"Come on." Aria’s voice cut through his reverie. "You’re drooling."

Kael blinked. "Who’s drooling? I’m just admiring the beauty of this city."

"Uh huh." Aria’s expression was flat. The look she gave him definitely said she didn’t believe a single word.

"Come on." Kael spread his arms. "I’m the only guy here. Can you blame me for having eyes?"

"You can have eyes and still look where you’re walking."

"I am looking where I’m walking."

"At my chest."

"That’s part of where I’m walking."

Aria’s hand came up, fingers flicking his ear.

Rue giggled looking at the duo. Lyra didn’t turn around, but her shoulders shook slightly in what might have been suppressed laughter.

Before Kael could defend himself further, a voice interrupted from ahead.

"Greetings, my lady."

Grey stepped out of a side alley. Beside him—

Kael’s eyes narrowed.

The man was tall. Lean. Young—maybe late twenties, though with cultivators that meant nothing. Dark hair pulled back in a severe tail. Two blades crossed at his back, their hilts visible above his shoulders, the kind of weapons that clearly saw regular use. His movements carried a particular quality that Kael recognized from very few people—the economy of motion that came from someone who had spent thousands of hours perfecting the art of violence.

Professor Victor Ashwood.

"Grey." Lyra flashed a smile. "I told you to keep the formalities."

"My apologies, my lady." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She turned to the swordsman. "Welcome, Victor."

Victor’s gaze swept across the group, cataloguing each of them with the practiced assessment of a combat instructor. When his eyes reached Kael, they stopped.

"Hello, Kael." His voice was calm. "It seems you’ve been busy."

Kael inclined his head. "Professor."

"Hello to you too, Rue." Victor’s attention shifted to the fox girl. "I can see both of you have improved significantly. Even ranking in the top ten of the year leaderboard. Congratulations."

Rue’s cheeks flushed. "Thank you, sir."

"I hope to see you both in the inter-academy competition." Victor’s eyes moved back to Kael. "The academy will be sending its best. You should be among them."

"Yes sir." Kael and Rue replied in unison.

Kael’s mind was racing. Victor Ashwood—blade master, Blade Intent developer, one of the few instructors who had actually taught something useful during first year. And now revealed to be a Spirit Soul Realm cultivator.

Spirit Soul Rank 3, if Kael’s senses were accurate.

That put him above Grey. Above George. In an entirely different weight class from anyone else in this group except possibly Lyra, whose true capabilities remained mysterious.

They followed Grey through the crowd, weaving between merchants and civilians, Victor falling into step beside Lyra at the front.

"Alright." Lyra’s voice dropped to mission-appropriate levels. "The squad is now complete. What have you gathered so far?"

Victor spoke first.

"This place is the endpoint." He gestured vaguely toward the city’s edge. "All the teleportation formations—the ones on Athelas, Morir, and the dozen other planets we’ve identified—feed here. Xylos City. Specifically, a location just outside the city limits."

He paused.

"Over the past few months, this organization has abducted over hundreds of thousands of humans, elves, and beasts. Even thousands of cultivators—Core Formation, Foundation Establishment, and reports of Mana Heart realm individuals being taken as well."

The numbers hung in the air.

Hundreds of thousands.

Kael had known the scale was large. He’d seen the Thornwick formation, heard the quota numbers, understood intellectually that House of Crimson was operating on an industrial scale. But hearing it stated plainly—hundreds of thousands of living beings, shipped across the galaxy like cargo—was different.

"From the information Kael provided on Morir," Lyra continued, "and from our other sources, we’ve reached a consensus. These people are trying to awaken some kind of being. Something that requires massive sacrifices."

Her voice was flat.

"We should assume the worst. The abducted victims are likely already dead."

Silence fell over the group.

Kael processed the information quickly. The pieces fit together in an unpleasant picture—House of Crimson as the collection arm, Shadow Vatican as the architects, and somewhere at the center of it all, something powerful enough to require hundreds of thousands of lives to wake up.

"We should also assume this being is at least at the Spirit Soul realm." Kael’s voice broke the silence. "I’m guessing that’s why Sir Victor is here."

Victor’s expression didn’t change. "Correct."

Kael looked at Lyra.

His expression shifted—something almost pitiful, a carefully constructed look of helpless desperation that absolutely no one who knew him would believe for a second.

"Please," he said with a tone that bordered begging. "Can I go home?"

Lyra with an evil smile.

"An absolute no." Her voice was sweet and poisonous. "That’s for skipping missions for four months straight."

Kael’s shoulders slumped. The performance was flawless.

He straightened a moment later, the act dropping, replaced by the sharp awareness of someone who understood exactly how dangerous this mission was about to become. The System’s vague quest. The survival objective. The unknown parameters.

Something was wrong here.

"Alright, everyone." Lyra’s voice shifted back to mission mode. "The base is located at the outskirts of the city. We move now."

The desert was cold at night.

Kael hadn’t expected that. Deserts were supposed to be hot—basic geography, common knowledge—but apparently Hevaria’s deserts didn’t get that memo. The temperature had dropped steadily as they moved away from the city, and now, standing at the edge of a seemingly empty stretch of sand, he was regretting not bringing warmer clothes under his kimono.

Grey distributed the goggles.

Standard Guardian issue—black frames, dark lenses, unremarkable appearance. Kael put them on and immediately understood.

The nothing in front of them wasn’t nothing.

A dome shimmered into existence, extending at least a kilometer in each direction. It had been completely invisible to normal sight, but through the goggles it glowed with faint runic light, the kind of sophisticated spatial manipulation that required resources most nations couldn’t dream of acquiring.

"Stay close," Lyra said. "Don’t touch anything until I say so."

They entered the dome.

The transition was disorienting—like walking through a wall of static, the air thick and resistant for half a step before releasing them into—

Kael stopped.

The world had changed.

Everything was red.

Not metaphorically. Literally. The sky overhead was a deep crimson. The ground beneath their feet was dark red stone, almost black, veined with lighter red like dried blood. The structures in the distance—buildings, maybe, or what had once been buildings—were the same color.

And the monsters.

They were everywhere.

Grotesque shapes moved between the red structures—things that might have been human once, might have been animal once, now transformed into something that defied easy classification. Bodies that moved with jerking, unnatural motions, like puppets being operated by someone who didn’t understand how joints worked.

Kael’s gravity sense screamed information at him—dozens of signatures, hundreds, ranging from Core Formation to Foundation Establishment.

Silas spoke first.

"What the fuck is this place?"

Her voice was barely above a whisper. The silver-haired woman who had been silent and composed since they’d met her sounded genuinely shaken.

Lyra didn’t answer.

Her eyes were fixed on something in the distance—a structure at the center of the red landscape, larger than the others, pulsing with light that matched the sky’s gruesome hue.

The heart of whatever this place was.

And somewhere inside it, something was waking up.