Chapter 08: The Chase Continues

Planet Khar'Zul — Crash Perimeter

The sun on Khar'Zul was relentless.

A blinding fire, hanging at the zenith of a yellow-saturated sky.

On Scrapra, the humidity, rain, mud, and biting wind gnawed at your bones. But here… here it was dry, heavy, oppressive. The air felt static, with the rare hot gusts providing no relief—only the sensation of an open oven. Every breath scorched the throat. The light bounced off the dust and rocky plates, rendering everything blinding.

Arthur stumbled forward, head down, the sweat-soaked pack clinging to his back. His boots sank into the loose, burning ground. His hair stuck to his forehead, his neck roasted under the sun. He had downed half his water supply in less than an hour.

- "Still holding up?" Jonas asked, walking ahead. He was sturdier, but visibly struggling as well.

- "I feel like I'm melting…"

- "Breathe slow. Conserve your strength. Khar'Zul's a trap for the impatient."

Arthur squinted at the endless expanse: sand, rocks, slopes, jagged peaks. No sign of water. No trees. No life. Even Scrapra's creatures felt more welcoming by comparison.

- "Where are we going?"

Jonas pointed to a dark line on the horizon.

- "There. The rocks shift shape. That usually means a fault line or canyon. With luck, we'll find some shade."

They trudged onward for another hour, slowed by the oppressive heat. The metal in their gear burned against their skin through their clothes. Arthur was short of breath, his back burning, and even his heartbeat felt sluggish and heavy, as if his body was consuming itself.

At last, Jonas raised his hand.

- "There."

Before them stretched a rocky crevasse, narrow and dark, plunging into a nearly vertical rift. It split Khar'Zul's crust like a fresh wound in ancient flesh. The edges were jagged, uneven, sharp.

Arthur knelt cautiously at the edge. He felt a faint breeze—gentle but real. Cooler air rose from the crevasse. And, most importantly: shade.

Jonas pulled a retractable coil of rope and two harnesses from his survival pack. He handed one to Arthur.

- "We'll descend carefully. Not too far, just enough to get into cover."

Arthur fumbled with the harness, his fingers slick with sweat.

- "I've never done this, you know."

Jonas gave him a half-smile.

- "Neither have I."

Arthur blinked.

- "Seriously?"

Jonas shrugged.

- "We improvise. Like always."

They secured their anchors to a solid rock ledge, checked their carabiners, and started their descent. The wall was rough, covered with splintered, sun-baked stone. The rope creaked softly. The strain in their arms, the fear of slipping, the void below… Arthur's breath quickened.

After five or six meters, Jonas halted.

- "There. A ledge."

It was a natural platform, barely a meter and a half wide, sloped but manageable. Deep enough to provide shade, stable enough to sit on.

They dropped onto it with a sigh of relief.

Arthur pulled off his pack, set it beside him, and wiped the sweat streaming down his face.

- "I thought I was going to fall ten times."

Jonas leaned back against the rock wall.

- "You wouldn't have fallen. You followed me like a pro."

They drank in silence. The air here was cooler but dry as sand. Everything was still. No birds. No insects. Just the warm breath of the desert and the occasional crunch of stones tumbling farther down into the chasm.

Arthur leaned his head back against the stone. He closed his eyes, but his mind kept buzzing. Thoughts of the wreck, the chase, the hangar, the soldiers, the escape. And above all, what he'd felt. That internal burn. That strange light. That sense of seeing without his eyes.

- "Do you think they'll find us?" he asked suddenly, his voice low.

Jonas was quiet for a while, his gaze fixed on the crevasse that plunged even deeper into the earth.

- "They never give up. As long as you resonate within the Élan… they'll feel you."

Arthur opened his eyes.

- "Then we don't stand a chance."

Jonas turned his head slowly toward him.

- "No, Arthur. You have the Élan within you. That's more than a curse. You'll have to learn to understand it. To hide it. And maybe… to use it."

Arthur clenched his jaw.

- "Even if it scares me?"

Jonas placed a hand on his shoulder.

- "Especially if it scares you. That's when it shows you who you are."

They stayed there, pressed against the rock, clinging to their ledge like survivors on the edge of a forgotten world, while somewhere in the sky, a signal was already closing in...

Orbit of Khar'Zul — Nadir System

The darkness of space fractured.

Eight Nahrat-class ships—massive blockade cruisers—emerged one by one into Khar'Zul's sky, sliding slowly out of controlled spatial folds with the cruel majesty of war machines built to surround, control, and crush.

They arranged themselves into a net around the planet, each one locking into a stationary orbit at precise angles, sealing off every exit. No signal could escape. No jumps would be possible to or from the surface. Khar'Zul's sky became a dome of menace.

Onboard: the eight Abjurés, drawn from neighboring planets, all summoned by a single signal.

Their mission was no longer to search.

It was to hunt.

The eldest among them—Nemeor, the Silent—clad in armor woven from shadow, black plates streaked with lines of dark red energy, descended first, aboard his personal landing vessel. Following him came hundreds of Dissonant soldiers armed with pulse-thermal rifles, tracker drones, and sensor scanning modules.

Other Abjurés followed at different points on the planet, each covering a sector of the desert. The troops spread across the surface like a meticulous black tide. They did not advance randomly. They felt something. A faint thread. A vibration.

The Élan, however weak, was calling to them.

Ravine on Khar'Zul — Surface Fissure

Jonas was the first to look up.

The sky, which had been calm, had become streaked.

Long, dark trails sliced through the light. Massive shadows crossed in front of the sun. One by one, giant forms began descending slowly into the atmosphere: warships with smooth black hulls, slashed by bursts of red light.

Arthur staggered to his feet, squinting against the glare, and saw what his father saw.

A heavy silence fell over the ledge.

- "No…" Arthur murmured. "No, no, no."

Jonas said nothing. He watched coldly as the massive shapes now hovered in the blazing sky. He recognized that formation. That type of maneuver.

A total blockade.

And if they were already here… it meant they knew.

Arthur fell to his knees, gasping.

- "They found us… so fast…"

Jonas knelt beside him, placing both hands on his shoulders.

- "The Élan leaves a trace. But they couldn't have come this quickly…"

He stopped short.

Arthur looked up.

- "What?"

Jonas frowned.

- "They must have been tipped off. Someone… or something… guided their scanners. Or your awakening triggered more than I thought."

A low rumble rose. Deeper than the wind. Transport ships were now landing in the distance, on rocky plateaus visible from their ravine.

Silhouettes poured out. Entire regiments.

Organized units. Mobile scanners. Quadrupedal vehicles, reconnaissance droids. And among them… solitary figures. Still blurry at this distance, but Arthur could feel their presence.

Cold. Profound. Unsettling.

Like a gaze fixed on his heart, even though he couldn't see it.

- "They all came at once," Jonas said bitterly.

Arthur felt a cold sweat run down his spine, despite the oppressive heat.

- "What do we do now?"

Jonas looked at the ravine, then the sky, then the plain.

- "We move. Again. And this time, we'll have to learn to disappear. Let's continue rappelling deeper into this massive pit—it'll be safer than staying on the surface."

High above, Nemeor, the Abjuré commander, gazed down at the surface through his ship's viewport.

He spoke softly, not looking at his soldiers.

- "He's still there. So close. I can feel his breath. His fear."

He closed his eyes, and in the Élan, a hazy image formed: a fissure. Red stone. A spark of instinct.

He opened his eyes.

- "Tighten the net. He will never escape again."