Nama jumped out of her chair, without wasting a second she grabbed Lauri by his arm and pulled him towards the door, the sudden motion almost made Lauri fall over. Grabbing the handle, she forced it open, moving them both into the hallway.
The hallway was abuzz with activity, mundane humans were rushing towards the stairs and at the same time Awakened came from the stairs moving towards the outside. Lauri's eyes were opened wide, it was all so much stimulation. From the loud siren to the people pushing past him, the bright light of the sun was missing, red lights flashing lights illuminated the hallways.
Lauri looked to the windows a silent question on his lips. The light of the sun had been blocked out by an armoured shutter that had fallen down the moment the alarm started securing the windows.
"Lauri! Lauri, get it together!"
Nama had been trying to get Lauri's attention, forced to shake him.
"Get to your room! The dormitories are the safest places in the Compound, I have to go and meet with the other faculty. So go!"
It took Lauri a moment to process what was being said.
"O- Ok!"
They moved at the same time, Lauri moved with the crowd of mundane staff who all ran towards the stairs. Looking over his shoulder as he tried to push his way through, Lauri saw Nama disappear into the sea of bodies.
Lauri's mind was growing accustomed to the buzz of activity, questions were forming in his mind. The most pressing of these questions made his stomach churn.
'What is a Breach?'
The red flashing lights of the hallway gave way to the light of day for a moment. Unlike the windows, the doorway leading to the outside had not been sealed yet for good reason. Awakened that had been caught up in the flood of mundane personnel seeking shelter split off from the crowd and moved out of the door.
Without a second thought, Lauri summoned Luminescent Helper. Not wanting to draw attention to this action, Lauri formed within his closed palm, hiding the light of the strings. He also closed one eye, moving its perception to his helpful Imprint.
It would be a challenge to control Luminescent Helper whilst also traversing the bustling hallway and then the stairs, but it was something he had to do. Lauri had to know what the Breach was.
Reaching the door, Lauri turned his head to look outside in the hope of seeing what was wrong. A sense of fear was imprinted within Lauri's heart as he saw the thing that had started the alarm.
Out there, beyond the large white metal walls of Compound Thirty-Four's, there was something in the distance. Lauri wasn't sure how to describe it. It was just, wrong.
Dropping Luminescent Helper, its wings began to flutter. Darting from side to side, it weaved between a dozen moving legs, reaching the doorway after a few moments. At the same time, Lauri was almost at the stairs. Sending Luminescent Helper forward, Lauri had it land on a branch of one of the few trees that resided within the Compound's grounds.
No longer having to focus on giving his Imprint commands, Lauri hurried down the stairs. After a few minutes, he reached the floor on which the dormitories resided. The floor was mostly empty, save for a handful of Sicklies who had yet to reach their rooms.
Running along the corridors he quickly reached his room. Finding Ashley slumped next to his door, he slightly smiled as her friendly face turned to see him arrive.
"Ash? What are you doing out here? Get inside already have you not heard the alarm?"
Just like Lauri and every other Sickly, Ashley was also suffering from the effects of the sickness. Although for some reason Ashley didn't seem to show it as much as Lauri did.
"I was worried about you! Where have you been!"
Stopping by his door, Lauri gestured at the ceiling.
"I was in class with Nama, like I always am. Now get into your room!"
Shooing Ashley into her room, Lauri let out an exacerbated sigh as her door closed.
'It was nice she was worried about me, but at the same time does she not have any sense of self-preservation, although I guess we should be safe down here…'
Stopping at his door, Lauri looked up at the ceiling.
"We are safe down here… Right?"
Gritting his teeth, Lauri shook his head as he rushed inside his room not wanting to waste a second longer. Dropping his communicator by his pillow, Lauri climbed onto his bed crossing his legs beneath him.
"Okay."
Taking a deep breath Lauri closed his eyes.
"Let's see what's happening up there."
Shifting his perception back to Luminescent Helper, Lauri made it fly upwards.
Lauri first saw the outside of Compound Thirty-Four, unlike inside its walls where its grass was a beautiful green and properly tended to. The outside world was barren, not a sign of life in any direction. Just cracked, dried ground.
Unlike his rushed view of it beforehand, now Lauri could see perfectly what had caused the alarm. It was something Nama had discussed in detail. A Breach, something that instilled fear into all of humanity due to what it meant.
How could he forget, it was something mentioned in [A Story of Loss, Love and a Lifetime of Finding It Again], but more importantly. It was something Nama had taught him at the beginning of their lessons.
'Idiot, how do you forget things like this.'
A Breach was similar to what happened to Sicklies if they were unable to enter the Aether Stream during the Summer Equinox, it was a portal between Earth and the Aether Stream. Unlike when a Sickly's body fell apart and a single Fiend was able to bridge the gap between, a Breach would allow an unlimited number of Fiends to pass through until it was located and sealed from within the Aether Stream.
'That's… Not right, I get it's intimidating but why does it look so, so wrong?'
Unlike other Awakened, Lauri's sense of sight was different. He could see its effects differently, Lauri had mostly attributed this to his Title, [Lightbearer's Oath] same with his light sense that had only appeared after the evolution of his title.
It allowed him to perceive light on a more fundamental level. Which meant he could see how wrong the light around the Breach was. Twisted, corrupted, an unnatural phenomenon of the highest calibre.
Tearing his eyes away from the Breach, Lauri noticed the walls were teeming with bodies.
Men and women were moving, mundane soldiers had their rifles all trained on the Breach. The Indebted stood at the ready, their statue-like visage broken as bows and quivers weaved themselves into existence in their hands.
'Surely this is enough, right? There's so many of them.'
As Lauri thought this, the ground began to shake. The mundane soldiers lined atop the walls were thrown off balance all falling to the floor, the Indebted grabbed onto the sides of the walls to steady themselves. This quake wasn't just exclusive to the surface, Lauri hit his head on the still-broken screen behind him as the tremors reached all the way down to the dormitories.
Lauri balanced himself, allowing his light sense to extend into the rooms beside him. Ashley and Gareth were fine, Ashley had fallen onto the ground when the tremors began, but she was quickly picking herself up. Gareth had chosen to sit on the floor looking up at the ceiling.
'Smart bastard, you can't fall on the floor if you're already there…'
Lauri's train of thought fell silent as something happened. The Breach was growing bigger by the second, the light bending around the Breach shifted and Lauri saw that a different kind of light began to shine from within the Breach. Light from the Aether Stream began to enter this world.
Before he could properly process this occurrence. A dark shadow spread out from above, disabling Lauri's light sense, only through intense concentration was he able to keep his connection with Luminescent Helper.
The alarm that had been resounding throughout the facility since the Breach had appeared abruptly stopped. A familiar voice came over the intercom, it sent chills down Lauri's spine.
"This is Director Yang. The Breach has entered Type-Three territory, all mundane and Awakened stand down. I will deal with this threat personally."
As Yang's voice went quiet, the next moment Lauri saw him suddenly appear beyond the walls of Compound Thirty-Four. No, he hadn't just appeared, he had risen from out of the unnatural shadow that had been cast by his presence.
Lauri grit his teeth, straining against the unnatural feeling he always felt every time seeing a shadow connected to Yang.
'It's… Interesting that he only chose to appear now that the Breach turned into a Type-Three. This can't mean anything good.'
It in fact did not mean anything good, Type-Three Breaches meant that from out of that tear in reality at least one Fiend of the Devourer rank would emerge alongside a horde of Fiends of the Dominant rank.
This would not be a problem if there was a Paladin backed by a large group of Knights, but as it stood only Yang stood beyond the walls. Lauri was unsure what rank Yang was, but as he seemed confident in his abilities, he must be a Paladin.
Lauri's head hurt from the thought.
A minute after Yang appeared, the Breach tore apart. Fiends surged out of the opening, and a tide of death moved towards Compound Thirty-Four. A flood drawn in by the scent of the human soul. Yang didn't move, he didn't even look concerned – at least that is what Lauri assumed, it was hard to discern his expression from the view of the back of his head.
Only when the Fiends drew close did he move.
Raising his hands into the air he seemed to be pinching the air with one hand. Suddenly, the shadows around him came to life. No, not quite the shadows. Creatures emerged from the shadows surrounding Yang's feet.
Lauri easily recognised the first creature to emerge from the shadows, in fact, it wasn't a creature at all. Inky black armour and a long thin blade that Lauri could never forget, Oryx stood by Yang's side, his blade held in a defence position ready to strike down any Fiends that dared to attack his master.
It was the other creatures that emerged from Yang's shadows that left Lauri in shock. Lauri had expected an army of Indebted humans to rise up from the darkness Yang carried with him, but Lauri could not have been more from.
'No… This can't be real, he can even dominate their souls?'
The reason for Lauri's shock was simple, an army of Indebted had risen from Yang's shadow. An army of Indebted Fiends rose against the Fiends emerging from the Breach.
The Fiends that had initially emerged from the Breach were almost human in appearance. Bastardization of what a human looked like, incorrectly sized proportions, left them with limbs longer than any human Lauri had seen. Taut skin drawn over long limbs, giving their appearance a ghoulish effect. Dark empty spaces where their eyes should have been.
Yang's army of Fiends was countless, every second that passed one hundred more Fiends burst out of his large lunging towards the horde of ghouls. Fiends of every shape and size clashed in the middle of the beyond the walls of the Compound.
The first row of ghouls raised their long arms, the skin over their fingers had long ago been torn away, revealing claw-like bone fingers. Attempting to cut down their opponents, Yang's Fiends raised their own claws, tentacles, clubs, spears, and maws and the fight truly began.
The thought of what this fight must sound like sent shivers down his spine. The sound of hundreds of Fiends releasing blood-curdling war cries, the sound of flesh being torn from bone.
Lauri was fortunate to not be able to hear this conflict. Although he could shift the perception of one of his eyes to see through the light Luminescent Helper emitted, he was unable to shift any of his other senses, leaving the rest of his other five senses to enjoy the quiet of his room now the tremors had stopped.
The battle between the Fiends lasted for an hour, for every Fiend Yang's Indebted struck down another two took emerged from the Breach, but fortunately – a word Lauri never thought he would use when thinking about Yang – for every one of Yang's Indebted the ghouls struck down, another five emerged from Yang's shadow.
After an hour of violence, the amount of ghouls emerging from the Breach began to slow down. Which meant only one thing. The Cyst Fiend would enter this world soon.
Lauri scratched the side of his head as he tried to recall the lesson Nama had conducted on Breaches.
'Breaches are obviously tears between worlds, natural phenomena that the scientists of humanity still do not truly understand. All that is known is that the Breach latches onto a Fiend in the vicinity of its inception and channels their power. It's kind of an inverse of what happens when a Sickly isn't able to access the Aether Stream… Except the Fiend isn't killed, instead it just gets stronger.'
At that moment, something new emerged from out of the Breach. A ghoul that towered over the Fiends that had emerged before it. It was both larger and unlike its smaller kin, the Cyst Fiend had six arms – although the hands were missing from two of them, causing them to end in bone-like spears. It was much larger than the other ghouls, easily standing 16 metres tall, it towered over the Fiends that scurried past it.
The Cyst Fiend appeared dazed for a moment, taking in its surroundings, a putrid glow appeared in its eyes as it settled on Yang. Beginning to move, the ghoul flew forward at a rapid speed, easily reaching Yang's Indebted in seconds. Unlike the weaker ghouls, the Cyst Fiend had no problem easily eviscerating every fiend it came into contact with.
Lauri again shivered.
'That's got to be of the Devourer rank… Can Yang really kill that thing?'
Yang's hands froze in the air, lowering his hands he slightly turned his head to Oryx. He moved slightly, no doubt saying something to his minion, and then he stepped forward.
The Cyst Fiend's head jerked in Yang's direction as he began to move. Tearing the head off of a Fiend that looked like some kind of snake tiger hybrid, it barrelled through the remnants of Yang's Indebted travelling, moving straight towards the ringleader like a train gone out of control.
Yang casually walked towards the approaching Cyst Fiend, his hands had found their way to his pockets. It seemed like he didn't have a care in the world about the creature of death that was seconds from tearing him in half.
'What is he doing!? If he was going to die that easily, then he could have let me kill him. It would only be fair!'
This was it, Lauri was on the edge of his seat – on the edge of his bed – if this Fiend managed to kill Yang all of Lauri's problems would disappear like smoke on the wind. It was an incredible thought, all Yang had to do was keep his hands in his pockets and-
The moment the ghoul stepped onto the large shadow surrounding Yang, it collapsed, rolling across the ground. No, it had not collapsed, the shadows around it had grabbed its legs causing it to fall over.
It was over just like that. Yang's shadows covered the ghoulish Fiend's body, restraining it. Yang slowly closed the distance between himself and the Fiend. Rolling up his sleeve, he held up his right arm.
Lauri did not need to watch more, severing his connection with Luminescent Helper, he dismissed the Imprint. Lauri had already known fighting Yang wasn't going to be an easy process, but even this.
'This is just too much… How can a man have such a powerful Title that lets him control other creatures, even Fiends? Surely for a Primordial Title... Just too much...'