The tactical transport vessel sliced through the upper reaches of the cloudscape, its metallic hull vibrating with the relentless hum of engines.
Inside, the compartment was a study in confined tension, Espers packed shoulder to shoulder, the air thick with unspoken apprehension.
Maxin leaned against the cold alloy of the bulkhead, his gaze drifting to the fleeting panorama beyond the porthole—a world in retreat beneath their swift passage. A wry thought crossed his mind: the Federation's tactical transports, marvels of velocity reaching two thousand kilometers per hour, yet as defenseless as fledglings should a Shadowbeast decide to strike. In such an event, all they could do was hope that fate was not feeling particularly cruel that day.
Their destination: Aether Spire City, a secondary metropolis to the south, now beleaguered by a horde of Shadowbeasts, predominantly of the D-Class or lower. Maxin, a third-stage Esper, found himself at the spearhead of this relief contingent—a role both burdensome and inevitable.
The Berserker—a pinnacle among warrior-class abilities—thrived on the chaos of battle, each clash stoking its ferocity to greater heights. But with such formidable power came an insidious cost; few Berserkers ever breached the seventh stage. The Federation remained tight-lipped on the matter, yet Maxin had begun to sense the creeping tendrils of his own ability's backlash. At the third stage, the aftermath of combat left subtle voids in his memory—a disquieting sign of eroded reason.
Yet, in this world, Espers bore the mantle of humanity's shield; choice was a luxury they could ill afford. At least his prowess had not gone unnoticed by the Federation, earning him privileges beyond the standard fare of his rank—an unending supply of jerky and snacks, and even the occasional vial of the exorbitantly priced Crimson Elixir.
Drawing a steadying breath, Maxin centered himself, muscles coiling in anticipation of the imminent conflict.
Within the Medical Ward
After a night steeped in relentless cultivation, Leon Chase's eyes snapped open within the sterile confines of the medical pod. Wasting not a moment, he expedited his discharge, his mind fixated on a singular objective: enlisting with the Hunter Association.
The induction process was more perfunctory than anticipated—forms filled, abilities assessed, credentials granted. With his new identity as a hunter secured, avenues to undertake missions and earn his keep lay open before him.
"Next step," he mused, a determined glint in his eye, "is to make waves throughout Delta Stratos City."
Striding from the association's premises, Leon set his course northeastward, toward the Espers Academy. Today, he vowed, he would seize control of his destiny.
However, as he ventured onto familiar avenues, an unsettling stillness greeted him—the streets lay deserted, an eerie hush hanging in the air.
"What's going on?" His brow furrowed in perplexity.
A moment's contemplation yielded the answer: the Espers of Delta Stratos City had been dispatched to bolster defenses elsewhere. After all, Transcendent Rank Espers were a rarity across the Federation, each one an invaluable asset, and cities boasting their presence were few and far between.
Standing before the gates of the Espers Academy, Leon hesitated. This institution should have been a cornerstone of his existence. Yet, at the tender age of eight, branded as a "Powerless One," its doors had remained firmly shut to him.
He had watched peers of his age pass through these gates, ascending into the realm of abilities, while he lingered outside, an outsider yearning for a world beyond reach.
Now, everything had changed. Drawing a deep breath, he sought to expel over a decade's worth of pent-up frustration. Today, he would shatter these chains with his own hands.
"Here goes nothing."
Summoning his resolve, Leon pressed against the grand doors—yet they remained unyielding, immovable.
His expression froze, a metaphorical question mark hovering above his head.
"What the…?"
A passerby, observing his futile efforts, couldn't resist offering insight:
"What are you doing? The academy staff have all gone to provide support elsewhere; the academy's closed!"
A moment of stunned silence ensued, Leon's pupils dilating in disbelief. His grand plan to "shake Delta Stratos City" had been doused with cold reality before it even began.
Time was of the essence. If the Espers Academy was inaccessible, self-improvement would have to take precedence. Without hesitation, he pivoted and made his way back to the Hunter Association, intent on securing a mission—one that would allow him to combat Shadowbeasts and earn some coin on the side.
However, as a first-stage Esper, and thus a novice hunter, the missions available to him were… less than glamorous.
"Assist in capturing a pet cat."
"Trim a wealthy client's garden."
"Purchase daily necessities for an elderly gentleman."
These were menial tasks, requiring no combat prowess whatsoever. He stood before the mission board, a sense of helplessness washing over him.
"Come on… I'm here to be a hunter, not labor!"
Unwilling to waste time, he turned to leave, only to notice staff members posting new missions for the day.
"Wait, let's see if there's anything suitable…"
Leon stood before the task board, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. The laminated slips fluttered under the breeze of the building's old vent, a pathetic display of what passed for work at his level.
"Anything beyond catching cats or trimming hedges?" he asked, half-expecting silence.
The man behind the counter—bored, grizzled, eyes the color of stale coffee—barely looked up. He gestured vaguely toward the east wall.
"Try the collection board. Heard they're short on rare ore from the outer mines. Not glamorous. Not safe, either. Beasts out there. Usually, lower stage tag along with veterans. Pay your dues, get your cut."
Leon's ears sharpened at that. No fixed team. No registration. Just ore and coin—pure, impersonal. The kind of job no one cared how you pulled off, as long as you brought something back.
Perfect.
Without hesitation, he dug through his coat and slammed his last funds on the counter—every coin, every crumpled note. In return, he got a low-grade storage ring, scuffed and dulled with use, barely large enough to hold a ton of stone. But that was all he needed.
Just fill the ring. Bring it back. Get paid.
That was the kind of logic he liked.
He didn't bother with potions. The kind that saved lives cost more than his life was worth on paper. And anyway, if he needed one, it meant he'd already screwed up.
So he left. No gear. No plan. Just his feet pounding the cracked stone road eastward, toward the mines. The wind caught in his jacket. The sky overhead sagged with the weight of clouds that refused to break.
And yet… the city's outer ring was quiet.
Too quiet.
He scanned the ruins along the roadside—burnt-out homes, rusted fences, soil still blackened with the ash of past battles. It should've been crawling with lesser Shadowbeasts.
But five kilometers out, and he'd only seen one E-class wretch dragging its carcass toward the underbrush. He hadn't even bothered drawing steel.
"Where the hell are they all?" he muttered. But he didn't stop to wonder. Not too long. Not out here.
The mine waited.
When he reached it, dusk had begun its descent. The place was barren—no hunters, no guards, not even a drunk dozing by the tool rack. Just wind and silence and a strange tree by the entrance—bent, scarred, its bark marked with deep grooves, as if something had once tried to strangle it and nearly succeeded.
He didn't linger.
Inside, the walls breathed damp air. He recognized the shimmer of the ore easily—threads of pale azure traced through the rock like veins beneath thin skin. All he had to do was follow them. The rest was sweat.
And for a time, he worked. He chipped and pried and gathered, the ache in his limbs grounding him more than any map ever could.
But something… shifted.
He didn't notice when it started.
Perhaps the angles changed. Perhaps the echoes no longer returned quite the same. The mine had grown. Or twisted. Not because he moved deeper—but because the mine itself had moved.
The elders called it a place that "Voidmaw". No one ever said it aloud. No reason to scare the greenbloods from a job that paid better than most. So the trick was simple: mark your path. Leave breadcrumbs. Find your way back before the mine decided to forget you.
Leon, of course, had been told nothing.
Two hours in, his candle hissed and died. The last flicker of flame swallowed whole by the dark.
He sat back, wiping the sweat from his brow, his muscles aching with the promise of a long night.
Then he turned—and froze.
The entrance was gone.
Gone.
In every direction: forks, splits, blind corridors. None of them familiar. Stone whispered underfoot, and the air had turned… still. Not dead, exactly—just watching.
He took one step back. Then another.
And then, with the slow dread of a man realizing too late that he had never been in control, Leon Chase understood:
He wasn't lost.
He'd been swallowed.
He had to get out. That much was certain.
Leon snapped the pickaxe back into its holster and summoned the Cursed Sword with a flick of the wrist. It came without sound, a whisper of dark steel in the stale air. The runes along its edge had dimmed, their pulse sluggish—like the sword itself was unsure.
He picked a tunnel. Any tunnel. No signs. No markers. Just black rock and narrowing walls. The plan was simple: walk in, turn around if it led nowhere.
But he didn't know—couldn't know—that the mine had changed behind him.
Again.
It wasn't just distance that shifted. Space itself bent. Twisted. The path back was gone, not hidden, not collapsed—erased.
What he thought was a tunnel forward was a mouth. And it had closed.
The place was changing, turning itself inside out, and it was doing so without noise. No rumble. No tremor. Just silence, soft and obscene.
He was walking deeper, not by choice, but by design.
They called these places "Stellar Enclaves" in the old tales—fragments of cosmic ruin where the world bent wrong. Some said they were born from fallen stars. Others whispered of gods that had tried to remake the land and failed.
Leon didn't know which story was true. He only knew that this mine was one of them. And it was hungry.
Ten minutes passed. Maybe twenty. The walls never repeated, but never changed. He could feel it in his bones: he wasn't moving forward. He was circling.
He turned back.
The tunnel was gone.
Not caved in—gone. Replaced by smooth rock. Seamless. Untouched.
He cursed under his breath.
Then—space opened.
A chamber. Wide. Still. Cold as an open grave.
At the center: bones. Human. Long dried, bleached white by time and silence. Beside the ribcage, two letters, curled with age.
One addressed to a wife.
One… to whoever found him.
Leon crouched, picked it up. The ink had faded but the words remained.
1. The tunnels change. I couldn't find the exit.
2. Some paths have Monsters.
3. All wrong turns lead back here.
He stared at the page. No wind. No breath. Just the faint scratch of his heartbeat in his ears.
"What the hell is this place?"
He stood. Three tunnels lay ahead.
He chose one. At random.
Ten minutes later, he returned to the bones.
The fourth tunnel had appeared.
He didn't speak. Didn't scream. Just stared. Then laughed once, bitter and dry.
He tried again. Another path. Another return.
The fourth became a fifth. Then six.
Even the bones seemed older each time he came back.
This was no mine. This was a loop. A snare made of stone and silence.
A graveyard with rules.
Leon clenched the Cursed Sword. Its weight grounded him. Its edge knew things he didn't. He slowed his breath. Controlled his step. Began rationing water. Rationing hope.
And tried again.
But the next tunnel—wasn't the same.
He caught it in the air first.
A stench. Sharp. Wet. Rotted. Not dead flesh, but something else. Like meat left in acid. Sour. Fermented. Wrong.
He stopped moving.
That smell—it meant something lived here.
He exhaled, slow and silent, and blew out the last flame.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
The sword remained, cold in his palm.
He stepped forward. Quiet. Deliberate.
The deeper he went, the worse it got. His stomach turned. His throat clenched. Whatever made that smell didn't move like a beast. It didn't mark territory. It didn't hunt. It waited.
Then he heard it.
A sound, deep in the stone. Wet and thick, dragging through the black.
Not footsteps.
Breathing.
Low. Labored. Close.
He froze.
Something shifted in the dark.
And the mine—what he thought was a mine—breathed back.
Something stirred in the dark.
A low gurgle. A hiss. Then—words. Not guttural. Not bestial. Words. Strange, wet syllables. Rhythmic. Deliberate.
They were speaking.
Leon froze. That was language. These things were talking.
He pressed himself to the stone, breath shallow. Language meant thought. Thought meant coordination. These weren't wild beasts. They were worse.
C-class or higher, he guessed. His fingers tightened around the hilt of the Cursed Sword. Not much use against numbers. Or intelligence.
He crawled forward, careful not to let metal scrape against rock. The tunnel widened. A faint glow painted the air—a sickly green hue, pulsing low like breath.
Then he saw them.
A colony. Fur-covered, feline forms. Dozens. Some small, twitching in sleep.
Others large—too large, with limbs built like weapons and shoulders knotted with muscle. They lounged, paced, groomed each other. A society. A tribe. And one, larger than the rest, sat at the center—still, watchful. Not alpha. Patriarch.
Leon's stomach turned.
Shadowbeasts didn't do this. They didn't nest. They didn't build hierarchies.
They killed. Alone.
This wasn't Shadowbeast behavior.
Something else was at work here.
He was still watching when the cold hit the back of his neck.
Instinct took over—he rolled sideways, scraping his shoulder raw against stone.
A whisper of wind passed where his spine had been. Then the sound—three claws slicing through air. Deep. Precise.
He twisted up to one knee, blade drawn. Behind him, a single green eye glowed in the dark.
It stepped forward—silent, low to the ground. Feline, but wrong. Too fluid. Too quiet. Muscles shifted like smoke beneath its skin. Its teeth were half-bared, curved like sickles.
It had waited. Watched. Followed.
He'd been marked the moment he entered the nest.
Leon's breath caught in his throat.
It lunged.
He raised the blade, grip tight, every muscle screaming.
No clever tricks now. No schemes. No help.
Only this:
Steel and fear and what little strength he had left.
And death, waiting just a heartbeat ahead.