"Damn it!"
The word ripped from his throat, hoarse, broken.
His head lifted.
Through blurred vision, he saw her.
Celia.
Still standing.
Barely.
Her exoskeleton bio-armor pulsed, iron-touched blue, its dark metallic sheen warped by the sheer force bearing down upon them. Her legs trembled, her posture tight with resistance... but she stood.
Her breath was ragged, her face twisted with effort, but her voice... her voice still carried.
"Agon! Snap out of it! Get it together!"
A scream of raw desperation.
A plea.
But he, the thing levitating above.. did not answer.
The Wanderer Who Laughs hovered there, arms loose at his sides, weightless in a way no human should be. White-gray hair drifted, untouched by wind. Skin darker than void. Eyes... deeper than yellow, something more than light, something unknowable. His exoskeleton, white-ash in texture, metallic yet breathing, pulsed with something organic. Something alive.
He did not speak.
He only smiled.
Uvan’s breath came heavy.
He turned, forced his gaze sideways.
Jess.
Still fighting.
Her exoskeleton bio-armor, iron-touched red, flickered, resisting the pressure trying to crush her into the ground. Her orange eyes.. burning like smoldering embers.. remained locked onto the figure above, unwavering.
She refused to fall.
Even if her body trembled. Even if every breath was a battle.
Uvan let out a deprived chuckle.
It was a pathetic sound.
How pathetic of a team leader he was.
He couldn’t even stand beside them.
He couldn’t even help them.
Not Celia. Not Jess. Not..
"You’re feeling it too, aren’t you?"
A voice.
Feminine. Soft, but steady.
Uvan turned his head, sluggish, as if moving through water. But he knew the voice.
Lovia.
Her deep green gaze, reflecting the cold luster of emeralds, met his. Her dark blonde hair clung to her sweat-slicked skin, her exoskeleton bio-armor.. iron-touched dark ash.. quivering under the force bearing down upon them.
Yet her expression…
It was calm.
Not unaffected. Not untouched.
But aware.
Her voice carried again, measured, as if she had already come to terms with the reality pressing into them.
"We are already far behind them."
The words sank into him, cutting sharper than any blade.
"If we don’t evolve, we are never going to be able to reach them. And then... " Her gaze flickered to Celia. To Jess. "... we’ll only end up slowing them down."
Uvan clenched his teeth.
He wanted to argue.
But he couldn’t.
Because she was right.
Even if his bones ached. Even if the agony drained him bit by bit, hollowing out his insides like a rotting shell... she was right.
His voice, strained, barely above a whisper.
"You’re right. But… there isn’t any way to evolve at this time."
Not in this state.
Not like this.
Lovia inhaled, slow and deliberate, before speaking.
"There is."
Her gaze was certain.
And then...
"Agon told me earlier today what he suspects."
Uvan’s breath caught.
"What did he say?"
Lovia exhaled.
"To evolve to Second Evolution, it isn’t about the percentage remaining to complete."
A pause.
A hesitation.
"It’s about…"
She closed her eyes, as if embracing something unseen.
"… Embracing it."
Uvan’s fingers curled against the dirt beneath him.
"Our emotions… at their peak."
A whisper.
A revelation.
A truth that settled into his bones like a spark waiting to ignite.
BOOOOOM!
A shattering crack through the suffocating stillness.
A ripple in the air.
A shift in the world.
A single moment.
A single heartbeat.
And in that moment where all hope seemed to be lost, a moment of pure agony and absolute grief...
An Evolution Bloomed.
[SYSTEM]
+
|##0905##| SECOND EVOLUTION COMPLETE
TRAIT: WIND SUMMONER
+
DUUUUUUM!
A rupture in the air.
A crackle of something unseen, something vast and absolute.
Wind howled through the ruins, surging outward like a living thing, ripping across the ground in violent currents. The very atmosphere buckled. A pressure imploded at its core... and Lovia was gone.
Then....
Jess vanished.
Celia disappeared.
A pulse of absence, like the world itself had lost something crucial, something vital. The echo of their departure still hung in the air when...
A voice.
Low. Steady. Laced with something unreadable.
"It seems you’re the only one left, Cap…"
Uvan’s breath caught.
Lovia’s voice... faint, drifting, yet ringing clear in the empty battlefield.
"Don’t keep Agon waiting."
He let out a breathless chuckle. A dry, tired sound.
"…I wouldn’t want to be a piss-poor captain."
And in that moment...
He stopped resisting.
Duuuum!
The grief. The agony. The all-consuming weight that had clawed at his ribs, hollowed out his chest, tried to break him.
He let it in.
Let it dig deep into his bones, let it bury itself into the core of his being. No more fighting it.
It surged through him.
A flood of raw, unfiltered torment. It ran through his veins like scorching ice, searing into his flesh as if his body were being torn apart from the inside. His muscles writhed, twisting under the force, his nerves burning as if they were being stripped away, thread by thread. His exoskeleton groaned, the dark iron gleaming beneath the flickering lights of the ruined battlefield.. alive, breathing, pulsing.
But he did not fall.
He embraced it.
In that moment... A spark.
A flicker.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freewebnσvel.cøm.
Something light. Something bright. Something...
BOOOOOOM!
Electricity detonated.
Lightning arced from his skin, wild, raw, untamed. It seared through the ground, leaving cracks of molten red in its wake, twisting in jagged streaks through the air, carving patterns of pure destruction into the space around him. Sparks raced across his arms, his chest, his legs... a storm of light and power, spreading like wildfire.
And for a moment..
Time stilled.
The battlefield blurred at the edges, the world distant, detached.
Uvan exhaled.
And his breath crackled with lightning.
[SYSTEM]
+
|##0908##| SECOND EVOLUTION COMPLETE
TRAIT: REVERSE SPEEDSTAR
+
He was already there.
Midair.
A blur of black iron suspended in the vast, suffocating dark.
A moment ago, he had been on the ground.
Now, he was inches from The Wanderer Who Laughs.
His arm was already extended, his hand already reaching... fingertips close enough to touch.
Uvan’s deep brown eyes locked onto the figure before him.
The thing that wasn’t human.
Gray-white hair, drifting weightlessly.
Skin darker than void.
Eyes... deeper than yellow.
Its exoskeleton breathed, layered with an organic texture, white-ash in color, metallic in its sheen, yet alive.
Its presence alone was agony.
Was grief.
But Uvan’s voice, when it came, was steady.
Calm.
"…Thank you, Agon."
A pause.
A slow inhale.
A shift in weight.
"You’ve done us well."
The Wanderer Who Laughs tilted its head.
Something like amusement flickered across its features.
Uvan’s voice did not waver.
"…Now it’s time for us to do the same."
The Wanderer Who Laughs’ smile widened.
"Do you think I’ll let y.... "
It never finished.
BOOOOOOOM!
The one who had blitzed through time...
Had already crashed him down.
The impact rang through the ruins. A shockwave of pure force, a sound that split the sky, that sent the earth splintering beneath them.
Team 5 will stop at nothing to get their member back.
No matter what.