The dust took a long time to settle.
Kevin lay on his side, one arm pressed against the ground, lungs burning every time he tried to breathe. The ringing in his ears refused to fade, like the world itself hadn't finished collapsing yet.
He pushed himself up slowly.
Everything hurt.
The street no longer looked like a battlefield. Asphalt had split in unnatural patterns, pressed inward instead of blown apart. It didn't look like damage caused by weapons. It looked like the ground had been crushed and released.
Lionaria was still standing. Barely.
One knee bent, both blades driven into the ground to keep herself upright. Cracks ran across her armor.
Sora sat against a broken wall, breathing hard, one hand pressed to her ribs.
Hunter was on his knees, claws dug into the concrete as if letting go would make him fall again.
No one spoke.
No alarms.No incoming fire.No Eclipse units.
Just silence.
Kevin looked down at his hand.
Empty.
The Power Stone was gone.
He closed his fingers anyway.
Nothing.
Lionaria broke the silence first.
"…What just happened to this world?"
Hunter let out a low breath."If that wasn't the start of the end days, I don't know what is."
Sora looked at the ruined street, eyes unfocused."That wasn't war. That was… something else."
Kevin didn't answer.
Hunter activated his wrist camera protocol.
"Recording playback," he said. "Slow motion. Frame-by-frame."
A faint projection flickered to life between them.
The footage showed the moment before the shockwave.
Three shapes.
Too fast to see in real time.
In slow motion, it became clear.
The figures were already moving.
Not attacking randomly.
They were aiming.
One reached Kevin.Another closed in on Lionaria's blind side.The third positioned above them.
Hunter's jaw tightened.
"…They were going to kill us."
Sora swallowed."In seconds."
Kevin stared at the frozen frame.
"They weren't testing us," he said quietly. "They were finishing it."
Lionaria clenched her teeth."Then why didn't they?"
Hunter skipped forward a few frames.
The moment before impact.
The demons' bodies blurred.
Then—
The shockwave.
Not from them.
Not from the ground.
From outside the frame.
Hunter paused the playback.
"…That's interference."
Sora looked at him."You're sure?"
Hunter nodded slowly."The wave doesn't match their movement. It cuts across them."
Lionaria straightened as much as her body allowed.
"So someone stopped it."
Kevin finally spoke again.
"Or something."
No one liked that answer.
Kevin looked around the empty street.
No energy residue.No weapon signature.No trace of whoever—or whatever—had interfered.
Lionaria exhaled slowly.
"If that's what walks this world now…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
Sora did.
"…Then this isn't just Avalon and Eclipse anymore."
Hunter shut down the projection.
"The Stone," he said. "They took it clean."
Kevin nodded.
"And they knew exactly who had it."
Another silence followed.
In the distance, Avalon transport engines finally cut through the quiet. Rescue units were moving in, unaware of how close the elites had come to dying.
Kevin straightened his posture as best he could.
"When command asks," he said, "we report the facts."
Lionaria looked at him."And the rest?"
Kevin glanced once more at the empty space where death had almost reached them.
"The rest," he said, "doesn't have a name yet."
The transports descended.
Above them, the sky looked normal.
Too normal.
Kevin had the unsettling feeling that something had crossed into the world, touched it briefly… and left it changed forever.