Vega stood frozen as the ground beneath his broken boots shuddered once—a deep, sickening tremor that rattled his bones and made the very air seem to thin. A second tremor followed, heavier and sharper, cracking the dry earth beneath his feet like brittle glass. He staggered slightly, the world holding its breath along with him. And then, on the third tremor, the mountain… No, the entire desert detonated with a noise so loud, so deafening, that Vega’s mind almost refused to process it as sound. It was not merely an explosion; it was annihilation, pure and unrestrained.

  The small mountain didn't just break. It didn’t merely crumble or collapse. It ceased to exist, its entire mass violently ripped apart from the inside out with such terrifying force that the stone itself became shrapnel, flung outward at speeds he could barely comprehend. Great slabs of sandstone and shattered earth tore across the desert, launched hundreds of kilometers away, screaming through the sky like furious meteors. The force of it carved trenches into the earth, upended dunes that had stood untouched for millennia, reshaped the very desert with a single, monstrous breath.

  And the sand—Gods, the sand—billowed upward in an endless, boiling torrent. It surged into the sky with such mindless power that it swallowed the stars themselves, reaching the clouds within mere seconds, thick enough to block out the moons light and cast the world in a haze of swirling darkness. Vega could see, even from where he stood, massive chunks of shattered stone carried into the heights, dancing among the roiling sand as if the earth itself had forgotten what it meant to fall.

  But it wasn’t the violence, nor the sheer impossibility of it all, that seized Vega’s heart in an iron grip. It was the shadow.

  Amid the raging storm of debris, silhouetted against the burning sand clouds, he saw a figure. A twisted, coiling mass of darkness and hatred, barely distinguishable from the chaos around it. Vega would have thought it a trick of the eyes, but he wasn't looking for the figure itself.

  He was looking for Sol.

  And even through the maelstrom, even with the world tearing itself apart, Vega saw the glow of Sol, unmistakable, burning with a tenacity that defied logic. Even now, even broken and battered and wounded, the monstrous figure still carried more Sol within its ragged frame than any mortal should have been able to contain.

  Relief crushed him with the same intensity as the explosion had crushed the mountain. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the cracked, shaking ground, his palms digging into the cooling sand. It was not Chaos that had unleashed that apocalyptic fury. No, it could only have been one man.

  Vega bowed his head into the sand, choking on a gasp of breath that was half sob, half desperate prayer. Regulus, for all his flaws, for all his stubbornness, was a weapon unlike any other when it came to destruction. He was never the most versatile Liberator. His gifts were blunt. Brutal. Terrifyingly straightforward. But his Origin—oh, his Origin was a thing of legend. Among the hundreds of Origins recorded across the Northern Liberatorium, in terms of pure destructive potential, Reguluses Origin had few equals.

  And yet, as Vega’s trembling eyes lifted again to the distant cloud of devastation, a darker chill coiled itself around his heart. There were no flames. No flicker of fire painted the ruins, no walls of molten heat rolled across the sands. No second sun had risen from the death of the mountain. There was only destruction, pure and cold, howling and empty, as if the soul of the land had been ripped away, leaving nothing but ash and silence.

  There should have been heat. Gods, there should have been so much heat that the desert itself would have boiled, that the very clouds would have melted into glass. Regulus was the Phoenix, the living pyre of the North. When he unleashed his full strength, it should have been as if another star had fallen from the heavens, scorching the world in righteous fury.

  But there was none of it. Only dust. Only silence. Only the distant scream of the broken earth. A heavy dread gnawed at Vega’s mind, whispering, clawing at the edges of his already fractured thoughts. What the hell... no, what in all the damned worlds had happened inside that mountain?

  His broken train of thought was shattered as a massive shadow fell over him, and he dove aside with pure reflex just as a colossal boulder of sandstone smashed into the ground beside him, the impact shaking the desert and hurling sand into the air like a bomb blast. Without hesitation, Vega slammed his palms into the ground, and from the sand erupted a dome of ice, thick and solid, encasing Jericho and himself in a shell of gleaming, blue-white armor.

  It wasn’t like the barriers he had cast before, thin and brittle with haste. No, this one was thick, layered dozens of times over, reinforced with every scrap of strength he could muster. Spikes jutted outward, angled to deflect the worst of the falling debris. Runes flickered along the surface, absorbing shock after shock as more and more massive chunks of shattered mountain rained from the heavens, mixing stone and sandstone together into a screaming, deadly storm.

  For long minutes, Vega could do nothing but brace himself, his arms trembling, his soul screaming with the effort of keeping the barrier stable as the world collapsed around him. The heavy boulders slammed into his shield one after another, each impact a hammerblow against his already broken body, but he did not falter, he did not yield. His brother had trusted him with this mission, had entrusted him with the lives of the last few survivors, and he would rather have his own heart freeze solid before he let it fail.

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  And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the falling stones ceased. The impacts faded into silence, leaving only a thick, choking sandstorm swirling around the wreckage, blotting out the stars and turning the night into a grey, suffocating haze. The wind howled, dragging dunes into new monstrous shapes, erasing the old world behind it like the hand of a careless god.

  Vega, gasping for breath inside the thin air of his shield, dared to lower the barrier, letting the bitter wind whip against his cracked armor. And against all reason, against all knowledge he possessed, a dangerous, foolish spark of hope ignited in his chest.

  Maybe, just maybe, Regulus had survived.

  He knew the signs. Regulus had still been conscious just minutes before the explosion. He hadn’t yet used his Origin —Vega knew that intimately, knew the difference between his brother burning his strength and unleashing the full force of his soul.

  So maybe… maybe...

  But deep, deep inside the parts of himself he tried so hard to silence, Vega also knew a truth he dared not voice, dared not even fully think. He knew what Chaos was. The tenth strongest Titan-Class Liberator, a monster whose mere presence could turn battles into slaughter, whose strength dwarfed even many full gods. A being that men feared and cities prayed against.

  And if Chaos had been there… If Chaos had been defeated so utterly that not even his shadow remained, then what the hell had happened inside that mountain?

  "Shit," Vega hissed under his breath, clenching his teeth so hard it hurt. His hands trembled against the icy gauntlets as he pressed one of the teleportation tickets against his side, but he didn’t activate it. He couldn’t. His heart screamed louder than his instincts, louder than the mission, louder than reason itself.

  "I’m sorry," he whispered, voice almost lost in the roaring storm, his words meant for no one and yet for everyone he had left behind. "But I can’t leave you!"

  Before he could think better of it, before cowardice could wrap its chains around his ankles, Vega turned and sprinted straight into the heart of the sandstorm. The moment he crossed the threshold, it was like running into a wall of knives. The peaceful was no more, replaced by a screaming hellscape of sand and shrieking wind, cutting into his exposed flesh, battering against his damaged armor. Visibility dropped to nothing, the world a swirl of grey and gold, but Vega trusted his instincts, trusted his memory. He had just come this way, barely seconds ago.

  Every step was a battle against the storm, the sand clogging his joints, the wind pushing him back like a living, breathing enemy. But he pressed on, teeth gritted, eyes squinting through the blinding maelstrom.

  Soon, the broken rubble where once the cave entrance had stood rose before him—no longer recognizable, reduced now to a jagged heap of shattered stone. He climbed over it, scrambling, slipping, cutting his hands on the razored edges. He didn’t care. He forced himself forward, dragging his battered body across the wreckage, back toward the place where the heart of it all had been.

  After what felt like an eternity of endless running and clawing and praying, Vega stumbled across a hole torn straight into the earth—a yawning wound where once the cavern had laid. He did not hesitate. He leapt down, the sandstorm closing above him like a tomb.

  For a few seconds, there was nothing but darkness, and then he saw something... A figure, kneeling amid the ruins.

  Vega's heart lurched with hope, and he sprinted forward, his voice breaking free in a hoarse shout "Big brother!" but when he reached the figure and laid a cautious hand against him, his heart sank. It wasn’t Regulus…

  It was Kaiser.

  He had only heard the name once, spoken in awe and admiration by Celestine herself, but even through the haze of exhaustion and pain, Vega knew it was him. The man who refused to die, who fought with a spirit that should have been broken a thousand times over.

  Vega moved to lay Kaiser flat, a final gesture of respect for a fallen warrior, and then froze. His hand, rough and trembling, rested against Kaiser's chest, and he felt it. A heartbeat. A strong, steady heartbeat. And breathing.

  Vega’s eyes widened in absolute, disbelieving shock. Somehow, despite Chaos’s soul-devouring power, despite the apocalypse that had torn the mountain apart, Kaiser had survived. Not only survived, but his soul remained untouched.

  A fierce, wild hope exploded inside Vega’s chest.

  If Kaiser had lived… then maybe… Maybe Regulus had too.

  And then he saw something else. A faint flicker of light, barely more than a dying ember, somewhere deeper in the cavern.

  He left Kaiser gently where he was and sprinted toward the flicker, the storm of sand and debris forgotten, his entire world narrowing to that single point of light, and as he approached, he saw Regulus.

  The elder brother he had idolized all his life, clad in broken armor, his body scorched and battered, but still magnificent. He stood with both gauntleted hands resting atop the hilt of a great molten sword, stabbed deep into the ruined earth. His body leaned slightly against it, as if he had simply paused to rest. His head was bowed, his flaming cape still fluttered faintly behind him in the dying winds.

  Vega screamed for him, desperate, broken, pleading. "Big brother!"

  But no answer came. No laugh, no chiding word, no familiar voice to lift him from despair. Vega rushed forward and reached out with his soul, desperate to feel even a spark, even a shred of that blinding, familiar Sol that had always wrapped around him like a shield. But there was nothing.

  No warmth. No flame. No life.

  He tried to shake him, burning his hands against the smoldering armor, crying out as the molten plates seared into his flesh, but even so, Regulus did not move. He could not be moved. He had anchored himself there like he was an eternal statue of a warrior who refused to kneel even in death. And at last, Vega collapsed onto his knees before him, the ice of his soul shattering under the weight of it.

  Regulus Astraeus.

  The Knight of the Northern Liberatorium.

  The Phoenix of the North.

  The Crimson Cape.

  The Kind.

  The Shield of the Helpless.

  The Sword of the Silent.

  The Firstborn Star of the Northern Skies.

  The Flame that Carried the Winter.

  The Brightest Banner of the Lost.

  The Eldest of the Constellations.

  But most of all—a brother.

  A protector.

  A hero.

  A man who had given everything, down to his final breath, to buy them one more chance.

  And who, even in the face of Chaos, refused to kneel.

  Had died.