Area 67

The Edners' control room was filled with a low hum as holo-screens flickered to life, casting a cold, artificial glow across the walls. The drones actully worked and he was happy about it. Seon sat at the central console, fingers hovering over his tablet as the live drone feed streamed in. Grim stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes scanning the data.

On the screens, Area 67 stretched out like a wasteland. Except… it wasn't supposed to be empty. There were no monsters. None at all. Seon's grip tightened on his tablet. He had his drones filming the entire area. He had a few follow the soldiers tracks and other covering the boarders. "That's not right," he muttered under his breath.

"Where the hell are they?" Grim asked, stepping closer. His tone was lined with suspicion. "We sent out scouts a month ago, and they barely made it back alive. They reported Tier 2s swarming the area. Now, nothing?"

The drones drifted silently over the barren ground, capturing every inch of the landscape in high resolution. Seon switched between thermal, night vision, and celestial energy readings—all of which confirmed the same thing. There were no signs of life. Seon exhaled through his nose. "This doesn't make sense. If it was a feeding ground, we'd at least see corpses."

"Or fresh tracks," an Edner added from the side, typing rapidly on his own console. "But there's nothing. No movement, no signs of struggle. It's like the monsters just… vanished."

Seon pulled up a zoomed-in display of the terrain. His fingers swiped across the tablet, enlarging sections of the feed. It was then that he noticed the first sign of disturbance.

A torn military jacket.

His stomach tightened. The insignia of a Tier 1 soldier was barely visible beneath the dirt. Next to it—a cracked visor, a broken rifle, and a bloodstained combat knife. Still, n bodies. Then Tracks from that area leading to another direction. The realization set in like a lead weight. They didn't wander into the breeding ground by accident.

Something took them there.

Seon's thoughts raced. "They were dragged." he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

Grim's eyes darkened. "Dragged by what?"

The Edners exchanged uneasy glances, their keyboards clicking away as they scrambled for answers.

"We should pull back the drones," one of them suggested. "If we lost an entire squad, we can't afford to—"

Static. The drone feed glitched.

One by one, the holo-screens flickered. The footage warped, twisting with static interference. Seon's hands flew across the console, trying to stabilize the connection. Then—a thick fog rolled in. The horizon vanished. An unnatural mist spread like poison, swallowing the land.

One of the Edners cursed. "What the hell is that?"

Seon's eyes narrowed. The fog shouldn't exist. There was no recorded data of a weather anomaly like this in Area 67. The military satellites would've picked it up. He switched the drone to infrared. Nothing. He activated motion tracking. Still nothing. But then, he checked the celestial energy readings. His breath hitched.

The system screen pulsed with warnings.

Energy Levels : ??

Warning: Celestial Anomaly Detected

Warning: Data Exceeds System Parameters

The numbers climbed higher and higher and higher until the window system started glitching and turning red. Far beyond anything a normal monster could produce.

"That's impossible," Seon whispered, fingers tightening around his tablet.

The room was tense. The Edners scrambled to adjust the feed, but the fog ate the light. The drones' cameras could barely penetrate it, but their sensors kept reading something—

Something inside.

Grim clenched his fists. "Seon, call them back. We can't afford to lose the drones."

Seon didn't respond to him the drones didn't matter he could just make more. He wanted to know exactly what that thing was. WHat possible could make the system glitch like that. His fingers run over the tablets forcing the drones to move forward. Then he saw it and the drone stop turning the holoV black before the holoV turns back on showing recorded footage.

A flicker. A shadow moving against the wind. It wasn't random mist. It was hiding something. Something massive. Seon's breathing slowed. His heart slammed against his ribs. He tapped the console, rewinding the footage frame by frame. For a split second, the mist shifted—and there it was. A silhouette. It was too large to be human. Too fast to be Tier 2.

"Seon?" Grim asked, noticing his expression.

Seon's fingers hovered over the controls, hesitating. "Rewind the footage," he ordered.

One of the Edners obeyed. The holo-screen replayed the last few seconds of the drone feed. The room watched in silence.

Nothing. Just the fog. The shadow was gone. Seon's pulse pounded in his ears. His throat felt dry, his skin cold despite the warmth of the room. His fingers clenched at his sides as he stared at the screen, waiting—daring—for it to come back. But there was nothing. Just static from the drone's feed. Just swirling mist, thick and unmoving.

His mind was racing. It was real. He knew it was real. Felix had seen it too. The broken tablet in his hands, the way his body trembled—he wasn't imagining things. Seon swallowed hard, forcing himself to think. If the shadow had disappeared, it meant one of two things.

Either it had left. Or it knew it was being watched.

"Seon?" Grim asked again, watching him closely.

Seon exhaled, forcing his expression into neutrality. He couldn't explain what he saw—not without sounding insane. Instead, he turned his attention back to the drones.

"The other drones send them deeper," he ordered.

"Deeper?" One of the Edners hesitated. "The interference is already bad. If we lose connection, we—"

"I don't care," Seon cut him off, eyes sharp. "We need more data. We need to know what's inside that fog."

Reluctantly, the Edner nodded. The drones pressed forward, their thrusters humming softly as they disappeared into the thick mist.

Seon's hands hovered over his console, heart hammering in his chest.

Then—

A sudden flash and for a split second he saw it. Then the readings shot up violently. The drones' sensors shrieked in warning. Seon barely had time to react before—The drone feed cut out. The holo-screens flickered to black. Silence. Dead silence. Then, the system pinged.

System Alert: Unknown Celestial Entity Detected.

Seon froze.

The Edners cursed, scrambling to regain the feed. Grim swore under his breath. "Seon, what the hell just happened?"

Seon didn't answer. His gaze remained locked on the words flashing in front of him. The system never issued warnings like this. Whatever was inside that fog… It wasn't just a Tier 2. It wasn't just a monster. 

The entire room remained still, their eyes locked on the holo screens, watching the live drone feed. No one reacted. No one flinched.

Seon's breath hitched.

They hadn't seen it.

His fingers twitched over the controls, but his body refused to move. His mind raced, replaying the image over and over again. That thing—whatever it was—had been watching them. Staring right through the drone's lens before vanishing into the fog like it had never been there.

A trick of the light? A glitch in the footage?

No.

Seon knew better. His heart pounded, a slow, creeping dread curling around his spine. He had seen it—something massive, lurking just beyond the mist, hidden within the surge of celestial energy. A presence that didn't belong. And yet, when he looked around at the others—Grim, the Edners, the unit officers—they were calm, focused on the data, unaware.

They hadn't seen a damn thing.

His mouth went dry. Was he losing it?

He hears something fall and he turns back to find Grim. He's slumped on a chair and was hurriedly looking through his uniform. He looked up and Seon saw the terrified look on his face. He saw it too. Seon knew before that this mission was going to be near impossible but now the was no way he was going on it.

Seon's stomach twisted. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to stay calm. He saw Grim on the phone not bothering to move so the edners could hear him.

Then he heard it—another sound. A sharp, gut-wrenching crack. It wasn't from the holo screens. Not from the drones. Something else had broken. Seon's head snapped toward the source of the noise.

Felix.

He stood frozen near the control panel, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His eyes—wide, unblinking—were locked onto the screen. His hands trembled, and in his grip, the tablet he had been holding had split clean in half, his fingers pressing deep into the broken glass like he didn't even feel the pain. A heavy silence settled over the room. Felix had seen it too. Seon's stomach twisted.

"Felix," he said slowly, voice low.

The man didn't respond. His chest rose and fell in quick, erratic movements, sweat forming along his brow. Seon took a step forward, lowering his voice further. "What did you see?" Felix's lips parted. A shudder ran through his body. Then, in a barely audible whisper, he choked out two words:

"po-."

"we- we just found a portal break ..." grim said.

For the first time since getting here Seon felt helpless. The kind of helplessness he swore to himself he'd never feel again.