Abyssbro

Leon's blade carved through the fray. Not cleanly—never cleanly—but fast, brutal. One swing, and bodies fell. Steel buckled. Bone split. The shriek of tearing metal cut through the clash of war like a scream through silence. For a breath, the battlefield held still. Limbs hung midair. Blood hit the dirt in arcs.

Evelyn Lin didn't move. She stood at the edge, her eyes locked on the figure in the rat-skin cloak, not the chaos around him.

That blade—it caught the sun for a second, flaring violet. She didn't know who he was. But she knew power. Not the polished kind. Not the type shaped in academies. This was something wild. Cornered. Alive because it refused to die.

And then—motion.

The tiger hit him from nowhere.

A blur of muscle. A paw like a hammer slammed into Leon's chest. His ribs cracked on impact. The sound was dull, final. His body flipped, spine twisting in the air before slamming into the ground. Dirt flew. His breath didn't come back right away.

He tried to roll. He was too slow.

It was already on top of him.

Its weight crashed down, pressing him into the mud. He heard something tear—maybe skin, maybe cloth. Then the teeth came. They punched through his shoulder, slow and deep, like a nail driven by hand. The pain didn't scream. It burned. Sharp. Precise.

He tried to move. Nothing answered. Arms pinned. Chest crushed. His mouth opened, but there wasn't air to scream with.

For the first time in a long time, Leon felt it—

that sick, slow weight crawling up from somewhere deep.

Helpless.

Evelyn had seen espers die before. Too many times to count.

She wasn't the type to stop and watch. The battlefield didn't allow for hesitation. But something about this one made her pause.

He'd fought like hell—each swing deliberate, brutal. But now, the tide had turned. The beast had him buried, its weight pressing him into the mud, blood pooling fast beneath his body.

Evelyn didn't think. There wasn't time.

Cold flared across her palm. Ice gathered on instinct, raw and jagged, the chill biting into her skin as it took shape.

She hurled it.

The shard hit, cracking into the tiger's eye with a sound like breaking stone. The creature reeled, snarling, frost threading deep into muscle. Its claws tore into the ground, ripping up chunks of earth.

Still, it held on.

Leon's body jerked beneath it. The fangs had gone deeper. His armor was soaked through, breath hitching and uneven, blood seeping out in dark, steady pulses.

Not enough.

Evelyn tightened her fingers.

The ice inside the tiger's skull ruptured in an instant. No sound, just a silent burst of frost and fractured bone. The beast spasmed, legs twitching in a final, mindless reflex before crashing to the ground. Its lifeless weight dragged the esper with it, his body twisting as he was pulled deeper into the frozen maw.

Then he stopped moving.

Evelyn reached him before she could register what she was doing. Evelyn pressed two fingers to the swordsman's throat. His skin was cold, slick with blood and dirt. The pulse beneath was weak—so faint it barely stirred against her touch.

A pulse. Faint, unsteady, but still there.

The battlefield roared on—clashing steel, the stench of blood, the dying gasps of men. It all faded into a distant hum.

She exhaled sharply. The battlefield had no mercy for the dying. Too many wounded, too few healers. If he couldn't hold on, if his body had already given up—

Then so should she.

Her hand began to pull away.

The stained scrap covering his face slipped loose.

The cloth slipped, revealing a patch of rough hide—rat-skin, worn thin, filthy with dried blood.

Her breath caught.

Beneath it, a face she hadn't seen in years looked back at her. Hollowed by time, worn down by something worse than war. Familiar lines, now sunken. A scar along his cheek she remembered tracing once, when they were still just children trying to pretend the world could be kind.

He looked older. He looked gone.

But it was still him.

Her breath caught.

Leon Chase.

The name slammed into her like a fist.

She had seen the reports. Heard the orders. The city had cast him out, left him to rot beyond the walls. He was supposed to be dead.

And yet, somehow, he was here.

Alive. Battered. Broken. But alive.

Something cracked deep in her chest. She no longer saw the soldier bleeding out in the dirt.

She saw the boy who had once stood beside her.

He used to stand at her side, never asking why—just fighting. Just staying.

Now he was bleeding out in the dirt.

A sharp voice cut through the noise—some healer already working the wound, hands red to the wrist. "I can slow it—barely. But if you want him to live…"

She didn't respond. Her mind barely registered his words.

The world had gone muffled, like sound underwater. Only one thing felt real—her own pulse, hammering behind her eyes.

Her fingers moved before she thought. Clutching the comm.

Knuckles white.

"Maxin," she rasped, forcing steel into her voice. "Leon is outside the walls. I can't leave my post—get him here. Now."

Silence. A sharp inhale. Then—

"What—Leon Chase?! That's impossi—"

"Enough." The word tore out of her throat, sharper than she meant. "He'll die if you wait. Move."

There was silence on the line. Then Maxin's voice—low, tight. "I'm coming."

The connection cut.

Evelyn sucked in a breath and tried to hold it, but the pressure kept rising. Her ribs felt too small for her lungs. The war hadn't stopped—the screams, the gunfire, the stench—but none of it reached her anymore. All of it drowned beneath the weight of the body in front of her.

She didn't move. Couldn't. Something inside her had already started to come undone.

Maxin arrived minutes later, winded, soaked in ash and sweat. His eyes scanned the chaos until they found what she couldn't stop looking at.

And he froze.

Everything else dropped away. The shouting, the distant cannonfire, the smoke curling through the air—it was all nothing.

He dropped to his knees beside Leon.

Didn't speak.

Just stared. Hands hovering like he didn't dare close the space. Like touching him might end whatever fragile thread still tethered him to the world.

Leon was barely breathing. Skin the color of ash. Blood leaking from somewhere deep.

"Shit…" Maxin hissed through his teeth. His fingers worked fast, fumbling through his coat until they closed on a glass vial. Small. Dull. But pulsing faintly like it had a heartbeat of its own.

He tore the wax seal off with his teeth. Copper and magic filled the air, sharp enough to choke on.

"Don't you die on me," he said, voice rough and shaking. "Not now."

And he tipped the draught against Leon's lips.

The elixir burned as it touched Leon's lips. Fire. Liquid agony. It raced down his throat, spreading through ruined flesh, forcing its way through the brokenness. His body convulsed.

Maxin's grip tightened, his voice low and fierce. "Goddamn idiot… You owe me a lifetime for this."

At the edges of the battlefield, Shadowbeasts gathered, eyes gleaming, their hunger thick enough to taste. There was no time.

Maxin pulled Leon into his arms. The body sagged against him—warm, wet, and far too still. For a moment, he staggered, legs straining to stay upright.

He didn't wait. Didn't breathe. Just ran.

"Don't," he muttered, voice rough and low. "You don't get to quit now."

Leon sagged against him, barely conscious. The battlefield blurred, the air shifting—giving way to a silence too thick to breathe.

A whisper.

Soft. Familiar.

"Leon… Leon Chase…"

The voice curled around him, slipping past skin, past bone. It shouldn't be possible. It shouldn't be her.

His breath caught. The name rose to his lips before he could stop it, raw and disbelieving.

"…Seraphina?"

She stood before him.

Hair like rusted sunlight. Skin cracked like porcelain left too long in the cold.

Her eyes met his. And she smiled.

"I knew you'd remember."

The words barely escaped her lips. Something in her voice cracked.

Leon reached out. Their fingers met—just for an instant.

Then she was gone. Not fading, not vanishing. Just… gone. Pieces of her caught the air like ash, or wings that never made it far enough to fly.

The world twisted around him.

And he fell.

Delta Stratos City – Medical Ward

A blinding white glare pressed against his skull. He winced. The scent hit next—bleach, alcohol, something sharp and sour clogging his throat.

His body screamed before his mind caught up. Everything hurt. Movement felt like dragging steel cables through torn muscle. He didn't know how long he'd been out.

Only that he was still here.

Then—

"Leon!" The voice yanked him back from the haze.

Leon turned his head, the movement slow, like wading through tar. His vision swam, edges blurring before sharpening into the figure standing in the doorway.

Maxin.

Chest heaving. Eyes locked onto him, wild with something raw, something unspoken. And then—just for a fraction of a second—hesitation.

"Who… are you?"

Leon blinked. For a heartbeat, the room held still. Then, despite the fire in his throat, laughter tore free—ragged, aching, but real.

"Gods, Maxin… Just messing with you."

Maxin's face twisted, shock giving way to fury. "You bastard." He surged forward, nearly knocking over a chair.

Leon grinned, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Take it easy, Max. You're looking a little too red."

Maxin bristled. "You dragged your half-dead ass through hell, and you're cracking jokes?"

Leon winced as the stitches along his side pulled. "Mercy, Max. I'm still in one piece—barely."

Maxin muttered something under his breath about beating the stupid out of him later and collapsed into a chair. The humor was brief, fleeting, already fading as Leon's voice dropped to something quieter.

"…Evelyn."

A single name, weighted and sharp.

Maxin's jaw tightened. He didn't ask what Leon meant—he already knew.

"She left me to die, didn't she?" Leon exhaled slowly. His voice was empty, scraped hollow. "She was right. Delta Stratos needs soldiers, not charity cases."

The words tasted bitter.

Maxin's fist slammed against the armrest, knuckles going white. "Bullshit." His voice was quiet, but beneath it, something dangerous simmered. "I'd burn this whole damn city for you."

Leon didn't answer. The war outside still raged, distant gunfire echoing through steel corridors. But in this room, silence thickened like smoke.

Maxin shoved himself to his feet. "Rest up, kid. I'll be back for that drink when I return."

Leon nodded, watching as Maxin's silhouette disappeared beyond the door.

The quiet that followed was suffocating.

His body had healed. But his mind churned.

The dream lingered.

The woman's cracked skin. Her mercury tears. The way she had looked at him—not with pity, nor kindness, but something colder, something final. And the forbidden gift she had left behind.

The name burned itself into his thoughts.

"Blazeborn Ascension".

It was nothing like the sterile teachings of the Federation, where progress was measured in careful increments, every technique refined into a system of efficiency and control. This was something older. Wilder. A force that had no interest in balance or restraint.

No method, no doctrine—only change, brutal and absolute.

Reiki had always been the foundation—draw it in, refine it, let it temper the body. But this… this was different. Reiki no longer flowed through him. It writhed. Thick as molten gold, volatile as a brewing storm, it pulsed beneath his skin, no longer a passive force but something with will.

Something with hunger.

Leon steadied his breath. And the change began.

Aether crashed into his veins, a force too vast, too unrelenting to be tamed. Unlike Reiki, it did not follow his intent—it imposed its own. It filled his bones with fire, twisted through his marrow, threatened to unmake him from the inside out.

Pain lanced through his body. Not the dull ache of overexertion, not the sharp sting of wounds, but something deeper. His cells burned. His blood thickened into something foreign, something too bright, too alive.

But he didn't stop.

The fire dug in, deeper than bone—ripping, reshaping, refusing to let go. Every breath tasted like ash and metal. Every heartbeat struck like a hammer against something old and breaking.

No technique guided this.

No balance held it in check.

What moved through him now didn't ask permission. It claimed. It consumed. It rebuilt.

And somewhere inside that storm, something new began to stir.