Samuel lay motionless at the center of the circle, the air around him trembling with residual energy. Charred sigils flickered on the ground, slowly fading. Above him, the sky churned with golden and violet hues—remnants of the clash between realms.Joey didn’t move, kneeling at Samuel’s side. His voice came out in a whisper. “Sam… say something.”Suddenly, Samuel’s chest rose with a sharp gasp. His eyes shot open—no longer dull but glowing with twin suns of pure light. The pulse that followed knocked Joey and the others nearby to the ground. It wasn't just energy—it was will.“What the hell…” murmured Eliah, shielding her eyes.Light exploded from Samuel’s body, casting long shadows in every direction. The golden wave swept through the battlefield—healing cracked earth, mending shattered stones, and reaching the injured. Where it touched the wounded, flesh mended, bones realigned, and scars dissolved into nothingness.Screams of agony turned to gasps of disbelief.Veteran Marcus, who

The rain had stopped hours ago, but the damp air still clung to the ruins like a second skin. Mist curled between broken columns and jagged remnants of the old world. Samuel stood alone in the shrine’s hollow courtyard, his breath shallow, his hands trembling slightly.Joey watched from a distance, arms crossed, unsure if he should approach. Ever since the failed binding ritual, Samuel had grown quieter, retreating into himself. Something was shifting inside him—something neither light nor shadow could explain.Suddenly, Samuel dropped to his knees.The ground pulsed beneath him.And then the world cracked open.Joey barely had time to move before a pillar of white flame surged from Samuel’s chest, shooting upward into the heavens. A ring of symbols—glowing and ancient—spun around him, inscribed in a language lost to time. Samuel’s eyes rolled back as his body went rigid, a scream trapped behind clenched teeth.“Samuel!” Joey sprinted forward—but the light pushed him back.And then ev

The candlelight flickered violently as if disturbed by an invisible force. Deep beneath the ruins of an abandoned cathedral—the supposed old headquarters of the Archive—Samuel stood surrounded by ancient tomes, whispering scrolls, and glyphs that pulsed faintly beneath the floor.He could feel it now.A presence.No, not Veil—something more grounded, human… and yet darker in intent.Joey stood beside him, blade drawn, watching the shadows. “You feel that?” he asked.Samuel nodded slowly. “They’ve been expecting us.”Suddenly, a gust of wind extinguished the candles. A rhythmic clicking echoed down the hallway—heels on stone.From the darkness emerged a woman clad in white robes lined with crimson runes, her eyes shimmering like gold.“You’ve come far, Samuel. Too far,” she said.Joey took a step forward. “Who the hell are you?”“I am Archivist Lucienne. The true face of what you call the Archive.”Samuel’s breath caught. “You… you were in my visions. Watching. Always watching.”Lucien

The wind howled above the cracked desert cliffs as Samuel and Joey stepped off the battered convoy truck. Before them sprawled a vast wasteland of red stone, jagged and sun-scorched, hiding within it the remnants of something ancient—older than Archive, older than Veil, older even than the known history of Light.“This is it?” Joey asked, brushing ash from his coat and squinting beneath the rising heat haze. “Doesn’t look sacred to me.”Samuel didn’t answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the distant silhouette—an obsidian spire protruding like a broken blade from the sand, its surface humming faintly with violet veins of dormant power.“I’ve seen it before,” Samuel said finally, his voice low. “In visions. Before the fracture. When the Light still trusted me.”They were not alone. Behind them, twelve veterans stood watchfully, many of them gifted with awakened abilities since the Veil had begun bleeding into the world. Elena, whose hands crackled with frozen light, whispered,

The scent of burning earth was thick in the air.Crimson dusk blanketed the horizon, but the red wasn't just the sky — it was blood, smoke, and despair. The community that once buzzed with the laughter of survivors and the camaraderie of warriors now echoed with screams, fire, and shattering hopes.Veil had returned — not as a whisper, not as a presence, but as a wrathful god tearing through the seams of reality.From the skies, he descended in a veil of black mist that swallowed light itself. His form was shifting, featureless, yet horrifying in its vastness. Behind him, rifts split the sky, spewing grotesque creatures made of fractured shadows and bone-light — the Eclipsed Ones.They didn’t just kill.They consumed.The first to fall was Commander Elric.He had stood by Joey and Samuel since the earliest days, leading the Western Resistance front. The shadow beast that struck him down didn't even pause to celebrate. Elric's body collapsed into ash, but his scream lingered — a scream