were animals. Powerful animals, but animals. That was what everyone said. That was what the GERC taught. They were forces of nature, not thinking creatures.
But this one was thinking. It was planning. It had set a trap specifically for her.
They had learned.
Joan's eyes moved to Aaron's head on her chest. She thought of her mother. She thought of Leo. She thought of the life she wanted to give them. The life she had promised herself she would give them. None of that was going to happen now. She was going to die here, on this street, with her spine broken and her friend's head on her chest and her other friend dead in a corner behind her.
The endbringer raised its arm. The tentacles coiled together, forming a single thick spike aimed at her face.
Joan closed her eyes.
Everything stopped.
The sound of battle cut off mid-roar. The smoke in the sky froze in place. The tentacle above her face did not move. Joan opened her eyes. The world was still. The endbringer stood above her, motionless. Dust hung in the air like suspended paint. Nothing moved.
Joan could not move either. But she was still thinking. Her mind was still running.
She did not know what had happened. She did not know if it was her or something else. But time had stopped, and she was still alive.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"You can stand now. The laws of physics do not exist here."
Joan blinked. There were no colors. Everything was black and white, not because the world had drained of color but because there was no light. No particle, not even photons were allowed to move, yet she could see. She should not have been able to see. Something was letting her.
She pushed herself up. Aaron head remained in place and the tentacle spear passed right through her as she got up because their atoms are frozen in place with 0 binding forces and 0 gravity. Her spine did not crack. Her arms did not shake. She rose to her feet and looked around. The frozen battlefield was gone. There was nothing. Just an expanse of grey and black that stretched in all directions without end.
Darkness began gathering in a single spot. It swirled and condensed, pulling itself into a shape.
"Yooo. Joan d'Arc the second." The voice came from the gathered darkness. "Or is it the first? Eh, no bother."
Joan watched the darkness take form. It shaped itself into a human figure, but it remained dark. No features. No face. Just a silhouette of a person standing in front of her.
"Who are you?" Joan asked.
"Hello. I am your predecessor in spirit. The name is—"
She heard nothing. The sounds came out of the figure, but they did not reach her ears. A name was spoken, but it was gone before it could land.
She wanted to ask again, but she stopped herself. There was something more important to understand first.
"What is going on?"
The figure tilted its head. The movement was slow, deliberate.
"Well, I pulled you into this vertice. I am actually speaking from one thousand years before your time."
Joan stared at it. "So you are a progenitor?(a being from 1000 years ago)"
"Yes and no. I am dead in that era. But I am speaking from it." The figure waved a hand, a casual motion. "Anyway, let us get to the main event of why you and I are here. I actively became a God one thousand years ago. Or I was chosen as one. There is a system called Nexus set up by the creator of the world. God himself, he says. But God wanted to step down. He needed a replacement. I became that replacement. I killed his evil son."
Joan's mind went to the old texts. The evil god. The one that the GERC had dismissed as mythology.
"The evil god," she said.
"Yeah. At least that is what all of you call him." The figure paused. "You see, I created a system of my own. I trapped this universe inside of it. It is a simulation called the WorldSeed. But there is only one player. And I choose you, Joan Armstrong, to be its player."
Joan shook her head. "What do you mean?"
"It is hard to explain. But you will understand when you do. It is like one of those things where there is a window that only you can see or operate. You get to buy things. Go on missions that are selected for you. And you also get to try again."
"Try again?"
"Well, there are things called checkpoints. You manually save. So once you die or choose to return to a saved checkpoint, you revert."
Joan felt her pulse quicken. "Like time travel?"
"No." The figure's voice hardened slightly. "Not like that. Time-travelling is impossible. You would need to go at a speed faster than light. That requires infinite energy. Infinite energy is more energy than the available energy in the universe, so you would destroy everything."
Joan gestured to the space around them. "If you can bring me into this place, then how can you not go back in time?"
The figure shifted. The darkness that composed its body rippled like water.
"Oh, I can. Others cannot. There is a difference."
Joan waited for more. The figure seemed to gather itself before continuing.
"Time is not a continuous flow. It is a triangle of three separate states. Past, present, and future. Each exists independently. What you perceive as continuity is actually the transfer of information between these states. The only way they interact is through vertices. Timeless boundary points where causality is nonexistent, and states can connect."
It gestured to the space around them.
Joan tried to follow. "So I am not going back in time."
"No. Time is neither rewound nor branched. It is being restructured through forced state fusion. You will retain memories of events that no longer exist."
Joan stood in the black and white stillness. She thought of Michelle dead in a corner. She thought of Aaron too.
Those events no longer existed. Basically like a game
She would remember them anyway.
"Why me?" she asked.
The figure stepped closer. Its darkness did not move like a person walking. It simply was closer now.
"You are Joan d'Arc the second. Or the first. Depends on how you count these things. You have a quality that the system recognises. A capacity for what is coming. And what is coming is bigger than what you are fighting right now and bigger than any army the GERC can field."
Joan felt something settle into her chest, she was glad she could stop this from happening
"Then what do I do?"
The figure raised one dark hand. In its palm, something began to form. A small light. Translucent. Floating. Only Joan could see it, it was the WorldSeed true form. She knew that without being told. The figure nodded once.
"Alright. I am setting your save point to two days ago. Make sure you make the most of it."
The window flickered and then dissolved into nothing. The darkness around Joan began to pull inward, collapsing toward a single point behind her eyes. She tried to speak, to ask one more question, but her mouth would not move.
The black and white world went Void.
Joan opened her eyes.
She was in her bed.