It did not echo.

It did not carry across the ocean or bounce off the sky. It simply was, absolute and undeniable, a truth that had been true before he was born and would be true long after he died. It was the voice of a mother who had lost her child.

It was the voice of a mourner who had been mourning for so long that mourning had become her entire existence.

It was the voice of something that had been searching for him across centuries, across dimensions, across the boundaries of life and death.

"I found you."

(Luna City- Late Morning)

The morning had stretched into late morning, the sun climbing higher over Luna City, casting golden light through the apartment windows.

The sounds of the city filtered in, distant traffic, birdsong, the occasional bark of a dog, but inside, the air was thick with tension and the quiet desperation of waiting.

Yuuta had not woken up.

His body remained on the sofa, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, his face pale beneath the sweat that glistened on his forehead.

The red and black aura that had been coiling from his skin had dimmed, but it had not disappeared. It clung to him like a second shadow, pulsing faintly with each heartbeat, resisting the pull of the stone.

Elena sat on the floor near the dining table, her small hands wrapped around a wooden block. Isvarn knelt beside her, his ancient face softened into something almost grandfatherly, his violet eyes fixed on the child as she stacked blocks into a wobbly tower.

"Higher," Elena commanded, pointing at the top block. Isvarn placed another block on the stack, his large hands surprisingly delicate. Elena clapped.

"Great grandpa is good at this."

Isvarn’s lips twitched.

"Thank you, princess. Your great grandpa has had many centuries to practice."

Elena giggled and knocked the tower over.

But across the room, there was no laughter.

Erza knelt beside the sofa, her silver hair falling forward, her violet eyes fixed on Yuuta’s face. Fiona knelt on the other side, the Aether stone pressed firmly against Yuuta’s forehead, her fingers steady despite the exhaustion etched into her features.

The stone pulsed with dark light, drawing the black aura from Yuuta’s skin in slow, rhythmic waves.

Erza watched the stone, and her mind raced.

She recognized it.

The smooth white surface, the faint internal glow, the way it seemed to drink the aura rather than absorb it, this was Aether stone.

Technology from Nova.

Technology from the human scientists who had fled from Dragon War centuries ago. The Noven humans. The ones who had created Yuuta.

Her hand drifted to her side, where the memory of captured enemies still lingered. She had fought Noven humans Hero before.

She had taken their stones, crushed their weapons, sent them screaming into the void. But she had never seen one of their stones on Earth. She had never imagined that the technology had spread this far, that it had found its way into the hands of a Phoenix Unit captain.

And first of all, how did Yuuta have black aura?

How had she not sensed it?

She was the most powerful being in existence. She could feel the heartbeat of a bird from a mile away, the shift in temperature that preceded a storm, the faintest whisper of magic in the air. And yet this darkness had been growing inside her mortal, inside the man she loved, and she had not noticed.

Her eyes drifted to Fiona.

The human woman was focused, her brow furrowed, her lips pressed together in concentration.

She was worried, Erza could see that, but it was not the frantic worry of someone facing the unknown. It was the calm, practiced worry of a doctor who had seen this disease before. The worry of someone who knew what was happening and was following a protocol she had learned somewhere else.

How?

Erza thought.

How could a mere human know about Eden technology? 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

How could she have obtained an Aether stone?

And how could she know about Yuuta’s black aura when I, the most powerful being in existence, did not?

She spoke, her voice soft, almost gentle, though her eyes were hard. "You, human."

Fiona did not look up. Her fingers remained steady on the stone, adjusting its angle slightly, watching the flow of aura.

"I’m in the middle of something."

She Focused back to her stone.

Erza’s fists tightened at her sides.

She was a queen.

She was a Royal dragon. And this human, this broken, exhausted, bruised human, had just dismissed her like a servant being shooed away from a task.

But she could not kill her. Yuuta’s life was in those bandaged hands.

She forced her voice to remain calm. "How do you know about Yuuta’s aura?"

Fiona adjusted the stone again, her eyes never leaving Yuuta’s face. "I said I haven’t finished yet."

Erza’s jaw clenched.

The audacity.

The sheer, impossible audacity of this creature who did not know who she was speaking to, who had no idea that she was one word away from annihilation. "You have audacity," Erza said, her voice low and dangerous, "to treat me like a common human. Do you know who I am?"

Fiona’s hands paused.

For a moment, she seemed to consider the question. Then she looked up, her hazel eyes meeting Erza’s violet ones without fear, without deference, without any of the respect that Erza was accustomed to receiving.

"I know you," Fiona said.

Erza waited.

"You’re a greater demon."

The word hung in the air like a slap.

Isvarn’s head snapped up from the dining table, his violet eyes blazing with fury. "Blasphemy," he said, his voice cold as the void between stars.

"Her tongue shall be removed for such insolence. Your highness, permit me."

"Shut up," Erza said.

Isvarn froze.

His mouth closed. His ancient face, usually so composed, flickered with something that looked like hurt.

He sank back onto the floor beside Elena, his shoulders slumped, his hands resting limply on his knees.

Elena looked up at him, her silver hair falling across her face, her red eyes wide with concern. She reached up and patted his head, her small hand rubbing his silver hair with a gentleness that seemed impossible for a child her age.

"Don’t worry, Great Grandpa," she said. "Elena is here."

Isvarn’s expression softened. He looked down at the child, at the daughter of the queen who had just dismissed him like a servant, and something in his ancient heart shifted.

"Thank you, princess," he said quietly.

"My granddaughter is cruel."

Elena giggled and continued rubbing his head.

But Erza was not watching.

Her rage had peaked, crested, and settled into something colder, something more controlled. She wanted to kill Fiona.

She wanted to wrap her hands around the human’s throat and squeeze until the light left her eyes. But she could not. Yuuta was still trapped in the nightmare. Yuuta still needed the stone. Yuuta still needed her.

She sighed.

The sound was long and low, pulled from somewhere deep in her chest. She had not sighed like that in centuries, not since she was a hatchling, learning that the world did not care about her feelings.

"Continue," she said.

Fiona did not need to be told twice.

Her hands returned to the stone, adjusting it, watching the flow of aura. Around her, scattered across the floor, were the Aether stones she had brought, sixty-seven of them, lined up in rows like soldiers. Sixty-five were already filled with black aura, their surfaces dark and pulsing faintly. Two remained.

The last one was on Yuuta’s forehead.

Erza watched as the stone drank the darkness from Yuuta’s skin, as his breathing grew steadier, as the tension in his jaw began to ease.

The change was slow, frustratingly, terrifyingly slow, but it was there. He was stabilizing. He was coming back.

Fiona’s hand trembled as she removed the last stone.

She set it carefully beside the others, then wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her bandaged wrist. She stared at Yuuta’s face for a long moment, watching his chest rise and fall, watching the color slowly return to his cheeks.

"Finally," she whispered.

She sank to the floor, her back against the sofa, her legs stretching out before her. Her chest heaved with each breath. Her eyes closed.

Erza felt something loosen in her own chest, a tension she had not realized she was carrying, a fear she had not allowed herself to name.

Yuuta was going to wake up. He was going to open his eyes and look at her and smile his stupid, infuriating, beautiful smile. She felt alive again.

But her questions had not been answered.

Before Erza could shape her question, Fiona’s voice cut through the silence, raw, exhausted, but sharp enough to draw blood.

"What did you do to him?

Erza’s breath caught.

"What did you do to Yuuta?" How can he be in this state?" Her hands trembled above Yuuta’s sleeping form, not from fear but from fury barely contained. "If I had been even a second late, he would have been gone forever."

"What do you mean, gone?" Erza’s voice rose, panic bleeding through the cracks in her composure. The word struck her like a physical blow, gone. Not sleeping. Not trapped. Gone.

Isvarn heard the exchange from the dining table. A human, a fragile, mortal human, was speaking to his queen in a tone that bordered on accusation.

His blood heated. His ancient patience, worn thin by centuries of watching his granddaughter suffer, snapped.

He did not stand.

He did not gesture.

He simply let his aura expand.

The effect was immediate and catastrophic.

Fiona’s body seized as if an invisible mountain had been dropped onto her shoulders. Her lungs compressed. Her heart slammed against her ribs, once, twice, three times, each beat louder than the last, each pulse sending fresh waves of terror through her veins. It was not pain. Pain she could handle.

This was the fear of death, pure and undiluted, the kind that stripped away rational thought and left only the screaming instinct to flee.

Isvarn’s voice drifted across the room, soft as silk stretched over a blade. "Watch your tone, human. You stand in the presence of a Divine being."

Fiona’s legs buckled.

Her vision narrowed to a tunnel. Her bladder clenched. Every nerve in her body screamed that she was prey, that running was useless, that the only thing left was to hope.

Erza’s gaze shifted to her grandfather.

She did not speak. She did not need to. Her violet eyes, flat, cold, absolute, asked a single question: What are you doing without my permission?

Isvarn felt that look like a blade between his ribs.

He withdrew his aura immediately, the pressure vanishing as if it had been a fever dream. The room returned to normal. The light brightened. The air lightened.

He turned back to Elena without a word.

The child looked up from her blocks, her silver hair falling across her small face, her red eyes carrying a wisdom that seemed borrowed from someone much older.

"Great Grandpa," she said, her tone gentle but firm, "don’t disturb Mama when she’s worried about Papa."

Isvarn’s ancient features softened.

He picked up a wooden block, blue, worn smooth by years of use, and placed it atop Elena’s wobbling tower. "I understand, little princess," he murmured. "I shall endeavor to behave."

Fiona gasped for breath on the floor. Her hands pressed flat against the wooden planks, her knuckles white, her chest heaving.

She had faced demon kings. She had walked into syndicate strongholds alone. She had stared down horrors that would drive ordinary minds to madness.

But this was different. This was not a battle. This was a rabbit realizing it had been sleeping at the feet of a wolf.

She had not sensed the old man before, her focus had been on Yuuta, on the stone, on the desperate work of pulling him back from wherever he had fallen. But now she understood. Now she knew that she stood between two beings so far beyond the demon kings that comparison was not just inaccurate, it was absurd. The demon kings were children playing with sticks. These were forces of nature wearing flesh.

Erza studied Fiona, and her thoughts churned like dark water.

How dare she blame me? The question circled her mind, sharp and defensive. I sealed his memories to protect him. I brought him back from the brink. I have done nothing but try to save him.

Then the shark paused.

Memory rose from the depths, unbidden, unwanted, undeniable. The memory chamber. The spell taking shape around Yuuta’s sleeping form. The Zani particles she had unleashed to erase his Memory. His body had arched off the table. His mouth had opened in a scream that had agonying sound.

His mind had recoiled from her magic like flesh from a brand.

And after, when she had sealed his memories using Zani Cina, the nightmares had begun. The sweating.

The trembling.

The aura she had been unable to see until Fiona forced her to look.

She turned to Isvarn.

Her voice emerged quiet, almost a whisper, but it carried across the room like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath.

"Tell me, Grandpa. Did he fall into the nightmare trial because of me?"

Isvarn set down the blue block.

His ancient fingers, wrinkled and spotted, rested on the wood for a moment before withdrawing. He looked at his granddaughter, at the woman he had raised from a hatchling, had taught to fight, had watched conquer kingdoms and shatter armies.

He saw the fear beneath her cold exterior.

The guilt she had been carrying since the memory sealing. The desperate need to hear that she was not responsible.

He could have lied.

He could have softened the truth.

He could have told her that the nightmare was inevitable, that the curse would have manifested regardless, that her magic had only coincidentally preceded the trial.

But she had asked for truth.

"Yes, my queen," he said. "You did."

To be Contiuned...