Blue lightning crackled around Lucas as he hovered above the devastation, his enhanced senses taking in every detail of the two-horned Harbinger below. His body humd with raw power, but the strain was already setting in – like molten tal being poured through his veins.
'Should have done this from the start,' he berated himself, watching Micah barely dodge another devastating strike. The wounds from his earlier battle with the single-horned Harbinger had healed in this awakened state, but the mory of his arrogance stung worse than any physical pain. 'Thought being S-ranked was enough. Stupid.'
Soul Awakening – the ultimate expression of an Alpha class's potential. While other awakened humans were categorized by generations, Alphas existed in their own league. Their cores possessed a second layer, a deeper well of power that, when tapped, could elevate them beyond normal human limitations. It's what made S-ranked soldiers like himself both revered and feared.
But that power ca with a price.
Lucas could feel it now – the microscopic tears in his muscle fibers, the strain on his nervous system, the way his core flickered like a fla in a storm. Soul Awakening wasn't ant to be maintained. Even among Alpha class awakened, only those ranked S and above could attempt it without imdiate core collapse.
'Sorry about this, Micah,' he thought, gathering energy for what needed to co next. 'But I need a running start.'
*Boom!!!!*
The air shattered.
A sonic boom echoed across the battlefield as Lucas shot skyward, breaking the sound barrier in microseconds. On the ground, Micah was about to practically jump like a baby that his trump card was done charging up. All his sacrifice was about to pay dividends. But all that hope was quenched as he saw Lucas's blue form burn through Cannadah's sky.
The acceleration pushed against his already strained body, but he forced himself higher, past layers of clouds, up where the air grew thin and Cannadah's sprawling landscape spread out below him like a digital map.
Here, in the upper atmosphere, he began to charge. Fusion energy coalesced around his fists, each spark of blue lightning carrying enough power to level a city block. One shot – that's all he could manage in this state. One shot to end this before his body gave out.
That's when he saw them.
At first, they looked like shooting stars – bright points of light streaking through the darkness above. But Lucas's enhanced vision revealed the truth. Pods. Dozens of them, descending from a massive shape that hung in low orbit like a wound in the sky. The mother ship.
'This isn't just an attack,' cold realization washed over him. 'This is an invasion.'
The two-horned Harbinger below suddenly seed like a minor threat compared to what was coming. Lucas knew he couldn't maintain Soul Awakening indefinitely – even now, he could feel his core straining against the power surge. He needed backup, needed to warn—
The base. Lieutenant Chen would know what to do. With his current speed, he could reach the Eastern Defense Force headquarters in seconds, alert them to the incoming threat. He readied himself again and flew towards the base. It has only taken him about a minute to arrive but he stopped mid air.
Lucas froze mid-flight, hovering above what should have been humanity's strongest military installation in this sector. Instead, he found a war zone. chanical combat units lay scattered like broken toys. The air filled with weapons fire and the screams of both humans and monsters. And there, in the center of it all, General Hayes himself engaged in brutal combat with sothing that made the two-horned Harbinger look like a warm-up act.
Three horns. It had three horns.
'They hit the base first,' Lucas realized, pieces clicking into place. 'Before the island. Before everything. That's why no backup ca.'
The decision crystallized in his mind. The base had the General, had the most advanced defensive systems humanity had developed. His fellow students? They had him. Just him.
Lightning crackled around Lucas as he turned back toward where he'd left Micah. He could feel his body beginning to fail, feel the strain of maintaining Soul Awakening tearing him apart from the inside. But none of that mattered now.
'Hold on, Micah,' he thought, breaking the sound barrier once again. 'Just hold on a little longer.'
***
Micah's arms trembled as he had just seen Lucas vanish into the sky, leaving nothing but crackling energy in his wake. The crushing realization of being abandoned settled over him like a physical weight, though he couldn't really bla Lucas. He blad himself for thinking Lucas would do the noble thing and stand to fight.
'What a coward! All that power and he runs away!!' Micah thought bitterly.
The Harbinger's disappointed sigh cut through his spiraling thoughts, its massive form casting a shadow across the battle-scarred clearing.
"How unfortunate," it rumbled, massive shoulders shifting like tectonic plates grinding against each other. "I had hoped to witness the extent of an Alpha's awakening. Still, I suppose I must make do with what remains before ."
'Make do?' The words sent ice through Micah's veins as the full implications hit him. All this ti – the dodging, the gravity manipulation, the desperate attempts to buy ti – had amounted to nothing more than entertainnt for this monster. Each near-death experience, each pulse-pounding mont, had been rely a ga.
As the realization sank in, Micah took a careful step backward, then another. He began to slowly back away from the Harbinger who seed not to be in a hurry at all.
However, a few steps back and his boot hit sothing solid. No, not sothing – soone.
A familiar voice spoke from behind him, carrying an edge of amusent that seed absurdly out of place given their dire situation.
"Co on number five, you really aren't ditching this fight, are you?"
The voice belonged to Noah, but he looked completely different from when he'd vanished earlier. Though his gear remained torn to shreds, testant to the earlier battle, his wounds had vanished completely.
The Eclipse Blade glead with an otherworldly sheen in his grip, and that insufferable smirk played across his face as if he was enjoying so private joke only he understood.
The two-horned Harbinger's eyes narrowed, recognition flickering in their depths. "Ah, the one who fled. Have you returned to die properly this ti?"
"Actually," Noah's grin widened, showing teeth, "I had one more ass-kicking to hand out. Thought I might as well drop by for a proper goodbye."
And then he moved.
One mont Noah stood beside Micah, the next – empty air. Micah's senses could barely process what happened next.
All he saw was the Harbinger's massive arm, swinging through the space Noah had occupied, the force of its movent creating a pressure wave that bent the tall grass in the clearing. But Noah was already past its guard, the Eclipse Blade drawing a line of black across the monster's lower abdon.
'What the hell?' Micah's eyes widened in disbelief. 'When did he get so fast?'
'This feels different,' Noah thought, testing his new capabilities as he landed lightly on his feet. The void energy flowing through him made movent feel effortless, like swimming through air rather than fighting against it. But he couldn't let himself get cocky. Without Lucas here, he'd have to—
The thought shattered as twin explosions rocked the island. *KABOOM!* *KABOOM!*
The ground trembled as two massive objects crashed into the clearing several hundred ters away. Impact craters ford around identical pods, their tallic surfaces still glowing cherry-red from atmospheric entry. The hatches burst open with hydraulic hisses that seed to herald humanity's worst nightmare.
Noah's heart sank as two more single-horned Harbingers erged, their forms identical to the one that had nearly killed them all earlier. His enhanced senses picked up the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps – Micah had already disappeared into the treeline. 'So much for rank twenty-five showing so backbone.'
The numbers were brutal. Three against one on an island with nowhere to run. Not exactly how he'd planned to go out, but—
*KRAKOOM!*
A bolt of blue lightning split the sky, striking the two-horned Harbinger with enough force to send the massive creature careening through the ancient trees that dotted the clearing. The impact echoed across the island like thunder. Lucas landed in a controlled skid, fusion energy crackling around him in violent arcs. His entire form glowed with ethereal blue light, power radiating off him in visible waves that made the air itself vibrate.
His eyes widened as he took in the scene, the two newly arrived Harbingers already moving to flank them. "Noah, what the hell? Run! Like Micah! I won't watch a first-year die fighting these things again. The first ti was enough – why did you even co back?"
"Let's just say I had a receipt to cash," Noah shrugged, adjusting his grip on the Eclipse Blade.
"Besides, I do what I want."
A laugh escaped Lucas despite the situation, though it held a edge of resignation. "You know what? If we weren't about to die, you'd make one hell of a soldier."
"What makes you so sure we won't survive this?"
Behind them, the two-horned Harbinger erged from the broken treeline, its wounds already beginning to heal. Lucas gestured at their opponents as they ford a triangle around the two humans. "Three versus two? Against these monsters? Those aren't odds I'd bet on."
Noah's smirk returned, darker this ti. More dangerous. "Then perhaps it's ti we even those odds." He raised his voice, speaking a single word that seed to make the very island shiver:
"Nyx, Awaken..."
The world behind them tore open. A purple portal materialized, swirling with void energy so dense it appeared almost solid. Red mist poured forth like blood in water, coating the ground and curling around their feet. And then... the roar ca.
*Rarrrrrghhhhh!!!!!!*
It shook the island harder than any Harbinger's impact. The sound carried sothing ancient, sothing primal that made even the two-horned Harbinger stop to access in shock.
Lucas leapt away from the portal, his enhanced senses screaming warnings about the sheer power emanating from within.
Through the red mist, sothing began to erge. Sothing massive. Sothing that made the very air tremble with its presence. Even the single-horned Harbingers paused their advance, sensing a power that defied their understanding of what humans could control.
[Red Death Dragon has answered your call. Void Beast Evolution confird.]
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