After Zetius gathered Jack’s and Lupus’s remains, he fashioned a makeshift shovel from Armatus scrap and began digging a grave. Once he finished, his gaze lingered on the Hoffmann crest, embedded in a broken piece of armour.
His hands were caked with dirt, soil packed beneath his fingernails as he gripped the plate tightly.
In a long silence, he mourned his deceased wife from a life that defied reality — the life of Jack Squire and Lupus Hoffmann.
“Lupus, this is goodbye for now. I hope you’ll be waiting for in the underworld,” Zetius whispered, placing the crest gently above the burial site before stepping away.
Although death hadn’t been able to hold him, there had to be a reason for his return. Fragnts of knowledge began to flood his mind as the worlds collided.
Jack was only his shell — a man in his forties, drifting through space as a DebrisX collector. His entire family had been fabricated from the beginning. But why?
The night sky shimred with stars, and the fractured moon hung low.
“Now… what?” Zetius murmured to himself, naked and disoriented.
Then another thought surfaced. “What about the mission? Where are Aurelia and the others?”
He scanned the devastated landscape. The ruined forest offered no clues.
“I need to regroup with them. But how?” Zetius pondered, straining to think.
“I don’t have transport, and this place is still hundreds of kilotres away. I can’t get there on foot.”
A glimr of hope lit his red eyes. “Maybe… I can teleport to Poranthis!”
Poranthis was the capital city of Porand, where Celestius Vivian awaited their arrival.
Without wasting ti, Zetius raised both hands, feeling mana coursing through his veins for the first ti in what felt like ages. It had been two long years since his first death.
I may not have the essence, but I still rember the triangle foundation of fire.
He placed his hands together — index finger to index finger, thumb to thumb — forming a triangle.
As he envisioned the fuel, oxidising agent, and heat, a smirk curled on his lips. Warmth rose from his fingertips.
“Empyrion!” he chanted.
A small orb of fla materialised between his palms.
Zetius chuckled softly, his youthful face glowing with the fla’s light.
“Even though this is just a lesser essence, it proves my body can still wield arcane,” he thought.
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Suddenly, a long-buried mory surfaced. “What was that essence Lupus showed at her estate…?”
Zetius quickly snuffed out the fla and placed a hand on his chest.
Lightly tapping, he recited, “Epopteia.”
An intricate circle glowed blue in his mind, etched with ancient glyphs and runes. Along its rim were twelve slots. Most were empty, save for two — one containing the lesser essence of Empyrion, and another… sothing strange.
He opened his palm and retrieved it — a box-shaped object made of irregular fragnts, resembling a peculiar Rubik’s cube. It glowed faintly, casting a soft blue light across his face.
Even with his mories and arcane knowledge restored, he had never seen this type of essence before. It floated slightly above his hand, humming with a deep, resonant energy.
“Hello!” A female voice chirped from the cube.
Zetius blinked in astonishnt. He rembered hearing that exact word "Hello!" in the garden where Aurelia had first taught his shell how to use arcane.
“What? It can talk!?” he exclaid, watching as the essence rose to eye level.
“Rude…” the cube replied, its tone tinged with attitude.
Zetius furrowed his brows and tilted his head. “What are you?”
“I…” it spoke slowly, each word deliberate, its bits shifting with a life of their own.
Zetius reached out a finger, but it drifted away. “Dirty,” it chided.
“Oh, really? You’re a clean freak, huh?” Zetius attempted to grab it, but it darted away with surprising agility.
“Naked,” the cube drawled, followed by a mischievous giggle.
Zetius could hardly believe it — but at this point, nothing surprised him anymore.
“Oi! Stop floating around! Tell , Cubie! What are you?” he scolded as it hovered just out of reach.
“Great. Now I have a sassy essence to babysit,” Zetius muttered.
“Cubie!” it repeated gleefully, clearly taking a liking to the na.
“Cubie, co back now,” he said, holding out his palm.
Cubie spun excitedly before settling gently onto his hand.
“Good girl?” he said, hesitating. He couldn’t really assign a gender to a magical construct, but instinct told him Cubie had a distinctly feminine tone.
“Warm…” Cubie murmured as its light faded, returning to Zetius’s internal slots.
“Well… that’s new,” he muttered, scratching his head. Straightening up, he refocused on the mission.
“Now, I’ll attempt the teleportation spell.”
Zetius began calculating the arcane coordinates, just as his master Ignius had taught him.
“If the distance isn’t too far, I might just manage it,” he mumbled.
He let mana flow through his body again, imagining it surging like a river.
Then his mind ford a door — an arcane gateway to his destination: the capital city of Porand.
He raised his hand toward the empty space before him.
“Information and imagination go hand in hand in arcane,” he reminded himself, focusing deeply.
The air began to ripple, a rhythmic distortion of space.
“Co on! Co on! Poranthis!” Zetius urged, willing it into existence.
Space tore open. Before him stood a crimson portal, its surface pulsing with raw arcane energy.
“Holy Gaia! It actually works! Hehehe, I’ve still got it!” Zetius laughed in triumph before stepping into the portal. It closed behind him.
Suddenly, his stomach lurched — gravity shifted.
“Woah~ What the hell?!” he scread, as his body accelerated downward. His eyes widened in shock.
Strands of silver hair whipped back in the wind as he plumted into the unknown.
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