The roar of the petite woman thundered louder than an explosion. She dragged a gravity-magnetic cannon almost the size of a barn pillar through the corpses of enemies that hadn’t even finished their last scream. On the other hand, she sprayed a hail of bullets—pure maniac on arcade mode, grinding credits nonstop.
Shrapnel ripped the air, tearing into the Rippers in a frenzy. Their bodies jerked, twisted, and burst apart into gore so messy the censor board would have to call an emergency meeting. The sour tang of blood fused with the stench of gunpowder, swirling into a poisonous cocktail that hung heavy in the air.
Mechanical beasts were hurled away one after another, faster than the eye could follow. And in the midst of the carnage, she smirked—wiping sweat off her brow with the same satisfaction as a gamer winning the world tournament’s final set.
“Sector 864 cleared!” she barked into her comms, slightly breathless, eyes blazing sharp and fierce. Though her face looked as fresh as an eighteen-year-old, in truth she was far older—her youth was cheated by Comet Particles that preserved her as effectively as a photo-editing app.
Framed by smoke and ruin, the petite figure stood in a skin-tight russet suit, cut at the waist and arms to expose sun-kissed skin unmarked by a single scratch. On her left shoulder gleamed a silver pauldron engraved with Σ III.
Everything about her might trick you into thinking she was a cupcake dressed as a warrior. But spend a single day in her life, and you’d realize—this cupcake was packed with dynamite.
“Commander Emilia,” Roxy greeted.
The woman turned. Her face lit up the moment she recognized her.
“Roxy… it really is you!” she exclaimed, joy in her delivery—then quickly noticed the two figures trailing behind.
“And who are these two?” Emilia asked, flicking her gaze between Skyler and Zoe.
“This is Skyler—” Roxy began.
“…your boyfriend? Not bad-looking,” Emilia cut in, her grin flashing with the mischief of a friend ribbing over drinks.
Skyler flinched, frantically waving his hands and shaking his head, panic hitting him with the pop quiz in alien dialect.
Not that I’ve thought that far… but if I did, it wouldn’t be the worst idea.
His glance flicked to Roxy. She stayed utterly silent, expressionless, as if someone had deleted the software that handled her emotions.
“Good. Then you’ll be my husband instead.”
Before he could process, the petite woman lunged at him—fast enough to shatter a pro photographer’s zoom lens record—her chest slamming into him full force.
His face turned pale, his body rigid, stiff with the sudden shock of ice running through his veins.
Emilia stared at him for a beat… then laughed and smacked his shoulder. “Hah! Relax, I’m kidding!”
He stayed frozen long enough to be mistaken for a statue.
Zoe immediately slipped between them, forcing a smile that wasn’t a smile. “I’m Zoe. Time traveler.”
“Uh-huh. Got it.” Emilia brushed her off with the verbal equivalent of slicing sashimi—clean, fast, and leaving no room for argument.
Excuse me, WHAT exactly did you ‘get’? What is wrong with people in this world?!
Zoe glared at the bronze-skinned warrior the way you’d glare at a rival opening a shop right across from yours.
“So… what brings you here?” Emilia turned back to Roxy.
“Lord Trinity has granted me permission to search for my father and sister. I came to you hoping you might have some intel about them.”
“Knew it. I said all along—Trinity only acts cold on the outside,” Emilia grinned, clapping once. “Come on. We’ll talk at my unit’s camp. This place isn’t where you drop bombs like that.”
The leader of Sigma III, tiny in frame but colossal in spirit, led them away from the frontline with practiced ease.
Zoe lingered, fists clenching at her sides as if she were itching to unsheathe her katana and carve the fallen Rippers into confetti. Skyler had to press a hand to her shoulder, steering her forward.
What’s with her mood swings now? he thought, trudging after them.
They reached Sigma Three’s camp, and for the first time since arriving, Roxy flipped from silent warrior to a woman on a mission—which, honestly, was a little out of character. She usually wore control—armor-core aesthetic, zero cracks allowed.
“I heard you’ve been running rescue ops for people taken during the Ripper incursions,” she said, cutting straight to the point. “I came to you first—in the past months, have you picked up any leads about those who disappeared the same year my family vanished? Anything I should know?”
Emilia nodded once. “There is. It’s almost like fate that we crossed paths now. I’m about to head out to rescue a large group of survivors holed up in an underground cavern. Getting to them means punching through a nest of Rippers—and they’re not easy.”
“Mind if I see the coordinates?” Roxy asked without hesitation.
“Of course.” Emilia raised an arm and unrolled a holographic map—data pulled from a Sigma Two recon mission. The marker hovered a mere five miles from the cliff where Roxy had been separated from her father. Close enough to taste—yet shielded by a thick, impenetrable veil.
The recon team had labelled it the Mistveil Zone—an area where every navigation system goes blind for no reason. It’s a forbidden slice of land, severed from the outside world.
“If we hadn’t gotten data from Sigma Two, we’d never have known the shelter was there,” Emilia said.
Roxy had tried searching the zone herself before. Each attempt sank into an invisible trap that swallowed every signal, the whole thing as futile as jailbreaking magic without admin rights.
No wonder I never reached it…
Five miles now felt so damn close that hope almost had form. A voice—small, stubborn, insistent—rose inside her.
Maybe Father and Elli are there.
“I’m going with this mission.” Roxy’s tone didn’t waver.
Emilia cocked an eyebrow, thought for a heartbeat, then nodded. “You can. But a warning: the Rippers in that zone are different. Meaner. Much harder to deal with than the usual swarms.”
Holo-footage flickered to life—a combat recording of Emilia’s unit pushing into the mist. It was a theater of war: soldiers dropping one by one, fog that swallowed sound and direction, chaos that made tactics crumble.
“My strike team engaged them once,” Emilia said, tight. “We were beaten back. We took heavy casualties and had to pull out.”
Skyler watched the footage, basically doomscrolling in IMAX. Zoe’s grin, by contrast, lit up—the sort of gleam a gladiator gets when they find an arena that calls to them.
The clip ended. Silence sat thick as dust in the room. Roxy knew some of the names on the casualty list. She looked unmoved—but inside, she felt each loss, tiny wounds piling up until it felt terminal.
“If you’re willing to try, you’re welcome,” Emilia said bluntly. “But I won’t promise your safety.”
“Psh—piece of cake. Let’s go!” Zoe burst out.
Emilia snorted, half amused, half annoyed—not sure whether she found the kid endearing or intolerable.
This kid doesn’t know fear, Emilia thought.
Skyler exhaled softly. And despite everything, he couldn’t deny it: he was ready to go with her anywhere.
That night was a gift box no one wanted to open—packed with silence and the kind of stupid decisions you regret too late.
Roxy stood at the camp’s edge, playing the role of the stubborn heroine this world already had far too many of. Tonight, she cared nothing for logic, strategy, or dragging Skyler and Zoe into risk.
I have to go first. You two have homes to return to. I… still have a past to find.
She set a small satchel down outside Emilia’s quarters—five translucent plates of holy alloy, the so-called Sacred Keys.
Thank you… for once saving my mother and me.
No farewells. No teary speeches. Just a single turn of her heel, and she walked away, peeling open a veil of mirror-magic. Her figure dissolved into the world around her, a reflection of shadows reflecting shadows.
Unseen doesn’t mean absent.
It was cloaking tech not unlike Skyler’s drones—the same trick that once fooled the nine-tailed fox. Tonight, it let her stroll through swarms of Rippers as if they were nothing more than a gang of rowdy bikers outside a convenience store.
The forest fog was thick enough to bury even her breath. Instinct had to work overtime, substituting for every radar. The holographic map on her wrist was no more than a comfort blanket now.
‘Remember, daughter: if you face the phantom fog, use the senses Gaia gave you.’
She drew a slow breath, obeying her father’s old words, unlocking the scout’s intuition he’d planted in her since she was a child chasing fireflies in the woods.
The wind shifted—air pressure tugged left. Her hair swayed, a soft signal pointing the way. She lifted her sleeve, catching dew from moss in the fog.
Insects chirped in a strange, quick rhythm—then cut to silence in an instant, the beat chopped clean, unnatural in its precision. Her brain broke the soundscape into layers:
- Low frequencies = the crawl of bugs in the roots.
- High frequencies = the faint scrape of dry leaves.
She inhaled through her nose.
‘Dry grass. Resin. If there’s warmth mixed with bitterness, that means a dracelsa tree shedding nearby.’
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Her fingers pressed against bark—damp but not soaked, meaning the western breeze had carried mist from a pond. Then she crouched, brushing stone. Rough, but warm. Heat trapped inside.
‘There’s a hollow beneath… or a vent connecting to the surface. Breathing stone. Which means a hidden cave system close by.’
Her father’s words were still clear, whispering as if from right beside her ear, though years had passed.
I remember it all, Father, she thought, smiling faintly.
The sensory puzzle fused together in her mind, transforming into a three-dimensional geometric map of the entire forest. Something she hadn’t known she could do—not until this night.
At last, she found it: a narrow cleft in the rock, barely wide enough for one person at a time. With a body as lean as hers, slipping through was easy. What lay beyond… shocked her enough to stir feelings she thought had gone numb.
The outer chamber of the cave was vast—big enough to host a Beyoncé concert without needing a backup stage. Colossal stone pillars rose to kiss the cavern ceiling, turning the place into a cathedral built for gods who didn’t take visitors.
If Zoe saw this… she’d scream loud enough to summon every Ripper in the region.
A smile broke across Roxy’s face before she even realized it—and vanished just as quickly with her next thought.
Damn it… am I actually thinking about that kid?
At the cave’s mouth, veins of strange ore glowed violet, so intense it burned the eyes. Anyone prone to neon migraines would’ve quit right there and squinted their way back out.
“These rocks…” Roxy whispered. She remembered them. She’d seen this mineral once before—sealed away in the classified files of a professor who had once smashed her into a wall.
So Skyler’s arrival here… wasn’t just coincidence?
Stop it, Roxy. Don’t spiral, playing the melodramatic lead who insists every twist hides a conspiracy.
Deeper inside, the oddity shifted from strange to unreal.
Homes clung to trees—no blueprint, no symmetry. Some were carved into hollow trunks, others perched on massive branches. And these trees… they dwarfed even the Trinity’s palace groves, shrinking them into bonsai in memory’s eye.
It was the opposite of Eden, where every dwelling was uniform enough that homeowners needed nameplates just to prove ‘this isn’t your house.’ Here, the place breathed. It had character, a hum, a pulse—as if the city itself were alive.
She kept walking until even her usual stoicism faltered. Before her rose the largest tree she’d ever seen, emanating waves of calm that bathed her entire body. For the first time in years, she felt held—every breath steadied by unseen arms.
And then—she saw it.
A wooden house. One she could never mistake. The exact doorway. The placement of every window. Everything is identical to the home engraved in her memory twelve years ago.
Beneath a tired lamp’s dim halo sat a bearded man, rocking gently in a chair.
The sight was ripped straight from her mind, memories unfurled around her, mercilessly clear. Her heartbeat—stuttered into chaos. She moved forward, breathing so faint she wasn’t sure it existed.
“Dad…”
The word broke from her lips softer than she’d ever spoken in her life—yet clear enough to rouse the entire universe.
“Dammit!” Emilia’s shout woke the whole camp before the sun even cleared the horizon.
“What’s going on…?” Zoe poked her head out from under the blanket, half-asleep, the fog of a perfect dream ripped away by reality’s blunt edge.
“Roxy’s missing! You lot didn’t know?” Emilia snapped, all anger and thunder.
Hang on—weren’t we supposed to know she left? Skyler thought, baffled.
Emilia stopped herself, swallowing the flare of panic as if trying to keep a fire from ripping through her throat. “She probably went off on one of her lone-wolf runs…”
“No—we have to go help Roxy!” Skyler was up in a flash, the shōnen protagonist energy powering his voice: friendship, resolve, instant hero mode.
“She always has a plan. She’s not the type to run headfirst without a helmet,” Zoe tossed in, seasoned-survivor tone laced with personal experience.
“She’s tougher than triple-reinforced arc-steel. Don’t worry.” Emilia exhaled, half reassurance, half warning.
Skyler ignored all of it—he was already grabbing gear.
Emilia stepped in, presence slamming shut with the weight of reinforced steel. “You think you can run through those Rippers alone? That disrespects the soldiers who’ve died for this line.”
“That’s not like you,” Zoe said—seriously for the first time Skyler had seen. “You always say every law has a pattern.”
Pattern…? Skyler repeated the word, voice catching with the spark of a solved equation. Then he grinned. “Actually—yeah. You’re a lot smarter than I thought.”
Wait—was that a compliment? Zoe blinked.
“Commander Emilia—can I see the footage of the last engagement again?” Skyler switched into analyst mode, calm and precise.
She hesitated, then projected the holo. The camp dimmed as ghostly images of battle filled the air.
Skyler pointed. “See how they move? Copy—paste—copy. They’re not random swarms. That pattern means there’s a master unit controlling them. Find the alpha, you break the whole pack.”
“The alpha…?” The word tugged both girls’ heads toward Skyler.
“I’ll take the alpha down,” Zoe announced, bright and dangerous.
Emilia’s focus sharpened. “You sure, peach-idol?”
“She’s serious,” Skyler answered, steady.
Emilia shrugged. “Fine. If you’re playing with fire, play all the way. But if you die—don’t come crying to me.”
Her last sentence cut, sharp as windburn.
Skyler felt the danger strike his ribs, cold metal lodging beneath his skin.
How did we even get here? he thought, heartbeat banging the question into his skull.
—
The three of them pushed into the danger zone.
Hundreds of Rippers swarmed the treeline ahead—bigger than the ones Skyler had seen Emilia mow down yesterday. Twice the size. Twice the trouble.
“Yaaaahhh!” Zoe launched herself forward instantly, zero patience, timer set to 2s or bust.
“…every damn time,” Skyler muttered.
The pack split into three, charging in from 3 o’clock, 9 o’clock, and dead-on 12. Perfect sync, no wasted movement. Nailed exactly what he’d seen coming.
Then one squad flanked from behind.
“Dimensional Curve!” Skyler twisted space, bending reality into a shield that deflected the lash of Ripper tails. Emilia didn’t waste the opening—she hammered bursts into their glowing red eyes, each shot surgical, merciless.
Back-to-back, the two moved—tango partners with guns. One striking, one covering, their rhythm sharp as livewire.
Meanwhile, Zoe scowled at the mass in front of her. She drew both katanas from a pocket dimension with the flourish of an anime heroine about to headline the season finale.
“If there’s this many… guess I’ve got no choice.” Her lips curled into a crooked grin.
Steel flashed. She spun, blades carving X-shaped arcs that lit the night. Rippers fell apart mid-lunge, chunks scattering, the scene devolving into low-budget CGI gore inside a high-budget fantasy epic.
From his angle, Skyler caught it—the V-formation around something bigger. Half-organic, half-machine. And definitely the alpha.
That one. That’s the controller.
“Zoe—there!” He pointed.
She reacted on instinct, blasting off the ground. Twenty meters vanished to zero in a blink. But the Rippers weren’t just scenery—they locked tails into a living shield wall, roaring as one.
Every stinger came at her from every direction.
She dropped low, slid under, twisted mid-air—right blade slashing crosswise, left blade stabbing deep, heel-kick launching another into the sky—a broken toy flung aside. Bruce Lee, reincarnated as a pink-haired idol radiating murder with every move.
Role: Striker / Melee DPS
- ATK: 900/1000
- SPD: 1000/1000
- DEF: 400/1000
The swarm adapted fast. No more close-range feeding frenzy. They pressed her from range, forcing her tempo down, cracking her rhythm—
“Behind you!” Skyler shouted.
Dimensional Shield! A shimmering dome burst around her, intercepting the next strike. Support AoE, co-op mode engaged.
Role: Support / Dimensional Hacker
- Skill: Dimensional Shield
- Cooldown: 6 sec
- Radius: 10m
Emilia took the cue—her cannon thundered, gravitational bursts tossing Rippers aside, bodies tumbling in random scatter—no different from dice spilling across a table.
Role: Artillery / Mid-Zone Caster
- AOE ATK: 850/1000
- Status: Knockback / Scatter / Open Field
Zoe didn’t hesitate. She spun mid-air, dropped to one knee, blades drawn wide in challenge. Across the clearing, the Alpha loomed—towering, armored, a living siege weapon.
Boss Unit: Ripper Alpha
- HP: 3,500
- DEF: 700
- SPD: 400
She slashed. Cross diagonals in a single breath— schhhk!
The Alpha came apart in four clean pieces before it realized it was dead.
Boss Eliminated. EXP +2,000
MVP: Zoe
The battlefield fell silent. Not two minutes had passed.
And that—was why nobody got to tell Zoe what she couldn’t do.
The battlefield dissolved into a full-blown symphony of carnage.
Emilia—a titan masquerading in the frame of a high schooler—stood as the percussion. Skyler’s ‘dimensional hacks’ were the strings, bending physics note by note. And Zoe? She was the blade, each strike orchestrated with the precision of a conductor’s baton.
Together, they weren’t just surviving.
They were rewriting the rulebook of this world frame by frame.
“Ohhh, I’m starting to like this kid,” Emilia grinned as if she’d just unearthed an uncut diamond.
She’d written Zoe off before—just another filter-addicted sweetheart who belonged in a glass case for display.
But now? This girl was lopping off monster heads mid-sprint, striking poses worthy of an Action RPG cover shoot.
Skyler rubbed his chin behind them, his smile carrying the weight of a proud sensei.
Look at her… born for this.
Zoe had once griped that dual blades made her look brutish, inelegant.
But right now? She reveled in the Ripper massacre, every slash delivered with the joy of a K-pop dance cover on stage.
The moment the first alpha went down—cleaved clean in half—the swarm unraveled into chaos. Monsters broke formation, scattering wild, tantrum energy spilling everywhere.
Before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, Skyler spoke: “Not done yet. Two more alphas.”
Zoe froze. “Wait—didn’t you say there was only one?”
“When did I say that? You couldn’t tell which ones were controlling the swarm?”
Emilia snapped her head around. “If I could tell, I’d be soaking in an onsen back home right now!”
Skyler hadn’t meant to sound smug—it was instinct. Something deep inside him pulsed, an extra sense humming louder than his heartbeat. Stronger than five shots of espresso.
Why can I feel them?
Is the Fifth Dimension inside me… waking up?
Guided by his calls, Zoe dove back into the fray. Two more alphas fell—quick, precise, spectacularly flashy. Emilia didn’t bother with applause. She simply yanked a fleeing Ripper by the tail and smashed it into the ground.
Crunch. Like dried noodles dropped into a steel pot.
Her smile turned into something more terrifying than her scowl, the look of a sweet homeroom teacher with a whip hidden under the desk.
Skyler swallowed hard.
Okay… from now on, I’m going to be very careful about what I say around Emilia.
At last, they reached the underground refuge.
The entrance was nothing more than a narrow fracture in the crumbling mountainside—damp, inconspicuous—yet what lay beyond was nothing they could have imagined.
“A…village?” Skyler whispered.
Warm shimmer poured from mineral veins embedded in the cavern ceiling, lit as though the sun itself had been smuggled underground. The design was too elegant, too seamless, to be credited to any known bio-engineering.
Beneath that golden canopy, lush greenery blanketed the ground as if woven directly by the hands of Gaia herself. Mist drifted lazily above strange ferns, carrying a fragrance soft as sakura steeped in Earl Grey. Translucent insects flitted quietly through the air.
At the cavern’s center rose a colossal tree—its trunk vanishing into shadow above, branches arched at angles so precise they felt CAD-rendered by a divine architect. It wasn’t simply a tree. It was the heart of the sanctuary, regulating light, temperature, humidity, even air circulation more efficiently than every cooling tower in Cosmic City combined.
A brook wound gently past the roots, water striking stone, the sound thin and resonant, a violin’s whisper inside the glowing forest. Every detail radiated life, wonder, and the kind of awe that no Cameron blockbuster could ever counterfeit—because this was real.
“Whoa…” Zoe blurted, half laughing. “This is way more aesthetic overload than anything I ever built in Roblox.”
“But underground… how can there be a sky?” Skyler’s physics brain kicked into gear.
“Giant projector mounted on the ceiling?” Zoe added instantly.
Emilia cut them both short, her voice even. “I don’t care how it works. All that matters is—they’re alive.”
They moved deeper into the community, a scene that felt ripped from the pages of a rebellious sci-fi fantasy novel. Wooden homes clung to the sheer stone walls, village edition: extreme birdhouse cosplay, connected by swaying bridges of rope and bright woven cords. Children scrambled across steps, tossing bizarre fruits to one another, their laughter defying the reality of a world plagued by bio-mechanical invaders.
“This is a utopia under stone,” Skyler thought, half in awe. Bury a civilization, and humanity will still stubbornly build another on the rubble.
Zoe bounded forward, stopping a man with a gentle smile. “Excuse me—where can we find the one in charge here?”
He lifted a finger toward a figure. A red-haired man—his face uncannily reminiscent of a Pedro Pascal sketch—stood on a wooden balcony, speaking quietly with a young woman at his side.
Zoe and Skyler said the name in unison, breathless.
“Roxy!”
The hardened commander of Sigma IV stood within the arms of her father. For the first time in years… her face looked at peace.