Three years ago.
Screen-covered with skyscrapers soaked the Chinese streets neon, as if to defy the darkness. Beneath them, advertisements, car horns, and countless conversations blended into a senseless blur that the citizens had long learned to tune out.
People on the streets walked hastily to and from work, exhausted and disheveled. Others hid in alleys and leaned on walls, taking long cigarette drags to calm their nerves.
Teenagers in dark hoods painted over the windows of a building still under construction, painting a mural of a man adorned in blue lightning dueling a large yellow serpent.
College students dined in fast food restaurants with a logo of a lion, while high school students were playing in internet cafes.
As the city went about its night, the neon hues from the large screens were washed out by a ray of light that shot up to the sky.
Heads lifted up from their phones to see the commotion. Cars in traffic lowered their windows. Even food couriers stopped in the streets just to stare. None of them could pull away from the dazzling pillar that dominated the night sky, the shimmering crystal-like patterns demanded their attention.
Reactions varied between awe, apprehension, and apathy, all idly observing it from a safe distance. But for some, curiosity got the better of them.
Although it looked like a fire, a businessman in a gray suit placed his hand against it, while a small audience gathered around him.
He flinched as sparks flew the moment his palm made contact with its surface. But the warmth felt more like a steam than fire. He grinned nervously and gave the onlookers a thumbs up with his other hand, and others began touching it as well.
Many pulled out their phones, excited to take photos and videos, only for their faces to turn sour as their LED screens glitched out and turned black the moment they put it in frame.
A tanned onlooker lowered his smartphone, and saw that the business man's arms were engulfed in the yellow beam.
A tight pressure squeezed his arm from every direction, like plunging it into deep, vertical water. Though he tried to keep himself composed, his expression and shaky movements gave away his dread.
People backed away as soon as they realized it was expanding, swallowing his forearm. Unable to pull his arm away from the amorphous light.
The tanned man tried prying him out by the shoulders, but his fingers slipped over the suit's fine texture. As he dropped to the ground, he watched as the pillar of light had swallowed the rest of the businessman's arm.
Another victim shrieked, filling their ears. He turned towards the screaming woman and saw that the people who copied the businessman were now experiencing the same fate.
His gaze lifted, and realized, it wasn't swallowing them — It was expanding.
Panic flooded the streets, as her shrill cry became the signal for all of them to start sprinting.
The tanned man hopped on a motorcycle, before glancing one last time and leaving the businessman behind.
Trapped in the light's grasp, the businessman breathed deeply, ready to shout like the other victims. Only for an electric current to numb his nerves, letting out only gargled gasps.
A tidal wave of shimmering flames swept through every nook and cranny of the road, shutting down every device and machine that it came in contact with.
It quickly enveloped the people on their feet, and eventually swallowed those inside vehicles.
A stampede trapped drivers inside their vehicles, horns blaring uselessly. Even though some drivers ran over everyone in their way, there was no way to push through the massacred corpses clogging the path.
News helicopters recorded the pillar's gradual transformation into a round, burning sphere. But not even they were safe from getting caught in its rapid expansion.
Only the motorcycles were able to slip past people and squeeze through tight paths, engines blaring deafeningly on their way out.
One rider, the tanned man, stopped in front of a high schoolgirl sitting next to an older woman lying bloody on the ground, trampled under the stampede of scared citizens rushing to escape. He reached out his hand for her, but she refused to budge, trying to help the older woman beside her, but the older woman placed her hand on the girl's cheek.
The schoolgirl forced back her tears and got on the backseat of the motorcycle. The wounded older woman looked at the tanned man, as if to entrust her to him, and he nodded, as if promising to keep her safe.
His engine blared as he zipped past everyone running in front of him, leaving behind both the expanding light, and the crying old woman. Without turning back, the two fled from the amber flames, and headed to the edge of the city.
Everything inside the crystalline dome came to a halt.
Inside the transparent yellow, all sound was muted, as if submerged deep into the ocean. The only sound people could hear was the thumping of their own heartbeats and the thin static crackling in their ears.
Like statues, not a single soul moved from where they stood — not a single one could.
Even the helicopter's blades froze mid-air, locked in the sky.
Engulfed in a pervasive warmth, what truly burned was the air trapped in their lungs.
Strings of electricity coursing through their veins made it feel impossible to move, but it did not prevent those from trying. Some could still move, just barely. Few were strong enough to take their last step, still inside the sphere. Fathers tightened their hold on their families, mothers with their children.
From the corner of his eye, the businessman saw a silhouette walking freely in the center of it all —
A figure bathed in hazy light, making it difficult to see their features. Only the golden pupils, whose gaze met with his own.
Under the golden figure's stare, the businessman felt the pressure pushing all over his body loosened for a moment. Rather, it started pulling from every direction.
The fabric on his clothes were pulled by the strings, and a thousand particles of light pulled his skin apart.
A numbing agony ran through his body as yellow zigzags took him apart layer by layer — flesh, muscles, veins and bones, all disassembled.
Though he had a mouth stretched wide and open, he could not scream.
Under the glitter, nothing remained but a man-shaped stain.
The golden figure then raised their arms, heralding the slow hush of destruction.
Skyscrapers started to crack open and float, shredding into a fine powder that sank instead of fall.
There was no fanfare, no deafening boom, no blood curdling scream. It was muted, as if submerged in the deepest depths of the ocean.
Those who could move forced out every last ounce of their energy, some of them were even able to gain momentum, before ultimately being pulled apart into infinitesimal specks.
Inside the radiance, people, animals, and inanimate objects were all subjected to the same silent destruction. The same fate. To disintegrate.
Streets, cars, and people vanished within, while the golden sphere continued to expand outside.
Cars, half-swallowed, were able to push forward against a clear path, partially disassembled but moving forward nonetheless.
The tanned motorcyclist weaved through cars, the amber flames were mere meters from reaching him. But saw the forest at the edge of the city.
One girl in a tracksuit was running at the very edge, outside it's reach. The schoolgirl in the backseat tapped him shoulder, pointing to the running girl.
He slowed down, and she reached out to the tracksuit girl. But as they grabbed each other's hand, the expanding light caught up — scattering the runner into particles of light.
Horrified, all that remained of the tracksuit girl was her hand, tightly clutching hers, and the two sped up.
From the outskirts, a helmeted figure approached on a motorcycle, their visor reflected the star-like structure that swallowed the horizon.
As the helmeted rider made it to the edge of the city, it nearly came into a collision course with the tanned man trying to escape.
Both drivers sharply swerved to the side, but the helmeted figure extended their arm, and a red spear shot from their motorcycle.
The two who were desperately fleeing the disaster, nearly met with another as they lost control of their vehicle. Only for the red spear to stab through the back of heir collars, pulling them away at the last second and lifting them into the air.
As the motorcycle struck the tree, the figure removed her helmet, revealing long silver-hair swaying with the eerie, silent wind of the flattened city. Her eyes radiated with the color of fire.
"You all good?" The silver-haired woman opened her palm, calling to her weapon.
The red spear shot towards her, and the two dropped from the air.
Disoriented, the tanned man responded, "Huh? Ah, yeah… yeah, thank… how did you?"
"You should leave." She twirled her spear as she looked back towards the expanding disaster, her spear burning with a similar crystalline glow.
With a swift downward swing, orange cut through gold, and both energies scattering into sparks.
"Chop, chop. Can't do this all day." Her orange eyes narrowed as the fissure reformed.
"Ah, a-alright…" The tanned man nodded, "Let's go, Yu Ming."
He took the severed hand off of the schoolgirl and placed her back on the motorcycle, all while the spearwoman backed away, tightening her grip.
She watched as her own ride crumbled into a break apart inside the dome of light, "Bollocks, I liked that one."
Sparks radiated from her spear, ready to launch another. But the yellow flames slowed to a halt, and the expansion stopped right where she stood, and began to dissipate into particles.
"Well, would ya look at that."
As the structure began to fade away, the silver-haired woman pressed into her earpiece and spoke, "Professor Tetsuya, I'm here. And after this little calamity, target must be running on empty."
"Luna…" The Professor responded, "Make sure you come home."
"'Course, I promised Felix I'd take him to his first pub when I get back." She smirked.
"Felix is a child. Do not give him alcohol."
"C'mon. Boy's almost eighteen."
"No."
"Bah."
"Good luck, and leave nothing to chance."
"Yes sir."
She marched into what was left of the once bustling city only moments ago, her boots stepping over the fragmented concrete.
A desolate wind blew across the landscape, the city's dying breath.
The proud skyscrapers moments ago were nowhere to be seen. No remnants. Neither were there burning ruins, nor steel skeletons that once represented their heights.
No ground zero, no epicenter of the blast. Only where it began and where it ended, disintegration in near-equal measure. Leaving only mounds of powdered concrete and the red stains scattered here and there, making it easy for Luna to locate her target.
In the near-total darkness of the leveled city, the golden light led her like a beacon.
As the figure bathed in gold sat beneath the starry sky, hand placed on the ground, Luna approached, "Well, well, finally found ya."
The golden figure flinched, but blood splattered to the ground immediately, dripping down their nose.
"Out of energy already?" Luna twirled her spear, grin wide. "Looks like me luck hasn't run out after all."
On the day the Sun fell, the figure stared back at the spearwoman, with glowing golden irises.