They picked their way down into the dark, stepping lightly. No ambushes or hidden wards sprang to life. Past the winding stairs and through the shattered remnants of magical circles, a forgotten laboratory lay waiting in the depths.
“Looks like an old sorcerer’s workshop.”
“Over there! What is that?”
At the room’s far end rested a gigantic glass sphere, shackled in place by intricate machinery and glowing lines of script. Floating dead center in the transparent globe was a speck of light no larger than a cinder, pulsing softly within a rippling halo that looked like an aurora.
“What are we looking at?”
“Give me a minute. I’ll take a look.”
Ollie, their lone mage, stepped toward it. While the rest of the unit secured the perimeter and rummaged through the clutter, she buried herself in the containment circles and the strange sphere.
The others finished sweeping the ruins, took shifts on guard, and snatched what sleep they could, but Ollie never left the glass. As the first gray light seeped through the cracks above, she and Luca, who had taken the final watch, shook everyone awake.
“I still can’t name it. But whatever it is, the sheer volume of magical energy bottled up in there defies reason.”
“Magic? Not Od?”
“No. Not the natural flow of Od. It’s magic—energy twisted and warped by a conscious will.”
Exhaustion hollowed Ollie’s pale cheeks, deep shadows bruising the skin beneath her eyes. She gave the sphere a sharp rap with her knuckles.
“That little star inside generates power almost without limit, like a sun. This glass keeps the torrent from spilling out, and the wards and gears around it are meant to dampen the excess.”
“A well that never runs dry…”
“It has to be. We actually found it.”
A bitter smirk touched her mouth as she jerked her chin toward the caged speck of light.
“The ground zero. The root of all mana contamination. The damn thing that bred the demonic beasts, started the war, and ended the world.”
A heavy quiet descended over the squad. Relief tangled with terror; disbelief fought against grim awe. Every eye stayed glued to the swirling ribbons of light, overwhelmed by what they were seeing.
Gide broke the hush first.
“So what do we do with it?”
“Can’t say for sure. But leaving it here isn’t an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because the array is already cracking. Magic is hemorrhaging through the fissures, and contamination in these ruins is spiking fast. If we leave it, the whole region will choke on it.”
“Can we smash it?”
“That mote might look like a pebble, but it’s essentially an infinite core. And a core only cracks under force equal to what’s locked inside.”
“Meaning it’s impossible.”
“Go look for yourselves. Maybe one of you will catch something I didn’t.”
One by one, the soldiers approached the orb. Several shook their heads in frustration; others choked on the thick, suffocating density of the air around it. Only Rita lingered, her head tilted in thought.
‘I can’t touch the core itself… but that glowing mist… it feels like Od. Like something I could mold.’
She looked back at the rest. Enchantment-type Oathbearers like Gide, Ethan, and Luca wouldn’t sense the finer grain of it, nor would Transference-types like Sarah or Is. But for Ollie, a Processor-type like herself, to miss it made no sense.
‘Ollie’s the specialist here. Am I just imagining things?’
While Rita kept her eyes fixed on the shifting light, Gide rested his chin on his palm, lost in thought.
“Ollie. You said that thing pumps out endless power like a sun, right?”
“I did.”
“The ancient sun, you mean. The one from before the world went black, before the ash settled over everything.”
“Right. The one preserved in the memory implants. The sun before its fire burned out.”
“The old stories say the day the contamination started was the day the sky’s fire died. If that little mote is the root of all this…”
Ollie’s eyes widened as the thought took shape. Gide offered a grim, knowing grin.
“What if that’s the sun’s heart?”
“—!”
“Its heart fell out, and the sun turned to cinders. And when something that belongs in the upper heavens drops onto the dirt, the world catches fire. Sit by a hearth and you’re warm; throw yourself into the coals and you burn to ash.”
It sounded absurd, like a myth plucked from an old ledger. Yet no one laughed. The pieces fit too well, and an uneasy swallow rippled through the group.
Luca’s eyes grew round, a desperate spark lighting his face.
“Then if we put it back in the sky… would everything go back to the way it was?”
“Even if it could, how?”
“What?”
“What’s your plan for throwing it that high, kid?”
“I… I don’t know…”
Luca shrank back, the hope instantly snuffed out by her blunt tone.
A wild, blinding thought flared in Rita’s mind.
‘If I could compress that halo into a propellant… treat the core like a slug, the mist as powder, and my own Od as the striker…’
‘Could I fire it? Hurl it straight back toward that pale, dying sun?’ The kickback would obliterate her body; the violent discharge would turn her bones to dust. But still…
‘It could work. Though it’s suicide.’
Saying it out loud would make Gide blow a gasket and drag her off in chains. Better to keep quiet for now.
‘I’ll run it by Ollie in private later. If anyone can figure out the mechanics, she can.’
She never got the chance.
Is Pascal, who had stationed his familiar to watch the surface, went suddenly rigid.
“We have trouble. Demonic beasts are inside the perimeter.”
“What? The wards were supposed to keep them out!”
“They tore right through them. A whole pack is pouring in. Get ready!”
A black tide converged on the sunken courtyard and the chamber beneath it, moving with single-minded fury. They knew the core was there. Birthed from the very contamination leaking from the sphere, they were drawn to it like moths to an open flame.
Beacon abandoned the star and scrambled for the surface. But the ruins were already crawling with horrors—an army of beasts so massive and foul that any one of them would have earned a Named classification, if anyone had ever lived long enough to christen them.
Trapped in the narrow courtyard, the squad fought with their backs against the stone, but the sheer press of bodies gave no ground.
“Pitch the core!” Gide bellowed over the roar of the fray. “Throw it far, and they’ll chase it!”
Is whistled, sending his hawk-shaped familiar darting down into the cellar. It emerged clutching the glass orb in its talons and vaulted into the air. In that instant, Rita saw the truth.
‘It won’t save us. We’re still going to die.’
Half the beasts snapped their heads up toward the rising light, but the rest never looked away, their bloodshot gazes locked hungrily on the flesh in front of them.
‘To them, fresh meat comes first.’
She glanced at her comrades. Bleeding, battered, their stamina bleeding dry, the shadow of death already hanging over them.
A cold, ruthless clarity settled over Rita. Her mind raced through the permutations, finding the sole path where Beacon survived.
‘Don’t you dare do that again, Rita.’
‘I’m sorry, Gide. There is no other play.’
“Get into the cellar! Bar the door!” Rita shouted. “It’s our only bottleneck!”
Her command cut through the chaos. As second-in-command, her tactical instincts had never failed them. Even Gide hesitated only a fraction of a second before retreating toward the entrance.
The squad unleashed a frantic volley of attacks, carving out a sliver of space, and ducked through the doorway. The plan was simple: let the familiar drop the orb far into the wastes, pull the swarm away, and slip out in the aftermath.
‘A pipe dream. Half of them will stay, and whatever beast swallows that star will become an absolute nightmare.’
Gide likely knew it too, but with no alternatives, he had latched onto the only shred of hope left.
He had no idea what she was about to do.
“Rita! Get inside, damn it!”
Gide hung back in the doorway, waiting for her. She didn’t move toward him. Instead, she brought her rifle up, sighted down the barrel, and fired at the orb held high by the familiar.
“Rita—!”
The bullet struck home. Glass burst in a glittering shower, and the naked star plunged through the sky. Rita pushed off a ruined pedestal, vaulting into the air. Trailing a tail of emerald light like a dying comet, the star fell straight toward her—and she closed her bare fingers around it.
Agony tore through her nerves as the radiant heat scorched her skin down to the bone. She didn’t let go.
Grit-toothed, her lips twisting into a faint smile, she looked down at Gide, whose single eye was wide with panic and disbelief.
‘This was always the best move, Gide.’