The room exploded into chaos.
Tables toppled, chairs slammed against the walls, plates shattered, and fragments scattered across the floor like broken teeth.
A storm of glass howled through the Iron Fortress, and remnants of windows lay in jagged shards across the ground.
The gust was like a beast unleashed—frenzied, violent, and cruel.
Nozomu moved first. He swept his hand forward, conjuring a wall of wind that clashed against the incoming blast. The pressure lessened just enough to prevent casualties.
But it didn't stop the fear.
The air reeked of panic and dread, thick and suffocating, pressing in like a living thing. But beneath it all, the world was still ringing from the impact.
Theo clutched the edge of an overturned bench, ears pounding. His vision swam. Everything was spinning—until he heard the voice.
"Aida! Are you okay?!"
Aeda had thrown herself around her sister, shielding her body.
Aida nodded shakily. "I-I'm fine. Thanks to you."
Curtis rushed over, scanning their faces, his own flushed with urgency. "You two alright?"
"We're good. I think," Arthur answered, hauling himself up beside Bryce.
"Speak for yourself," Bryce muttered, rubbing his head. "Pretty sure I landed on my face."
Curtis appeared beside Clarissa, offering a hand. She rose quietly, arm curled around Mimi, shielding the trembling cat from the blast.
Shards of glass crunched beneath her boots as she steadied herself.
"You alright?" he asked.
Clarissa nodded, brushing a few strands of hair from her face. "Nothing broken. Just rattled."
"Good. I'm glad."
She glanced down at Mimi, still tucked safely in her arms.
"She's fine too. Hates the noise more than the glass."
Curtis chuckled, then turned—his eyes moving quickly across the room until they landed on the trio crouched near the collapsed bench.
"Theo. David. Dawn. You three good?"
Dawn rose first, dusting herself off and wincing as her elbow grazed a piece of broken glass. "We're alright."
Theo helped steady her while David scanned the shattered windows. Toward the broken frame, the wind still howling faintly through the opening.
"What the hell was that?"
Theo squinted through the broken frame. "Felt like a giant-ass fan just dropkicked the building."
They didn't get an answer.
Because the answer walked into the silence.
Nozomu stepped into view—backlit by the moon, framed by jagged glass and drifting fog. He stood tall in the wreckage, the night behind him like a shadow draped over his shoulders.
"Listen carefully. We are under attack."
The words dropped like stones into a lake.
Silence rippled outward. Everyone froze, still caught between shock and movement.
Nozomu didn't shout, but his voice carried the weight of experience—of someone who had seen battle, bled in it, and survived it.
It was the tone of someone who knew what came next… and how quickly it could end.
"There's no time for questions," he continued, stepping through the broken frame of the window.
The night framed him in silver and black—his cloak trailing like smoke behind him.
"As of now, you're all recruits. That means you follow orders. You follow Isabella."
His eyes moved through the room like a storm scanning the coastline. Even Benny, usually quick with a retort, said nothing.
Theo felt his chest tighten. His brain was still trying to catch up. They hadn't trained for this. Hell, they hadn't even processed what this was.
Glass still sparkled across the floor. Wind still hissed through the breach. The air reeked of ozone and panic.
They weren't ready.
But that didn't matter anymore.
Nozomu gripped the window's shattered edge.
"Isabella—I'm going to check on Pop. You're in command. I'll update you when I can."
"Yes, sir!" Isabella replied instantly, snapping into a salute.
Her usual brightness was gone, replaced by sharpness.
Steel.
Benny stepped forward, eyes shadowed with something close to worry. "I don't know what the hell's going on… but be careful."
Nozomu glanced back with the faintest ghost of a smile. "Come on, Benny. You know I always minimize my risks."
That earned a low grunt from the older man—but no reply.
Nozomu turned to the recruits one last time, eyes sweeping across their faces, locking onto each of them with a weight that made it impossible to look away.
"Recruits. This is your first unofficial mission, and your main objective is simple—"
His voice lowered, but it hit like thunder.
"Survive... None of you dies tonight. That's a direct order."
Then—he was gone.
A sudden rush of wind burst through the room as he launched upward, vanishing into the night sky like a blade drawn into the dark.
Benny stood frozen, gaze following him until he disappeared beyond the clouds. The sky swallowed him whole.
And just like that, the stillness returned—crushing, cold, suffocating.
No one moved.
Except Isabella.
She stepped forward. No hesitation. No uncertainty. Just fire.
"Recruits!"
Her voice was calm but loud—louder than it had ever been. Her demeanor hardened. The warmth she usually wore like sunlike was gone. What replaced it was something raw, focused.
Commanding.
Every head snapped to attention.
"We have a mission! Fall in!"
Far from the Iron Fortress, under a fractured moon, Pop stood alone.
The forest that had once surrounded him lay in ruin—scorched dirt and blackened roots where life used to be.
Trees, once towering sentinels, were now little more than twisted splinters, snapped and charred beyond recognition.
The ground beneath his boots was cracked and steaming, the soil split open like a wound left to rot.
At the heart of the devastation, a crater yawned wide—a smoking gouge in the earth, rimmed in firelight and pulsing heat.
It hissed softly, like the land itself was still gasping for air.
And from its depths—they came.
Creatures crawled through the smoke one by one—hulking silhouettes that twitched and hissed with unnatural hunger.
Dozens of them, their bodies warped and twisted, spines hunched like beasts forced into the shape of men. Their skin was burned-black, mottled with crimson veins that pulsed like molten glass.
Eyes glowed from within their skulls, red and furious, cutting through the mist like dying stars. Foam bubbled from their jaws, thick and white, dripping down to the soil where it sizzled on contact.
They didn't walk.
They stalked—low, twitching, tense. Moving as one. A collective organism fueled by bloodlust and purpose.
Pop didn't move.
His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, eyes narrowed against the heat.
Then—
A voice slid out from the smoke.
Too smooth. Too cold. The kind of voice that never had to raise itself to be heard. It slithered like oil across skin, calm and cruel in equal measure.
"They won't miss next time."
Sedgwick stepped out from the smoke like a ghost carved from shadow and silk.
His cloak dragged behind him, skimming across the scorched ground with every measured step. Burnt branches crunched beneath his boots, each movement slow and deliberate—like a man savoring his entrance.
To either side, his elite guards flanked him in perfect formation—silent, armored, eyes sharp and cruel beneath armored helms.
But it was the one who walked just a step behind that made the air feel colder.
Branch.
Second-in-command. Ever-watching. His eyes gleamed beneath his hood like blades waiting for skin. His disdain rolled off him in waves.
Sedgwick's expression was calm. Almost amused.
Like a man watching an animal bleed out. Fascinated. Detached.
"Surrender," he said, loud and clear. "You're outnumbered. I've got a hundred Devils at my back—and not an ounce of mercy in me tonight."
He took another step, smile twisting into something cruel.
"But if you hand over the Iritheum Core… maybe I'll let you beg me for your life."
Pop didn't flinch.
He slid his sword free in one smooth motion, the blade catching the moonlight as it rose beside him.
"You talk too much, Section Commander."
Sedgwick's eyes narrowed.
"So be it," he muttered, voice almost bored. "You die tonight."
And the Devils lunged.
Back inside the Iron Fortress, the storm still echoed in the walls—muffled, distant. But the air inside the briefing room was thick with urgency.
Isabella stood at the head of the room, a blueprint of the fortress spread across the long metal table. Benny stood beside her, arms folded, jaw tight.
Around them, the recruits circled in closely—eyes flicking between the map and each other, the adrenaline still fresh in their veins.
"Right now," Isabella began, "our priority is protecting the civilians inside this facility. Benny's workers and their families come first."
David leaned in, pointing to a section on the blueprint with a quick tap of his finger. "Bella, what about the main hall?"
She tilted her head. "Why there?"
"It's central. One entrance, one exit. Not perfect, but it gives us control. Enough room to fit everyone. Easy to defend if something comes through."
Benny gave a short nod. "The lad's not wrong. Smart choice."
"Agreed," Isabella said. Her eyes swept the room. "We'll evacuate everyone to the main hall. That's our fallback point until Commander Nozomu makes contact."
Benny grabbed a pen and began marking key choke points across the blueprint, his strokes swift but precise.
"Avoid these halls and side paths here," he muttered. "Old reinforcements. Weak structure. If anything breaks through, it'll be there."
Isabella rolled the blueprint closed and handed it back to Benny.
She turned to the group, the fuel of leadership burned behind her eyes.
"We split into teams. Five pairs. You stay with your partner, no matter what. Watch each other's backs."
Her gaze passed across each recruit, steady and grounding.
"We're dealing with unknown threats. Do not engage. If you see something—anything—you run. We survive. That's the mission."
Heads nodded. Quiet affirmations passed in low murmurs.
Isabella stepped forward.
"I know this isn'tt what you signed up for. You're scared. So am I. But remember what the Commander said."
She paused, her voice softening.
"Your lives matter. Don't throw them away."
For a moment, the room stood still.
Not silent.
But focused.
The kind of stillness that comes before the first step into fire.
Isabella looked to them one last time, and the tension in their faces… began to shift.
Still afraid.
But ready.
"Alright," she said, pulling her cloak tight around her. "Let's move."
The recruits turned as one.
And the corridors of the Iron Fortress swallowed them whole.
Outside, the world burned.
The forest was a graveyard of fire and ash—trees torn from their roots, the land scorched black beneath a sky smeared in smoke and moonlight.
Pop moved through it like a phantom in the blaze.
His blade sliced through Devil after Devil, each swing carving arcs of steel through the inferno. Cloak shredded, boots tearing through soot and cracked bark, he ducked and weaved through the disorder, never stopping.
Acidic saliva hissed as it splattered across his shoulder. The fabric of his cloak melted away in chunks, smoke curling from the wounds in the fabric.
Flames danced up the trunks like hungry animals. Shadows leapt behind them.
And still—they came.
Every time he felled one, three more rose from the smoke. Twisted creatures of fangs and claws, eyes glowing like embers in a pit.
They moved on all fours, hunched and feral, snarling with a rabid hunger that made the ground feel like it was pulsing with them.
"Dammit..." Pop muttered, gritting his teeth as he dodged another strike. "They keep getting up..."
A Devil hurled itself through the blaze, its talons gleaming like daggers in the light.
Pop raised his sword just in time, the blades clashing with a shriek of metal on bone. Another slammed into him from behind, claws raking blood from his clothing as he twisted away.
"What the hell are these things!?"
There was no answer. Only the thunder of movement.
They weren't just attacking—they were coordinating.
One summoned a spike of jagged stone, flinging it like a javelin. Another conjured wind so sharp it sliced bark from the trees in clean ribbons.
Fire erupted from the mouth of another, scorching the leaves above. Water crashed in a tidal burst from behind, knocking Pop into the air.
It wasn't random.
They were trained.
The forest exploded in light. Trees turned to fireballs. The ground quaked under the pressure of combined Dyna.
Pop soared higher, dodging strikes mid-air as best he could, but his strength was stretched thin.
A Devil intercepted him mid-flight, wrapping sinewy arms around his ribcage and squeezing until his bones creaked.
More followed—dozens more—elemental energy building between them, forming a sphere of death overhead.
It ignited.
A blast like a miniature sun consumed the sky.
Pop vanished inside the eruption.
Far below, Sedgwick stood at the treeline, arms folded, lips curled into a smug line.
"Guess that takes care of him."
The glow faded.
Smoke billowed into the clouds above.
Then—crack.
The sky split open again.
Pop erupted from the core of the blast, his cloak in tatters, face streaked with blood, eyes burning with fury.
He didn't fall.
He soared.
A Devil lunged toward him, mouth wide—Pop incinerated it with a snap of his blade and a burst of wind.
Stone spears jutted from the ground to impale him, but he twisted through them with sharp turns, his body bending with the air, his sword trailing like a ribbon of silver.
He dropped into a clearing—a field carved out by the destruction, flames licking at its edges, surrounded on all sides.
They circled him now.
Dozens, but it seemed like hundreds.
Red eyes blinking like bloodied stars in the dark.
Pop raised his sword again, shoulders heaving.
"I'm getting real tired of this..."
And then—
Another gust of wind.
It didn't howl. It landed.
Nozomu descended like a sword, silent and precise, touching down beside Pop without a word. His cloak billowed once before settling. His gaze swept the horde.
Pop didn't bother hiding his irritation. "Took you long enough. I sent a Whisper ages ago."
Nozomu said nothing at first.
Just stood there—calm.
"Hey!" Pop snapped. "Anyone home? I could've died out here!"
"But you didn't," Nozomu replied.
Pop growled, lifting his sword again. "Unbelievable."
Nozomu's eyes locked onto the red glow surrounding them.
"So, tell me," he said. "What exactly are we up against?"
He spoke like a man making a calculation.
Pop gritted his teeth.
The Devils growled low and guttural, claws scraping against the earth.
"Trouble," he muttered.
Then, he lifted his blade.
"Lots of it."