Faustus slammed onto the broken stone floor with a dull, merciless thud. His shattered void coat peeled away from his body like a black membrane. The last remaining fragments crumbled into fine dust, drifting across the tiles as thick, smoky condensation. He then lay completely motionless. Inside the transparent, hermetically sealed cube, a chilling silence fell.
High above Pandora’s Box, Solomon stood on the highest observation deck. His arms were folded tightly across his chest, yet his fingers visibly dug into his sleeves. Below him, green foliage clung to the tiered stands. Ivy hung between the monumental stone pillars, ferns grew along the cracked arena edge, and warm torches cast restless light over thousands of silenced freshmen. Solomon saw none of it anymore. His gaze remained fixed on Faustus. This was going too far. Far too far.
A memory suddenly sliced through him. Juro and Vespera, a few days earlier, locked in a heated discussion. They had wanted to push Silarias to his absolute limit just once. Not to break him, they claimed, but to finally see with their own eyes how insanely he had grown and where his true boundary lay. Solomon had cut the conversation off immediately. He had forbidden it. His eyes darted to the majestic throne archive behind him. Among the seats of the Faculty Masters, one throne stood empty. Vespera’s throne. A cold realization washed through his chest. They had ignored him. Solomon clenched his fists.
Time fractured. Not slowly. Not with a warning tremor. The entirety of reality surrounding him was forced into absolute stillness in a single shock. Smoke hung above the arena like congealed ink. Sparks froze midair between the flames of the wall torches. A chipped stone splinter remained suspended motionless over a bed of glowing moss. Up in the stands, thousands of shouts died mid-breath. Only Solomon still moved. He stepped through the frozen world, letting his gaze slide along the pillars. Far behind the throne archive, half-hidden between ivy and shadow, stood Vespera. Solomon extended his hand. His fingers closed around the frozen time surrounding her, ripping her out of it with a sharp jerk.
Vespera gasped in shock. Her clothes and hair suddenly cascaded downward, as if the world had resumed only for her. When she saw Solomon standing directly before her, the blood drained from her face.
“Um… Solomon…” She slowly raised her hands, trying to summon a smile. “Sorry. We just wanted to see it once.”
Solomon’s voice remained dangerously low. “You two have gone far too far. Faustus lies broken in there. Silarias is on the verge of completely losing himself. Stop the fight.”
Vespera looked down at the stone floor. “I…”
Solomon saw her hesitation. His composure snapped.
“VESPERA! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”
His voice was the sole sound thundering through the frozen arena. Vespera visibly recoiled. Sweat broke out along her temples.
“I placed a second enchantment around Pandora’s Box,” she confessed in a trembling voice. “The box reads his deepest fear and turns it into reality for him. I can only lift the spell once his discharge begins. If I break it open earlier, the vision might remain permanently trapped in his consciousness.”
Solomon stared at her. “And when he discharges?”
Vespera swallowed with difficulty. “Then I can remove the enchantment.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Her eyes darted toward the cube. “I do not know what the discharge will do to him.”
The words hung like lead in the stagnant air. Solomon looked down at the transparent box in the heart of the arena. At Faustus on the floor. At Silarias, who was not moving a single millimeter. He squeezed one eye shut. Then he released time.
The world surged back to life with a thunderclap. A suffocating threat hung inside Pandora’s Box. Master Juro, still in his sleeker Agile Carbon Golem form, took a heavy step forward.
The moment Silarias saw Faustus lying motionless, something extraordinary happened to his form. A fierce, pulsing wave of black-and-gold light shot across the chest plate of his rough prototype armor. The magic gem beneath his eye began to crackle loose. Like liquid gold, it slid up his cheek and past his temple. With a bright, resonating flash, the gem embedded itself in the center of his forehead, right at the position of his third eye. His head remained completely bare; no helmet concealed his face. The pressure emanating from Silarias doubled on the spot.
Juro reacted first. Dropping low onto his knees, he launched himself forward from a standstill. His compact carbon armor made him noticeably faster than before; all Silarias saw was a black streak slamming across the short distance between them. Juro’s right fist drove straight toward his temple. Silarias raised his forearm. The hardened carbon struck his prototype gauntlet with a metallic bang that echoed throughout the entire cube. The unfinished plates ground hard against each other. Silarias was pushed sideways half a meter, but his feet held firm.
Before Juro could pull his fist back, Silarias locked his fingers around his wrist. He yanked. Juro lost a step of ground. Silarias pivoted from his hips, driving his free elbow toward the side of Juro’s head. At the last moment, the master dissolved his neck into smoke. The elbow sliced clean through the dark vapor, but Silarias kept turning. His gauntlet slammed into Juro’s shoulder plate anyway, blasting a wide crack through it. Black carbon shards exploded across the floor.
Juro turned Silarias’ spin against him. Two smoke tendrils burst forward from his back. The first wrapped around Silarias’ gripping arm; the second swept low toward his ankles. Silarias leaped over the low sweep, but the upper tendril yanked him off balance midair. Juro seized him by the chest plate and hurled him toward the transparent wall.
Silarias crashed back-first against Pandora’s Box. Sharp lines of light shot through the glass-clear material like cracks, repairing themselves instantly. Before Juro could pin him against the wall, Silarias planted both feet against his chest and kicked off with raw force. Juro was shoved backward. Silarias landed low on one hand, spun through, and swept his leg toward Juro’s knees. The master leaped over the sweep, performed a short forward flip within the limited height of the cube, and landed directly behind him.
Silarias did not look back. He struck backward blindly. Juro caught the glowing black-and-gold fist between both carbon hands. The impact drove his heels deep into the barricade floor. A dark shockwave blew Faustus’ smoky condensation away from them in a wide circle.
For a fraction of a second, master and student remained locked in a test of strength. Then Juro began to grin. Silarias did not. While their hands continued to press against each other, hidden runes lit up in the enchanted wall behind Silarias. An insidious, concentrated thorn of magic dislodged itself from the glass. It was not a physical projectile but an incorporeal curse that slid straight through the prototype armor and settled deep within Silarias’ system.
Silarias barely registered the intrusion. His entire form darkened. An eerie, pitch-black mist began to coil around his worn prototype armor. He held his ground, slowly raising his head to stare at Juro with a gaze devoid of any remaining humanity.
“Look at him, old man…” Silarias spoke with a heavy, hollow echo that made the space vibrate. He took a slow step forward, his prototype gear rattling with every move. “Did you really have to hit him like that? You knew how far this was going. You knew everything, Juro…” His hands balled into fists. “COME ON THEN!”
Juro’s eyes widened as he saw how brightly the gem glowed on the boy’s forehead. The sheer intensity pouring from Silarias was no longer normal. At that exact moment, a second incorporeal thorn shot from the wall straight through Silarias’ shoulder plate, but Silarias did not even react.
Juro narrowed his eyes, staring fixedly at the displaced gem on Silarias’ forehead. He muttered quietly, “Mm… You have changed, boy. That gem sits differently… and you have grown larger. Stronger too. They trained you well, ape.”
Juro looked sideways over his shoulder, out of the box and directly toward the VIP balcony. He knew instantly. Vespera was behind this twisted magic.
Suddenly, Silarias began to falter. “I… what… how…” His voice cracked. He clutched frantically at his head, looking around wildly. The transparent walls of Pandora’s Box began to warp and melt hideously. Juro’s black silhouette stretched into dozens of distorted figures while the floor beneath Silarias’ feet seemed to sink away. He doubled over, placing both hands on the stones and bending low over the ground. The true arena vanished behind a nightmare that wrapped itself directly around his senses.
Deep within the darkest corners of his mind, the heavy, warning voice of Lucifer echoed: “This is not reality, my brother. Hold yourself back… Do not let yourself be caught by the illusion…”
It was already too late. The enchanted curse of the box gripped Silarias’ mind, dragging it through a hell of terror.
Silarias saw it. In his delirious mind, he saw Juro shatter the unbreakable walls of Pandora’s Box with one brutal swing, grab Nyx by the throat, and smash her onto the stone floor with a horrific impact until her form lay completely unrecognizable, bleeding, and lifeless on the ground.
“NYX!!”
Silarias completely lost control. The demonic madness took full control. His Cursed Form awakened with a catastrophic discharge. His body expanded faster than the crude prototype armor could accommodate. The unfinished plates on his shoulders and chest were forced apart, bending outward as demonic, pitch-black and golden light surged through the wide gaps like living sinews. Two cursed horns burst through his hair directly from his skull. The prototype did not become completed equipment; it hung cracked and deformed around a body it had never been designed to accommodate.
With an animalistic roar, he lunged at Juro. His claws clamped around the compact Carbon Golem’s neck. Without hesitating for a single microsecond, Silarias slammed the master into the enchanted, locked wall of Pandora’s Box with insane force.
At the exact moment of Silarias’ discharge, Vespera lifted her portion of the spell. The underlying structure attempted to repair itself, but Amfibian lay unconscious and could no longer feed it power. The box did not merely shatter; the magical barrier was blown open by raw violence. Juro shot like a meteorite across the green, stepped arena, flying clean through scorched ivy and smoldering ferns before crashing deep through the monumental stone wall on the far side.
In the crater of rubble, Juro lay coughing heavily as his compressed smoke hide crumbled away. “I… Sil… hold back…” he managed weakly. “You all… passed the exam…”
High on the balcony, Vespera panicked beside Solomon. “I lifted the enchantment at his first discharge! It is gone… he should have returned to normal. I do not know what is happening!”
She was abruptly cut off by a blinding flash on the battlefield below. Leonardo stepped off the highest observation deck without a second thought.
Silarias glared upward toward the balcony with fiery, dark eyes, screaming at the top of his lungs: “I WILL NOT FORGET THIS!!”
Master Leonardo fell with absolute elegance. Right before reaching the stone floor, he planted the tip of his walking stick against a protruding tile, channeling the entire force of his descent into a single, fluid vibration through the rock. The tile cracked; Leonardo himself landed noiselessly. Silarias, completely consumed by the curse, spun around and lunged wildly at him. Leonardo moved like a shadow. He whipped his refined walking stick around Silarias’ striking arm with a simple flick of his wrist, slipped beneath the blow, and evaded every destructive swing without launching a single counterattack.
Silarias flew into a frenzy when his physical strikes yielded no results. The runes on his prototype gauntlets began to glow with scorching heat. With a rigid, gradual motion, he brought both hands in front of his mouth. A bizarre, dark light started radiating intensely between his fingers.
The entire arena watched with bated breath and wide eyes.
In the background, Nyx screamed at the top of her lungs: “SIL! STOP!!”
Vulkan did not know how to react and took a step back. Beat stood staring at the scene with his mouth hanging open. Then he looked at the still-glowing runes among the shards of Pandora’s Box. Realization visibly struck him. “That box cursed him… He is still fighting what he saw inside.”
The gigantic beam of dark light exploded from Silarias’ mouth, heading straight for Leonardo.
Leonardo remained completely calm. With his free hand, he held his flowing hair back. He set the tip of his walking stick directly against the destructive energy beam. Thin, geometric lines lit up on the wood. The cane did not attempt to block the energy; it found the rotational axis within the attack and forced it apart. The beam split along the tip into two raging streams that burned deep trenches into the arena to the left and right. Step by step, Leonardo walked forward between both halves while his precious fur cloak billowed wildly in the energetic gale.
Silarias attempted to shift tactics. He flashed away and vanished. Black flashes of light appeared everywhere and nowhere across the arena. Suddenly, he materialized directly behind Leonardo for a deadly strike.
Leonardo did not even turn around. Smoothly rotating his walking stick while pivoting on his axis, he intercepted Silarias with the end of his cane.
High above, Solomon recognized the pattern of movements instantly.
The Kinetic Codex.
Leonardo’s proprietary combat doctrine, in which every muscle impulse, movement, and energy stream was read like a written line. He did not block Silarias’ strength. He redirected it, tapping him with lightning speed on various vital pressure points during the same fluid spin.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Silarias froze mid-movement. The colossal force did not disappear, but lost all direction in a single instant. He collapsed onto his knees, remaining stiff with one knee planted on the broken stone floor. The fury in his eyes dissolved into hot, helpless tears streaming down his cheeks.
Leonardo looked at him with a soft yet unyielding gaze. “Rest, my child… NatureNull.”
Leonardo placed one hand on the displaced gem on Silarias’ forehead and his other hand firmly on his abdomen.
The discharge was instantaneous. Silarias was knocked out completely. The black aura evaporated as he shifted abruptly back into his original form. The cursed horns crumbled into black ash, yet the gem remained anchored to his forehead. His original, severely damaged prototype armor was completely shattered; the chest plate lay split in two, and the loose shoulder pieces hung by a thread. Silarias collapsed backward, unconscious.
Leonardo stepped forward, but Nyx darted in between them. Emotional, she shoved the master aside and caught Silarias in her arms before he could strike the hard stones.
“Rest, Sil… my everything, you did so well…” she whispered softly, pressing him tightly against herself.
Nyx slowly looked up toward the VIP balcony, straight at the faculty leaders. With tearful, furious eyes, she glared at Vespera. “LOOK! Everything has to be such an extreme test… always!! Look at what you’ve done!!”
Vespera took a step toward the balcony’s edge and opened her mouth. “I…”
“NO, SHAME ON YOU!!” Jane cut her off icily, stepping beside Nyx with residual lightning sparks crackling around her arms.
Nyx and Jane turned away for good. Nyx draped Silarias’ arm over her neck, lifting his weight with the help of the others.
An icy silence reigned around them. All the freshman students in the stands and around the field stood watching with their mouths open. Not a soul spoke a word. Without being asked, the students bowed deeply, one by one, out of absolute respect. Slowly, the rows of people parted. A wide, clear path opened up, leading directly toward the giant, open doors of the complex.
Nyx glanced back one last time. The monumental stone arena, normally thriving with vibrant green foliage and warm, crackling torches, lay like a devastated battlefield. In the exact center, the glasslike magical shards of the destroyed cube lay scattered across the ruins like broken ice.
They walked slowly along the opened path toward the exit.
At the edge of the field, Amfibian slowly regained consciousness. He coughed heavily and rubbed his scaly forehead. “Did… did we make it?”
Ethaniel held him firmly by the shoulder, looking at the departing group with a gaze filled with awe. “More than that… We were allowed to witness the power of legends.”
High on the balcony, Solomon stepped sternly toward Vespera. His voice was freezing cold. “The two of us are going to have a very serious talk in a moment. But first… Juro needs help.” He pointed toward the deep crater in the outer wall where Juro lay motionless in the rubble.
Vespera nodded in silence. Flushing red with shame, she hurried downstairs to help pull Juro from the wall. On her way, she looked back at Nyx one last time.
Nyx felt her gaze, but did not look back. She held Silarias more securely and walked through the gates into the outside world with her head held high.
The monumental stone arena lay like an opened carcass. Where the hopes of the freshmen had bloomed for hours, an apocalyptic silence now reigned. The once-proud green foliage was scorched to black ash, and the warm torches hung like extinguished memories. In the absolute, tragic center, the millions of shards from Pandora’s Box glistened like broken ice under the cold, indifferent moon. This was not merely the end of an exam; it felt like the end of the world.
Nyx walked out front, her back straighter than ever before, though her eyes were tense with held-back tears. Silarias’ massive, unconscious body rested heavily over her shoulder, his broken prototype armor rattling with every step. Jane walked silently by her side, her gaze fixed on infinity, residual sparks of lightning still crackling softly around her clenched fists. The silence in the corridors of the complex was deafening. The other alliances, the Faculty Masters, everyone watched as the broken kings of the Laughing Goats carried their unconscious strategist away.
Until suddenly, from the shadows of the monumental pillars, a voice echoed. A voice that did not break the silence, but shattered it.
“Wait.”
It was Beat. He stepped into the hallway, his clothes torn, his body covered in scratches, but his eyes burned with an intensity that drove away the darkness. Directly behind him appeared Aurelius, Kaelid, Vulkan, and Valeria. Nyx halted, her breath catching. Beat looked from Nyx to Silarias’ unconscious body, and then to the rest of the Goats gathering slowly around them. His voice trembled with emotion, but his words were set in stone.
“Came together, left together. We are coming home with you. Nobody stays behind. Ever.”
It was not a question. It was a reaffirmation of their blood oath. One by one, the remaining Goats joined in. They did not just carry Silarias physically; they carried his burden and his pain. The only sound echoing through the endless halls was the rhythmic, heavy, and proud sound of their marching footsteps. An army of broken heroes on their way to their hideout.
Right before reaching the massive outer arch leading to freedom, Nyx suddenly stopped. She took a deep breath, a sound like a broken sigh, and then let a razor-sharp, piercing whistle ring through the halls. A fraction of a second later, Miki and Ren came bolting wildly through the astonished crowd. They were completely wrecked. Their small faces were covered in soot and blood, their clothes hanging in tatters around their slender bodies. They tripped over their own feet and slammed onto the hard stone floor with a loud thud. They looked like two piles of misery.
But before they could stay down, Miki was pulled up with one powerful, brute yank by Hulda. Ren was grabbed by his collar by Ethaniel, while Amfibian stood heavily battered beside him, leaning on his spear. Both were covered in bruises and deep cuts, but the respectful, almost admiring nod they gave Ren spoke volumes. Amfibian, the strategist of the Griffins who had executed Silarias’ plan, looked Ren straight in the eyes.
“Go on, buddy,” Amfibian coughed with a raspy laugh, wiping blood from his torn lip. “You earned it. We will see you soon. Very soon.”
Ren and Miki nodded gratefully, their eyes glistening with tears and exhaustion. With their absolute last strength, they sprinted after the retreating group of Goats.
They ran through the endless, dark halls until they reached the secret stone opening, richly overgrown with mystical, luminescent green and blue moss that cast an unearthly glow across the walls. The heavy stone door stood ajar. A warm, inviting light shone outward from the hideout, like a beacon in the night.
When they stepped inside, they were overwhelmed by a chaotic scene. Ponich, the little house spirit, was running in circles around the central room in complete panic. The silver mask floating before his face had taken on a deeply sad, fearful expression. He flew from one corner to another, clutching cloths, throwing pots and pans around, desperately trying to prepare food.
“Ohh Master Sil, Master Sil… What have they done?!” wailed Ponich nervously, his high voice cracking.
Jane and Nyx immediately stepped forward. They placed their hands on the floating cloths, trying to soothe the panic.
“Ponich, shh. You are doing great. Truly,” Nyx spoke softly, her voice trembling with emotion as she gently lowered Silarias onto the large central couch. “Take it easy. We are going to rest anyway. It is over.”
Jane let out a long, deep yawn that shook her entire body. Without looking, she took Aurelius’ hand and gave him a playful, exhausted wink toward the sleeping quarters. Aurelius rolled his eyes, but a soft smile played around his lips. He muttered under his breath, “My princess… in a time like this, seriously? You are incorrigible.” But he let himself be dragged along willingly. Together, they disappeared into the darkness of the corridor leading to their rooms. Ponich stood there dazed, his mask floating restlessly up and down. He understood none of it. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Beat stepped up to him, crossed his arms, and said calmly, his voice leaving no room for doubt, “Don’t worry, Ponich. Silarias always comes back. He is the strategist. He always has a plan. Even now.”
Ponich’s mask rotated with a quick, mechanical click. The silver shifted to a curious, soft yellow color, accompanied by an inquisitive expression. “But how did the training go, then? Or what happened, Masters? Why does everyone look like they were put through a meat grinder?”
Beat was about to open his mouth to tell the gruesome tale, but he was rudely interrupted. Miki and Ren charged forward at full speed. Hyperactive as two little children fresh off a carnival ride, they completely ignored how physically broken they actually were. Adrenaline was still surging through their bodies.
“Well!” Miki shouted, flailing her arms through the air, her eyes wide open. “Juro came at us like BAM! Like a mountain of smoke!”
Miki mimicked Juro’s heavy swings, with Ren bellowing loudly beside her to provide sound effects. “Yeah! Juro went completely crazy! We just wanted a harder test, right? And then we thought we were allowed to leave, but then he kept beating us up the whole time! It wouldn’t stop!”
Ren leaped into the air and dived onto the floor to show how they had been mowed down. “But we made friends! Hulda and Siera and so many more! They were really cool!”
“And then!” Miki interrupted enthusiastically, her voice cracking. “Then Juro smashed Silarias and everyone else so brutally hard into the ground! The whole arena shook! But Silarias came up with a master plan! It started with a giant tornado, and he turned completely into gold! He shone like the sun!”
Miki and Ren both began spinning around wildly to imitate the gold storm. Ponich stared in wonder, his silver mask clicking with every dramatic turn, shifting colors and expressions from surprised orange to alarming purple.
“And then we hit him!” Ren yelled proudly, throwing imaginary punches. “Really super hard! Juro flew all over the place! I am really super tired now. My arms hurt!”
To the side of the room stood Beat, Apollo, Lila, and Kaelid, watching with warm, wistful smiles. It was a relief to see that the youngest members of the crew had not fully absorbed the gruesome, dark weight of the battle. Their childlike enthusiasm brought a rare, much-needed lightness into the hideout.
Suddenly, the sound of running water and clicking buckles could be heard in the background. Nicola and Lyn walked into the room. They were busy tightening their gear, but stopped abruptly when they saw the whole crew gathered together. Their eyes grew as big as saucers when they saw the devastation on their comrades’ faces.
“I… um… What happened here?” Nicola stammered, his voice uncertain.
Ponich’s mask instantly switched to a laughing, green variant. He made a hissing sound, holding his wooden fingers in front of his nonexistent mouth. “You arrived at just the right moment! Come, shh, Masters… listen! The little heroes are telling their story!”
Miki picked up the thread immediately, her eyes beaming. “So anyway! We had hit him really hard, until Nyx and Big Sis Jane came! Big Sis Jane is insanely crazy. She jumped like WHOAAAH at him!” Miki made a huge leap into the air and landed with a dull thud. “But Juro thought: no, no! And he sucked everything in! All the smoke, all the ash!”
To add power to her story, Miki grabbed wildly around her, plucking the flames from the decorative candles in the hideout with her bare hands. With the sparks in her hands, she mimicked how Juro absorbed the energy.
“And then! And then!” Ren shouted over her, his voice shaking with excitement. “Juro said NO NO! I am Master Juro! And he wanted to become a monster! A giant Carbon monster! But Big Bro Silarias said: No, Plan B!”
Nicola looked at them with his head tilted, his arms half-stuck in his armor. “Huh? Plan B? Silarias always has a Plan B, but… Plan B?”
Miki, Ren, and Beat shouted at the exact same moment, their voices blending into a powerful chorus: “Plan Box!”
“Yeah, super crazy!” Miki shouted, her arms spread wide. “Silarias, Faustus, and Juro were locked in a box like that! A transparent, magical box! Pandora’s Box! But something super weird happened with that box. The walls started warping! Big Bro Silarias saw something… something terrible… and he went completely crazy! He screamed out loud! And then he smashed Juro straight through that box and everything! The whole arena exploded!” Ren mimicked the explosion with a noisy sound effect. “And then he was put to sleep by Mister Da Vinci!”
Miki tapped Ren hard on his shoulder. “No, no, dummy! His name is Mister Leonardo now! You have to listen better!”
“Oh yeah, yeah!” Ren corrected himself quickly, shaking his little head. “Put to sleep by Mister Leonardo! He is super strong!”
Suddenly, Miki and Ren stopped talking at the same time. The excitement gave way to a sudden, serious curiosity. They turned their heads in sync, staring at Nicola and Lyn with huge, inquisitive puppy eyes.
“Where were you guys, actually…?” Miki asked suspiciously, her voice soft and accusatory. “We needed you…”
Kaelid and Beat burst out laughing in the background, forgetting the tension for a moment. “YES, NICOLA!” Beat roared with laughter, his hand on his stomach. “WHERE WERE YOU?! While your alliance was fighting for their lives?!”
Nicola turned bright red and began nervously scratching his neck, avoiding their gazes. “Um… well… I was eating something with Lyn. In the cafeteria. And while eating, I realized something crucial about my device… about the energy output… So I tried to change it together with Lyn… in the workshop…”
Beat interrupted him with a sardonic grin, raising his eyebrows. “Oh, nothing weird! Just a little tinkering with a device… with Lyn… in the workshop… for hours…”
Nicola laughed innocently, but his voice quavered. He waved his hands nervously. “No, no! It’s not what you think! So we were working on that device… oil everywhere, we were completely covered in it! So we wanted to be quick by taking a shower together and… um…” He let out a shaky, vague excuse that made no sense and only dug him into a deeper hole.
Miki and Ren nodded in full admiration and believed it instantly. Their innocence was disarming. “Oohhh, really…? Wow, that must have been really hard… Oil is super gross…”
Beat shook his head, chuckling. He stood up slowly from his chair. His body creaked audibly, and small, blue sparks shot across his skin as he let out a long yawn. He walked with big strides toward Miki and Ren, standing firmly in front of them and casting his shadow over them. Miki and Ren suddenly looked very shyly at the ground, their enthusiasm tamed by the presence of the senior. Beat slowly dropped to his knees until he was at eye level with the two little ones. His gaze, usually so wild and unpredictable, became surprisingly soft and serious.
“You two still have a lot to learn…” Beat spoke quietly, his voice carrying weight. “A whole lot. But today, you can be really, really proud of yourselves. Do you know that? You fought like lions. You made it home in one piece. That is what matters most.”
Before Miki and Ren realized what was happening, Beat scooped them both up from the stone floor at once and pulled them into a firm, warm, and sincere embrace. Miki and Ren did not know what to do or think for a second. Their small bodies froze in surprise, but soon it registered: this was true, raw recognition. A deep sense of pride washed through them, and they soaked in the moment, their small hands gripping Beat’s back.
Beat set them back down on the ground, turned them around, and gave them both a playful yet firm pat on their rear ends. “And now scram, go to sleep! Tomorrow is another tough day. The training never stops.”
Miki and Ren bowed lightning-fast and shouted in unison, their voices full of renewed energy: “YES, MASTER BEAT! Goodnight, everyone!”
Beat walked past the rest of the group. He nodded briefly to Kaelid and Lila. “Night. Good work today.” Apollo received a silent fist bump. Then he walked over to Ponich, who was still standing there dazed, holding his cloths, his mask tilted questioningly. Miki and Ren quickly rushed over to the small house spirit and threw their arms around his thin little legs, almost pushing him over. Ponich tried to pat them awkwardly on their heads with his wooden fingers, his mask clicking. “Haha… little Masters… night then. Sleep well and dream of victories…”
Miki and Ren laughed and sprinted off into the hallway toward the dormitory, their footsteps slowly fading away. Nicola looked at Beat with raised eyebrows as quietness silently returned to the hideout. The atmosphere immediately grew more serious. “Wait… why so sweet, Beat? Are you no longer all fire and flames? Have you gone soft?”
Beat chuckled softly, a deep, rumbling echo in his chest. He looked at the spot where the little ones had just been standing. “In many aspects, I still am, Nicola. But family… for young family, it just feels like this is good for them. They need recognition, not a heavy hand. Not today.” Realizing his own sensitive mood and feeling awkward about it, Beat began to blush faintly beneath the soot on his face. He quickly tried to cover it up by stoically crossing his arms and raising his voice. “Yeah… but listen! If someone is confident in themselves, they can handle anything! So it is purely better strategically this way! A confident warrior is a better warrior! Understood?!”
Apollo sat on the edge of a wooden table with narrowed eyes and a broad grin he desperately tried to hold back. He was visibly enjoying Beat’s discomfort. Beat pointed a warning finger charged with electricity at Apollo. “Not… a single… word. Or I roast you alive.” Without waiting for an answer, Beat turned around and walked to his own quarters with a deep sigh, his body still faintly sparking. “Night. Tomorrow we train until we drop.”
One by one, the lights in the hideout went out. The candles were blown out, and the magical lanterns dimmed. The night was still young, but the silence that descended was heavy as lead, filled with the unspoken traumas of the day.
In Nyx’s private room, a dim, mystical light emanated from the glowing moss on the walls. Nyx stood before a large, cut-crystal mirror that reflected her outline. She wrapped herself in fine, deep-blue nightwear. The silky fabric clung softly to her skin and highlighted the elegant yet powerful contours of her figure, a body trained for battle but now longing for rest. She stared at her own reflection in the crystal. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she reached for her hair and pulled her black locks tightly back. Her gaze was filled with sharp, all-consuming guilt. Her eyes, usually so cold and impenetrable, were brimming with tears. She knew Vespera was responsible for what had happened in Pandora’s Box. Yet she blamed herself because Silarias’ deepest fear had taken her form, while she stood helpless on the other side of the glass.
In the background, on the large wooden bed covered in soft furs, lay Silarias. He was still deeply unconscious, his prototype armor removed, his body resting in a simple tunic. But his body cramped restlessly. Sweat gathered in thick drops on his forehead, his muscles tensing and relaxing again.
“No… Nyx… NOT YOU…” Silarias whined agonizingly in his sleep, his voice broken and hoarse as an imaginary nightmare chased him. “I cannot lose you… You are… my…”
Nyx’s heart clenched at the sound of his pained voice. Tears now flowed uncontrollably down her cheeks. She turned around immediately and walked with fast, silent steps toward the bed. She sank to her knees beside him and grabbed a soft, damp cloth from the nightstand. With extreme caution, as if he were made of glass, she wiped the hot sweat from his pained face. Then she placed a dry, cool cloth on his forehead. She leaned over and pressed a soft, lingering, desperate kiss onto his lips.
“Silarias…” she whispered against his skin, her voice breaking. “Everything will be all right. I promise you… I swear it. I will become stronger. Stronger than Juro, stronger than Vespera, stronger than anyone else. For us. Never again will I allow you to suffer like this.”
Nyx raised her head and looked up. Above the bed was a round opening in the stone roof, providing a direct view of the clear night sky. The giant silver moon shone down directly on them with an icy, relentless light, sealing their bond. “I will become stronger…” she repeated in her mind while staring intently at the moon, her gaze hardening from grief into pure, unwavering determination. “I should have been there for you… and I will never forget that.”
The silver moonlight slowly shifted across the bed and reached Silarias’ face. Exactly between his closed eyes, the displaced gem caught the light.
Nyx looked at it.
NatureNull had extinguished his aura. His Cursed Form had vanished, and his breathing had finally become calm.
But the gem had not returned to the spot beneath his eye.
For just a moment, it pulsed on his forehead.
A single, black-and-gold heartbeat beneath the light of the moon.
As if, behind Silarias’ closed eyes, something new had awakened.