Bzzz

Bzz Bzzz

'Number 13' flew crookedly through the smoke-filled sky, its wings beating unevenly—one torn, one flickering with dying spiritual energy. Every flap sent pain lancing through its cracked carapace, but stopping wasn't an option. The weight on its back—soft, limp, fragile—kept sliding to one side, and each time the Vespid had to twist violently to adjust, nearly falling out of the air.

It chittered weakly.

'Master said… to protect this boy.'

'I should…find that female human.'

'Find the strong one.'

'Find the one called… Serena.'

Its mind buzzed with static. It wasn't used to thinking alone. Not like this. Usually the hive buzzed in harmony, the Queen's presence a steady warmth in the back of its mind to direct its next actions. And if not the Queen, than Master would fill in as their brain. Usually, it didn't have operate alone like this.

Behind it, the relic trembled like a dying beast, the swirling violet rift collapsing inward in pulses that rattled the very air. Every pulse sent waves of spiritual force rolling outward, knocking the Vespid sideways. It tried to correct its flight, but its broken wing sputtered, nearly sending it spiraling into the wall of the fortress.

It managed to stabilize—barely.

Around it, the fort was in chaos.

Sirens wailed.

Dust rose in choking clouds.

Abyssals were swarming the outer edges like vultures smelling a dying body.

The Vespid dropped lower, weaving between collapsing towers and soldiers shouting orders it didn't understand.

Where. Is. Serena?

It couldn't sense her the way it sensed Queen or the other guards. It only remembered her face—the face the master had strange emotional fluctuations around.

And it could sense that time was ticking.

The boy on its back was beginning to change.

A scent of decay and corruption was beginning to emit from him that it had no idea how to fix. The creature panicked and lowered itself even faster.

The Vespid didn't know what this change meant.

But it remembered its master's expression.

And he knew that this boy was important to him.

The Vespid forced its wings to beat harder, even though each movement felt like a needle stabbing deeper into its joints.

It zipped around a half-collapsed tower—and finally saw her.

Serena stood on the southern wall, bow and arrow in hand, hair whipping in the violent winds as she barked orders at nearby soldiers while occasionally firing off an arrow at any mid-grade abyssal that got too close—but they were eventually being too numerous for the human side to handle.

Abyssals clawed at the fractured stone of the fort walls. Some had already crawled over the edge and were being fought off by squads. The wall shook under her feet like it might slide sideways at any moment.

The Vespid chirped sharply.

Serena's head snapped up immediately.

Her eyes widened as the exhausted creature crashed toward her in a barely controlled descent, wings and legs trembling as it struggled to stay aloft.

"A Vespid guard?" she shouted, disbelieving. How could one of Kain's contracts, especially one she knew was stronger and faster than the average contract of the same level, be so injured. Especially since the last time she'd seen Kain, she'd left him and the boy in their dorm room safe and sound. "What happened to you—?"

Then she saw what it was carrying.

The boy.

Limp. Bloodied. His skin a deathly pale gray with faint, pulsing black veins crawling up his throat.

Serena's heart plummeted.

"Oh gods—"

The Vespid's wings finally gave out. It dropped hard, colliding with the hard ground in a heap, curling protectively around the boy's body even as cracks spread across its exoskeleton.

Serena rushed forward.

"Balens!"

The antique scale shimmered into existence beside her, floating with an air of solemn judgment. One plate glowed faintly; the other wobbled unsteadily perhaps under the remaining influence of a wish Serena had already made since entering the battle field.

"Balens, I wish for a detailed report of their conditions and why they are this way."

The scale vibrated, its plates tilting rapidly as the weight of another wish impacted it, but Serena had no time to care who or how the bad luck from this wish would impact. She knew, under the protection of her contract, that it wouldn't be her anyways, and given the dense number of abyssals attacking the walls, odds are that the consequence would fall on one of them.

A voice—not spoken aloud, but resounding directly into Serena's mind—replied:

"The human child's soul is gone, and his physical condition is not optimistic. Physical trauma is extensive. Signs of Abyssal contamination are present—though faint…". But as for the why…I can't determine that."

Serena's breath froze at the information received but also that Balens couldn't figure out the cause. It communicated that whenever it tried to investigate deeper, a strong presence seemed to impede it, and it even felt a strong aura of danger if it tried to continue pushing.

Her stomach twisted.

"What about the Vespid? Why is it like this? And Kain! Is he okay?"

"Severely damaged. Pushing beyond safe limits for prolonged flight. It was carrying him for an extended period while its vitality was already collapsing."

Serena knelt, touching the Vespid's cracked exoskeleton.

Its antenna twitched weakly.

It could barely move now.

She swallowed hard. "Kain wouldn't have sent you out alone unless the situation was dire…"

Unless Kain himself couldn't help the boy.

Unless he himself was unable to come himself.

Unless—

Her breath stuttered.

No. She couldn't think about that. Not now. Not with Abyssals clawing their way up the walls and the entire fort shaking like a building made of cheap cards.

She pulled a high-grade rejuvenation elixir from her pouch and poured it carefully between the boy's lips. Naturally, with her family background, the healing elixirs she had access to were close to heaven defying in their ability to rescue people from the jaws of death. The liquid shimmered with gold light as it slid down his throat.

His body jerked.

Black lines pulsed violently across his neck.

Serena nearly dropped him.

Unfortunately, upon healing his body, the abyssal corruption in his body, barely bothering to spread in a dying host, began to act like a dying fire finally being exposed to kindling.

"Balens, purify the abyssal corruption!"

"Purifying the corruption exceeds my abilities."

Her jaw clenched.

"I wish for the abyssal corruption to just be contained in one part of his body then"

Balens' plates swung back and forth in response, as if weighing the feasibility

"Wish… accepted."

A wave of golden light radiated outward, passing through the boy's chest. The black veins receded throughout most of his body until they settled in a spot in his abdomen.

Now Balens didn't select this spot, he's just responsible for the wish, it's up to fate to determine the most suitable avenue for realizing that wish in most cases. And for whatever reason, fate had determined that spot to be the most suitable location to store the abyssal energy.

Rumble

But before Serena could investigate further, a tremor rattled the relic, nearly knocking soldiers off their feet. Above them, cracks spiderwebbed across the sky's barrier formations.

"Captain Serena!" a soldier shouted, sprinting toward her. "The southern breach is collapsing! Abyssals are pushing through—"

Before he could finish, a massive explosion rumbled from the western side of the fortress, sending a tower crumbling into dust.

Serena snapped back into motion.

"Get medics! Reinforcements! Move, move—"

She didn't finish the order.

Because her heart suddenly stopped mid-beat.

A wave of killing intent—cold, ancient, suffocating—rolled in from outside the fortress. A spiritual pressure so heavy it made even the stone beneath her tremble.

Even Balens shuddered, its plates rattling wildly.

Serena's head whipped toward the outer fields.

Then she felt it.

A demigod-level aura. Unfortunately, it was also an abyssal.

Every soldier along the wall froze. Some dropped their weapons. One fell to his knees from the pressure alone.

"…dammit…" Serena whispered.

This aura felt like a chunk of the Abyss itself had walked into the physical world.

And what made her blood run cold…

…was what she didn't feel.

No answering human demigod aura.

No defensive surge from their side.

Nothing.

"Where is the Lord Demigod?!" a soldier shouted, voice cracking.

Another trembled. "Why isn't he responding?!"

A third began to cry silently, tears slipping down his face.

Serena gripped the boy tighter with one arm and her spear with the other, grounding herself through the panic.

Her thoughts spun in circles.

Demigods didn't sleep. They didn't "miss" an enemy demigod stepping to their doorstep. The only reasons for a missing aura were:

—he was gone

—he was incapacitated

—or something was blocking him

None were good.

A thousand possible nightmares ran through Serena's mind—

"Balens…one more wish. Can you sense the approach of our demigod…?" she forced out.

"… …"

"I cannot sense him."

Balens' answer was quiet, but sank her heart like a ton of bricks.

She looked out toward the horizon where the Abyssal pressure gathered like a storm cloud.

And for the first time in years—

Serena felt real fear.

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