The crowd and the soldiers were still jumping and shouting in wild hype, throwing their helmets high into the air, when Nyx and her group skidded to a halt at the razor-sharp edge of the crater. The visual contrast was massive: all around reigned the pure, hysterical hype of a stadium, but inside the circle of the group hung an ice-cold, trembling focus. Nyx, Jane, and Apollo stepped forward in unison with drawn weapons and charged auras. Their breathing was heavy and raspy; every single muscle in their bodies was burning with lactic acid from the killer sprint and the previous energy depletion. Ghoulia brought up the rear slowly, screwing the cap back onto her metal hip flask with a calm, almost bored movement. Her expression was completely sober, but her eyes never left the bottom of the crater.
At the exact center of the wreckage lay the motionless body of Silarias. Right in front of him stood the masked Void Walker like an unyielding wall of pure darkness.
Then, amid all the smoldering debris, the figure suddenly tilted his head sideways. His gaze locked directly onto Nyx. Without uttering a word, he made a slow, deep, and exaggeratedly polite bow.
The pupils of Nyx, Jane, and Lila narrowed into razor-thin slits. Their breath audibly caught in their throats and their weapons trembled in their grip.
“FAUSTUS?!” they shouted in unison, their voices cracking from sheer disbelief.
At that exact moment, the dark corruption of the Void cloak broke apart with a loud hissing sound. The black emptiness dissolved into wisps of red smoke, and there he stood in his full glory. Two massive, pitch black horns cut intimidatingly through the dusty air, resting on his head. His body was encased in a streamlined, agile armor derived in every detail from a true, legendary gunslinger, complete with leather accents and glowing, dark runes running across the plates.
He recovered from his stance, looked at the girls with a challenging, eager smirk, and brought his palm to his chest for a second, even deeper bow: “Faustus!”
The hyperactive hypeman, who had been jumping on the sidelines, now went completely off his rocker. His eyes practically rolled out of their sockets from pure shock. He dropped his sound-amplifying crystal stick onto the stones with a loud clatter, after which the thing rolled pulsating across the ground. Without thinking, he set off into a mad dash, stormed into the crater, and planted himself with wide arms directly in front of the gunslinger, as if he had to protect a divine manifestation.
“STOP RIGHT HERE! STOP EVERYTHING!” roars the hypeman, while his voice echoes raw and possessed through the magical resonance of the crater. He turns around toward the soldiers and the approaching group with a wildly waving arm. “Do you not… do you not know the legend of Faustus?!”
He grabs his head with both hands, as if his brain is exploding from the pure escalation, and begins shouting the history out with wide, rolling eyes: “The man who not only entered the void, but forced it to eat out of his hand! The gunslinger of damnation, whose bullets do not drill holes in flesh, but holes in reality itself! Look at those horns! Look at that armor! This is the entity that sends entire legions to oblivion with a single snap of his fingers and comes back to smoke the ashes! If this man is standing here to guard the fallen sun, then you are not fighting an enemy… you are fighting the unyielding laws of the cosmos itself!”
The shouting of the hypeman died down in the depths of the crater, but the heavy echo hung between the walls. The soldiers at the edge fell abruptly silent. Not out of fear, but a deep, deathly silence of pure admiration and unimaginable awe filled the space. The rattling of their armor stopped; no one moved anymore, possessed by the legend that had just been screamed across the plain.
At the center of the crater, Faustus finished his deep bow, while the wisps of red smoke from his Void cloak completely wrapped around his streamlined gunslinger armor. Right at the moment the leather and the glowing, dark runes on his plates locked into place, he tilted his head. His horns cut sideways through the dusty air. He felt subtle vibrations running across the crater floor. Footsteps.
His gaze locked directly onto the approaching group. A wide, cheerful, eager smirk broke across his face as he recognized the leader.
“Nyx?!” Faustus called out aloud, his voice suddenly reserved for pure, boisterous cheerfulness. “My future cousin by marriage! Haha!”
He strolled casually toward her, as if walking through a Sunday market instead of a ruined battlefield. Without hesitating, he gave Nyx a soft, brotherly pat on her head, only to then mess thoroughly through the hair of the overwhelmed Jane and Lila with his hand.
“Ladies! And you guys really went wild up there, woah! What an entrance!”
Nyx and Jane stood completely rooted to the spot, their pupils still narrowed to razor-thin slits. Their weapons trembled in their grip, but no longer from the tension of a fight. Pure panic took over. Sensing the storm brewing, the girls began wildly signaling to Faustus with their eyes and hands: SAY NOTHING! SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
A bit further away, Apollo and Beat stood watching the bizarre spectacle. They looked at each other, thought the exact same thing, and nodded in unison.
“Party needs drinks,” Beat muttered with a raspy voice.
Without wasting another word on the situation, the two men slunk away unnoticed behind them, over the debris, searching for jugs of liquor.
Faustus noticed the girls signaling, began laughing out loud, and instantly understood the silent panic. He took a step back, winked at Nyx, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the motionless body behind him. “But hey, shouldn’t you take a look at my younger cousin? He is literally only babbling about you, haha!”
Before Nyx could even take a step, Faustus suddenly felt a firm, impatient tug at his leather trouser leg. He looked down and stared straight into the big, sparkling eyes of Miki and Ren, who had secretly slipped forward.
“Nooo oh… sorry!” sounded the startled voice of Lyn from the sidelines, slapping her hands over her face.
Miki did not let go of the trouser leg and immediately blurted out, pointing his finger at the armor: “Ummm Slingerman sir, are you the older cousin of big bro Sil?!”
Ren immediately took a step forward and pulled Miki backward by his arm. “Shh Miki! Introduce yourself first… do you remember what Nicola said about manners toward powerful entities?”
“Oh!” Miki jumped up enthusiastically, spread his arms wide, and composed himself with full energy. “I am Miki and he is Ren! And Silarias is our big bro!”
Almost in unison, the two little beasthumans stood up proudly, chests out, as if they had to prove themselves to the legendary gunslinger.
Faustus looked at the two little guys, and his gaze then shifted across the crater floor until it locked with the sharp eyes of Nicola. No words were spoken between the legend and the leader, but the message in Faustus’ eyes was crystal clear: Play along a bit, they are kiddos.
Nicola observed the gunslinger with an icy, analytical focus. I do not notice anything wrong with him, Nicola thought to himself, his hand resting on his sword. No bloodlust, no dark intent. But how he responds to this now is decisive for what we will do with this crowd.
Faustus broke the silence with a casual wink to Nicola. He spun around abruptly back to Miki and Ren, his eyes opened wide in feigned astonishment.
“OOHHH IS THAT SO!!!” he roared laughing.
At that exact moment, the atmosphere exploded. The entire environment, the crater, the soldiers, and the sky were swallowed up in a single fraction of a second by the absolute, pure darkness of the Void. The light disappeared completely. Faustus’ voice began to drain away mysteriously into the void, echoing from all directions at once.
“THAT MAKES YOU MY LITTLE COUSINS!!”
Everyone held their breath. The soldiers raised their shields.
“LOOK AND LISTEN!!”
The darkness suddenly pulled up into the air with immense force, only to shoot across the crater floor in a giant, soundless explosion. Instinctively, everyone squeezed their eyes tightly shut, bracing themselves to embrace the all-devouring crash.
But the crash never came. Fear was replaced in one fell swoop by breathtaking splendor.
When eyes opened again, the barren, ruined crater had transformed completely. Luminescent blue veins and glowing purple roots tore through the cracked stones, bursting into vibrant foliage that cast deep, pulsing glows over the faces of the crowd. Translucent void creatures darted between the rocks, leaving trails of starlight in their wake. A glowing void butterfly fluttered down and rested gently on Miki's finger, sending a wave of shimmering particles floating upward as thousands of void butterflies lifted into the dark sky together.
Energy gathered in the center of the crater, forming swirling visual projections in the air. The glowing void streams visually constructed the history of the Hydra water polyp beasthumans, projecting their lost aquatic civilization, their painful battles against extinction, and the pure resilience of their heritage. The visual projections drifted through the space like a living watercolor painting made of dark light and glowing ink, wrapping every spectator in its silent story.
Right in the middle of this visual show, Faustus abruptly shifted his tone. He turned his head and looked down at the unconscious Silarias with a quiet, serious expression.
“Cousin… you know what kind of day it is today, right?..”
Silarias slowly opened his heavy eyes, looking up at him with a bewildered, questioning look.
Faustus smiled gently: “Oh cousin… I will show you.. you know it well..”
Faustus raised his gloved hand, and the void visuals tore apart, reconstituting into a dark, mirrored reflection of reality. The energy displayed a glowing silhouette of a woman walking through this exact same terrain, but mirrored directly inside the vast, jagged landscape of the Hellverse. The visual projection depicted the precise day of her birth, marked by a massive, solitary star burning in the dark cosmos above her. The motherly void silhouette reached her arm up toward the baby, gesturing directly toward that blazing cosmic star.
At that exact point, the void illusion vanished into smoke, but high above the crater in the real night sky, a single star flared up with a blinding, diamond brilliance.
Silarias stared up at that solitary star, tears streaming down his bruised cheeks as realization struck him to his core, whispering with a breaking voice: “Mom!!”
The grand visual epic reached its end as Faustus slowly raised his hand and clenched his fist tightly.
FFWUSH!
The entire Void bloom, the glowing roots, the floating projections, and the light creatures collapsed into a single dense sphere of energy before launching straight into the night sky, exploding into a massive, shimmering cascade of cosmic sparks.
Faustus dropped down onto one knee right in front of the two young beasthumans, his eyes warm and sincere. “Do not worry, little troublemakers… Family of Sil is family of mine.”
The tension was broken, beauty had prevailed, but for one person, it was simply becoming too much to handle. Nicola could no longer process the insane, emotional rollercoaster and the sheer absurdity of this entire situation.
With his hair completely messy and his face tight with pure confusion, he popped out of the crowd, gesturing wildly. He turned around from the earlier question and yelled out: “WAIT! YOU ARE HIS OLDER COUSIN?!” Gesturing heavily, he pointed from Faustus to Silarias, and then to Nyx. “WHO ON EARTH ARE YOU PEOPLE?!”
Due to pure frustration and built up tension, Nicola unconsciously shot a bright arc of electricity straight into the sky. But the energy reacted with the remaining magical resonance in the atmosphere. The lightning bolt curved back with a loud crackle and bounced raw, at full speed, straight back down to the crater floor.
Right onto the motionless body of Silarias.
“NOOO!!!” everyone screamed in unison.
KABOOM!
The electric shock hit his chest full force. Silarias’ body jolted wildly off the ground, his eyes flew wide open, and he was abruptly and completely jolted awake by the current.
Nyx now went totally off the deep end from bottled up emotions and shock. She stormed forward, threw her weapon aside, and took the heavily battered Silarias firmly in her arms. She looked up at the soldiers, Nicola, and the crowd with a possessed, furious glare, roaring with everything she had in her lungs: “EVERYONE BE QUIET!! HE WANTS TO SAY SOMETHING!!”
The entire crater held its breath once again. Faustus stepped forward immediately, planting himself next to the duo in a solemn, theatrical posture, holding his hands up anxiously high like a preacher addressing the people: “SPEAK MY COUSIN, AND THE WORDS ARE!!”
Silarias lay weak in Nyx’s arms, his breathing raspy, his lips trembling. He moved his head slowly toward her ear and whispered with deep, possessed weakness:
“Need… food…”
Nyx froze. The dramatic tension, the epic transformation, the divine speech; everything collapsed into pure anticlimax. She blinked a few times, tried to process the words, and repeated the question aloud for herself, while Jane did the exact same thing in the background.
“FOOD?!” they shouted in unison in sheer astonishment.
Faustus did not hesitate for a single second, took back control, and roared with his powerful voice across the plain: “FOOD HE SAID! LET THE FEAST BEGIN!!”
The order was barely given before the whole atmosphere turned into a chaotic public festival. From literally every nook and cranny of the crowd and the soldier lines, people came dragging massive wooden tables, benches, and giant piles of food and roasts. The whole battlefield transformed into a noisy banquet within minutes.
But the danger was far from gone. While the crater filled with the sound of feasting voices, three enemy scouts moved noiselessly through the terrain in the background, deep within the shadows of the outer perimeter. Their gazes were set tight, their mission unchanged, quietly making their way toward this exact location.
And outside the crater, among the smoldering debris of the previous wreckage, two figures came staggering slowly into view.
Apollo and Beat had accomplished their mission and were each holding a number of giant liquor jugs. The problem was, however, that they had taken the trip a bit too seriously. Driven by the idea that a party needed drinks, they had sampled far too much of the contents along the way to check for quality.
Piss drunk, laughing loudly, and walking with heavy, swaying steps, they navigated through the destruction. In the distance, they saw the giant, pulsating crowd gathering around Nyx, Faustus, and the eating Silarias.
“Look at that… burp… they already started without us, Beat!” Apollo slurred, holding a jug dangerously crooked.
Beat took another laugh filled swig straight from his own jug and nodded hazily. “Then we need to… hic… do some serious catching up!”
Apollo and Beat looked at each other with hazy, bloodshot eyes. The world around them spun in slow circles, and the noisy party sounds from the crater sounded as if they were underwater. They stood wobbly for a moment, after which a broad, stupid smirk appeared on their faces. Reality finally sank in: they were truly, monumentally drunk.
“One more glass?” Apollo slurred, slamming his heavy jug down onto a flat boulder with a dull thud.
“One more is fine,” Beat agreed hazily.
With slow, wooden movements, they fumbled through their gear and both pulled out a traditional, hollowed out horn to use as a drinking cup. They raised the horns crookedly into the air, the liquor sloshing over the edges.
“Cheers!?” they shouted in unison.
BANG! BANG!
Two squeaky clean, deafening shots cut through the dusty air. The hollowed out horns in their hands exploded into hundreds of splinters before they could even touch their lips. The sudden shockwave blew the liquor like a fine mist straight into their faces.
Almost immediately after, a menacing, rhythmic rustling sounded from three different angles around them among the smoldering debris.
“Hehe, look at this!?” sounded a hissing, arrogant voice from the darkness.
The three scouts stepped into view, and their entrance was an absolute visual escalation. The first moved like a vague phantom; a speedster whose body constantly vibrated and left afterimages in the air, surrounded by crackling static sparks. The second was a massive brawler, a living wall of muscle encased in heavy, spike covered armor that carved deep grooves into the stones with every step. The third, the swordsman, walked forward with chilling composure, sweeping a razor-sharp, glowing sword through the air with fluid motions, the trail of pure heat evaporating the surrounding dust clouds.
They surrounded the two drunk fighters and looked down on them with a mocking glare.
“Muler, did you see those two fools?” asked the swordsman with a fake smile, holding his glowing blade still with a graceful flourish.
The giant brawler slammed his massive fists together, causing a loud metallic clang. “I see them, Combusken. They can barely stand on their feet.”
The speedster flashed from one rock to another in a fraction of a second, his afterimages fading in the dusty air, before stopping right in front of Beat. “Ten, Muler, Combusken… this is going to be a breeze,” chuckled the speedster, Ten, cracking his fingers. “They have already drunk themselves unconscious.”
Combusken took a step closer and let the heat of his sword glide dangerously close to Apollo’s face. “Look at them standing there. These are the so-called heroes? You laid the loot out for us way too easily. Shall we finish them off right here on the spot, or shall we laugh a bit more at how they try to fight?”
Muler laughed with a deep, rumbling sound that made the stones vibrate. “Let them try to draw their weapons. With that alcohol in their blood, they will not dent a pack of butter. We are not giving up this advantage. You guys are done for, drunks.”